Carers

Carer’s Allowance.
Your MP can demand a timetable.

A single pound over the £204 weekly earnings limit costs a carer their entire £86.45 weekly allowance. There is no taper.

DWP benefit rates 2026/27

Carer’s Allowance pays £86.45 a week to people providing 35 or more hours of unpaid care. It comes with a hard earnings threshold: earn more than £204 a week net and the entire benefit is lost instantly. There is no taper. A single pound over the limit costs carers the whole allowance.

This cliff edge creates a direct financial disincentive for carers to take on more paid work. An independent review published in 2025 found that the unclear rules around the threshold led to widespread inadvertent overpayments, with tens of thousands of carers receiving debt demands they didn’t realise they’d incurred.

The government has acknowledged the cliff edge needs replacing with a taper but says implementation is “likely several years away.” Your MP can press the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to commit to a timetable and support any legislative amendment to bring that change forward.

Write to your MP

We'll write a personalised first draft. You review it before anything is sent.

Your postcode finds your MP. We don't keep it.

Adding your own experience makes the email noticeably more effective. We'll tidy your words for spelling and flow — we won't change what you're saying.

0/500

No account needed. Your postcode is used to write the draft, then discarded. We retain the first part of your postcode and the issue selected for anonymous analytics only.

Letter copied to clipboard