Maternity Allowance is a United Kingdom state benefit for women who are working but not entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay.
Women who are unable to get Statutory Maternity Pay may be instead entitled to Maternity Allowance. This money is paid by the government rather than an employer. A claimant has to have worked 26 weeks within the 66 weeks before their due date, and have earned at least £30 a week for 13 of those weeks to qualify. If the claimant has not paid enough Class 2 National Insurance Contributions in this period, they will instead be entitled to a lower amount.
Alternatively, Maternity Allowance can be paid if the claimant has assisted a partner in the running of their business. Entitlement starts at the 11th week before the baby is due. [1] [2]
Claimants will receive £156.66 a week or 90% of their average weekly earnings (whichever is less), or a reduced amount of £27 a week. It's paid for up to 39 weeks and is not taxable or means-tested. Nothing is paid for any day worked during this period.
You cannot get this together with any other Contributory Benefit or Jobseeker's Allowance. It counts in full as income for Income Support or Housing Benefit, but it is ignored for Tax Credits. If you cannot get Maternity Allowance you might get Employment and Support Allowance.
Council Tax is a local taxation system used in England, Scotland and Wales. It is a tax on domestic property, which was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, replacing the short-lived Community Charge, which in turn replaced the domestic rates. Each property is assigned one of eight bands in England and Scotland, or nine bands in Wales, based on property value, and the tax is set as a fixed amount for each band. The higher the band, the higher the tax. Some property is exempt from the tax, and some people are exempt from the tax, while some get a discount.
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their families.
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compulsory governmental insurance system, not taxes on individual citizens. Depending on the jurisdiction and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary.
A disability pension is a form of pension given to those people who are permanently or temporarily unable to work due to a disability.
Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) is an unemployment benefit paid by the Government of the United Kingdom to people who are unemployed and actively seeking work. It is part of the social security benefits system and is intended to cover living expenses while the claimant is out of work.
Housing Benefit is a means-tested social security benefit in the United Kingdom that is intended to help meet housing costs for rented accommodation. It is the second biggest item in the Department for Work and Pensions' budget after the state pension, totalling £23.8 billion in 2013–14.
A severance package is pay and benefits that employees may be entitled to receive when they leave employment at a company unwillfully. In addition to their remaining regular pay, it may include some of the following:
Income Support is an income-related benefit in the United Kingdom for some people who are on a low income, but have a reason for not actively seeking work. Claimants of Income Support may be entitled to certain other benefits, for example, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction, Child Benefit, Carer's Allowance, Child Tax Credit and help with health costs. A person with capital over £16,000 cannot get Income Support, and savings over £6,000 affect how much Income Support can be received. Claimants must be between 16 and Pension Credit age, work fewer than 16 hours a week, and have a reason why they are not actively seeking work.
Social security, in Australia, refers to a system of social welfare payments provided by Australian Government to eligible Australian citizens, permanent residents, and limited international visitors. These payments are almost always administered by Centrelink, a program of Services Australia. In Australia, most payments are means tested.
In the United Kingdom statutory sick pay (SSP) is paid by an employer to all employees who are off work because of sickness for longer than 3 consecutive workdays (or 3 non-consecutive workdays falling within an 8 week period) but less than 28 weeks and who normally pay National Insurance contributions (NICs), often referred to as earning above the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL). Days on which the employee would normally have worked are referred to as qualifying days; the first three of these, known as waiting days, are unpaid unless the employee has qualified for SSP within the previous 8 weeks and this included waiting days. Between 13 March 2020 and 25 March 2022, SSP was also paid from the first qualifying day if the employee was self isolating on medical advice relating to COVID-19. SSP is £109.40 per week for 2023/24. SSP is not paid to a number of categories of employees, including:
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is a United Kingdom welfare payment for adults younger than the State Pension age who are having difficulty finding work because of their long-term medical condition or a disability. It is a basic income-replacement benefit paid in lieu of wages. It is currently being phased out and replaced with Universal Credit for claimants on low incomes, although the contribution-based element remains available.
Pension Credit is the principal element of the UK welfare system for people of pension age. It is intended to supplement the UK State Pension, or to replace it. It was introduced in the UK in 2003 by Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. It has been subject to a number of changes over its existence, but has the core aim of lifting retired people of limited means out of poverty.
Universal Credit is a United Kingdom social security payment. It is means-tested and is replacing and combining six benefits for working-age households with a low income: income-related Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, and Income Support; Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit; and Housing Benefit. An award of UC is made up of different elements, which become payable to the claimant if relevant criteria apply: a standard allowance for singles or couples, child elements and disabled child elements for children in the household, housing cost element, childcare costs element, as well as elements for being a carer or having an illness or disability and therefore having limited capability to work.
The Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999 is a statutory instrument, concerning UK labour law, which details the rights to maternity and parental leave for employees in the United Kingdom.
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom which makes changes to the rules concerning a number of benefits offered within the British social security system. It was enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 8 March 2012.
Carer's Allowance is a non-contributory benefit in the United Kingdom payable to people who care for a disabled person for at least 35 hours a week. It was first established as Invalid Care Allowance in 1976, and married women were not eligible. This policy was held to be unlawful sexual discrimination by the European Court in 1986 in the case of Jackie Drake. See Carers rights movement In May 2020 around 1.1 million people in England were entitled to Carer’s Allowance, of which 780,000 people were being paid it, according to the National Audit Office.
Statutory Maternity Pay is an employee benefit, part of the provision of parental leave in the United Kingdom.
Family Credit was a social security benefit introduced by the Social Security Act 1986 for low-paid workers with children in Great Britain that replaced Family Income Supplement.
Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) is a welfare benefit in the United Kingdom that entitles a person to help with their mortgage costs. The SMI is paid as a loan, which the person will need to repay with interest when he or she dies, sells or transfers ownership of their home. Before this date, SMI is paid as a benefit, which the beneficiary does not have to repay.
Elterngeld is a transfer payment dependent on net income as compensation for concrete disadvantages in the early phase of starting a family and thus a parent-related, temporary compensation payment. The parental allowance replaces the previous child-raising allowance. Parents who are not or not fully employed due to the care of a child or who interrupt their employment for the care of their child are entitled to parental benefit. It is intended to support parents in securing their livelihood and is therefore designed as a compensation payment.