Closed petition Consider child maintenance payments as earnings for calculating benefits

Closed on 30 May 2024

We believe child maintenance payments should be considered in calculating benefit entitlement, in the same way wages are, and should be considered as earnings. The receiving parent currently receives the amount the government states they need to live on & some of the earnings of the paying parent.

The paying parent of child(ren) will often be working full time, meaning the receiving parent will receive the amount set by CMS (usually a high amount). If the receiving parent isn’t working we believe every penny they receive isn’t earned and should be considered in the same way it would be considered in benefit calculation as if it was a wage. We believe the current system is completely unfair towards the paying parent, whilst the other parent receives hundreds on top of benefits.