Explain maternity pay?

Question

I have just seen how much the maternity pay is. Is this as well as my normal salery or instead of? If it is instead of then I am completely screwed cos I will be losing about £1000 a month. How am I supposed to survive? Please help. Sinsible answers only please cos I am really worried about this. I'm not pregnant at the moment but we are trying and I want a family desperately.

Answer 1

Statutory Maternity Pay

Statutory Maternity pay is a payment that is made by your employer, and will provide you with an income while you are on Maternity leave. In order to qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay, you must satisfy certain rules...


Are You Eligible?

To qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay you must have been:
employed by the same employer without a break for at least 26 weeks into the 15th week before the week your baby is due
earning an average of at least £84 a week (before tax)
How Much Can You Claim?

Statutory Maternity Pay is:
90 per cent of your average weekly earnings for the first six weeks of your maternity leave
either £108.85 or 90 per cent of your average earnings, if this is less than £108.85 for the remaining 20 weeks
How Do You Get Paid?

Your employer will pay you Statutory Maternity Pay in the same way and at the same time as your normal wages.
Maternity Pay is treated as normal pay so your employer will also deduct tax and National Insurance as usual.

How Do You Claim It?

To claim Statutory Maternity Pay you must tell your employer at least 28 days before you intend to stop work to have your baby. Your employer may need you to tell them in writing.
You can change your mind about the date you want to start your Statutory Maternity Pay but you must still give your employer at least 28 days notice of the new date.

You must also give your employer evidence of when your baby's due. This is normally on maternity certificate MATB1 that your doctor or midwife will issue 20 weeks before your baby is due.

Answer 2

Your maternity pay will depend on who your employer is. Each employer can be different as to how they pay maternty.

When I was pregnant and was sorting out my maternity leave. I had to give my work place a date that I was going to start my leave on - however if before I had to take time off due to illness relating to pregnancy they can sometimes take that as your first day of your leave.

Anyway once I had given them a final date I was allowed to take 26 weeks from that date... the company I worked for were going to pay me 6 weeks at 90% of my current pay and then for the remaining 20 weeks I would only get maternity pay which then was £106.00 per week. A very big drop from my salary.

But I would check with your employers terms & conditions on maternity pay they may offer more weeks at a percentage of your salary or even more weeks at full salary.

You can if you want now take a further 26 weeks off - but again I would check as a lot of companies will not pay you anything at all for this.

Don't forget though when your baby is born you will receive child benefit and if I were you I would look at tax credit. We found that because you are only on 106.00 for 20 weeks you may be entitled to something.

Hope this has helped.

Answer 3

Yes Maternity pay is instead of your normal salary. When you get to the point later in your pregnancy or after you baby is born and you have to quit work, that is when your maternity pay starts. So you may have to go on it early if you have complications with your pregnancy, or you may only be on it after your baby is born. If that is the case the normal amount of time for that is 6 weeks.

Good luck with trying to concieve. Remember it will all work out in the end.

Ps. If you save a little money now, what you lack in maternity pay your savings can make up for!!!

Answer 4

Your HR dept should have information on the Company maternity pay you will receive once you leave to have your baby. Just bear in mind that if you leave earlier than planned due to a pregnancy related illness, the Company can start your maternity leave/pay at that point. Have another chat with HR if you're still unsure. SMP is as follows: A woman is entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) if she has been employed by her employer for a continuous period of at least 26 weeks ending with the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth, and has average weekly earnings at least equal to the lower earnings limit for National Insurance contributions. SMP can be paid for up to 26 weeks; it is payable by the employer but partly (or, for small firms wholly) reimbursed by the state.
From April 2006 the standard rate of SMP is £108.85 a week (or 90% of the woman's average weekly earnings if this is less than £108.85 a week). For the first six weeks the rate is 90% of average weekly earnings with no maximum limit. The standard rate of SMP is reviewed every April.
Hope this helps..

Answer 5

My wife is moving onto maternity pay and stands to lose a similar amount. The standard payment is 90% of your normal pay for six weeks than the standard £104 per week for the other 20 weeks.
Some companies can pay more than this, although it totally depends on the company policy (like paid sick leave).

My company pay full pay for 3 months and half pay for the next 3 (this will cost the company as they can only claim the amount above from the government), unfortunately we couldn't choose for me to have the baby instead of my wife!!
You will be entitled to standard child benefit though this is only about £18 per week.
Here's the bigger pisser though, if you were on benefits, you'd get exactly the same payment and a £500 grant to buy baby things.

As things stand for us, my wife earns more money than me so we're going to be living on approx £500/month for 6 months until she goes back to work (I only have about £100 left after paying standard bills).
If you're planning your baby SAVE UP! We didn't have a choice (unplanned but welcome) as we had to move to a bigger house too.
In short, if you're on benefits - maternity is a bonus, If you work, maternity pay is sh!t.

Answer 6

Statutory maternity pay is paid instead of your normal wages. It works out at 90% of your weekly wage for the first 6 weeks.. followed by 20 weeks at £108 or 90% of you weekly wage, whichever is less. I don't see how you'll be losing about £1000?

Answer 7

SMP is paid in easy terms for 36 weeks, and you qualify for it in case you have been pregnant for 26 weeks by ability of the eleventh week in the previous your envisioned due date (in certainty, you may have been employed continuously by ability of the comparable employer for six months in the previous you attain your twenty 9th week of being pregnant.) Statutory maternity bypass away is 26 weeks trouble-free bypass away, and a added 26 weeks added, making a million complete 12 months. in the journey that your enterprise has that is very own rules on maternity pay (enterprise maternity pay), you will could talk on your HR branch for rationalization, with the aid of fact the guidelines for eligibility and how lots/how long you gets a commission would be distinctive from SMP.

Answer 8

At my company, you can take up to 12 weeks off for maternity, and you use sick/personal/vacation time for your weeks off and get paid the amount you normally would be paid for those weeks. I've been planning ahead and already have 8 paid weeks ready to go - and I'm not pregnant yet. Hoping to have 12 by the time baby does come! Best thing to do is find out what your company does and plan ahead.

Answer 9

I had the same thing. It's really poor. You can ask for your holiday entitlement to be paid to you, which is what I done. I had a massive row with my employers, as they put me on statory sick pay, then on to SMP. You get a good bulk for the first month if I remember correctly, then it drops - dramatically. I thought after 6 months i'd have to go back to work, as we couldn't survive on this crappy allowance ( and already have one child), but when you add up child care costs, you're just as poor after your salary. You might be able to get child tax credit, but thats not worth much either. Probably the most sensible thing is to find out what you're entitled to and finacially plan your time off. The goverment wonder why mums wont go back to work, its not that we dont want to (I DO) but can't afford to give a months salary for someone else to look after your child when you may as well have stayed at home and done it yourself!!

Answer 10

The legal requirement is that companies pay 90% of your salary for the first 6 weeks, but after that it falls to £108 a week [or 90% of your salary if that's less] (for the next 20 weeks). INSTEAD OF.

Some employers are more generous, but that's all they are legally bound to give you. If so, you might have to go back to work very quickly (and that brings its own problems).