A Blog from the Perspective of an Unpaid Carer

Takeaway: £12.35 a day is not a wage. It is a warning sign that the UK’s social contract with unpaid carers has fractured. Writing from the perspective of an unpaid carer, the figure is not just insulting, it is destabilising, exhausting, and politically revealing.

The Reality Behind the Number

£12.35 a day is the approximate value of Carer’s Allowance once you break it down. To qualify, you must provide 35 hours of care a week, though most carers provide far more, often 50, 70, even 100 hours. The state then offers £86.45 a week in return.

That is £2.47 an hour if you only provide care for the minimum of 35 hours per week

Or £12.35 a day.

For work that is physically demanding, emotionally draining, and socially isolating.

This is not a stipend. It is not a benefit. It is a political statement about how the labour of unpaid carers is valued.

What £12.35 a Day Actually Looks Like

From the perspective of an unpaid carer, £12.35 a day means:

• Choosing between heating and food because your caring role prevents you from earning a wage.
• Watching your savings evaporate while performing work that keeps the NHS and social care system afloat.
• Being told you are “valued” while being paid less than the cost of a sandwich and a bus fare.
• Knowing that if you earn even slightly above the earnings threshold, you risk losing the entire allowance.
• Living with the constant fear of overpayment letters, sanctions, and bureaucratic punishment for caring too much.

It is not just financial strain. It is structural disrespect.

The Emotional Cost

Unpaid carers often describe feeling:

• Invisible – because their labour is hidden behind closed doors.
• Exhausted – because caring is relentless, with no weekends, no holidays, no sick days.
• Punished – because the system treats carers as claimants to be monitored rather than contributors to be supported.
• Trapped – because caring responsibilities make employment impossible, yet the state refuses to recognise caring as work.

£12.35 a day is not simply inadequate. It is demoralising.

The Political Question

Would you work for £12.35 a day?

Most people would say no.

Yet unpaid carers do it every day, not because they choose to, but because they love someone.

The government relies on that love.

It exploits that love.

It budgets around that love.

The entire social care system is built on the assumption that unpaid carers will continue to provide billions of pounds worth of labour for free, indefinitely, without protest.

But carers are starting to say no.

Not to the people they care for, but to the political conditions that make their lives unsustainable.

What Needs to Change

From the perspective of an unpaid carer, the demands are clear:

• Carer’s Allowance must be reformed into a genuine income, not a token payment.
• Earnings rules must be modernised so carers are not punished for trying to stay afloat.
• Carers must be recognised as workers, with rights, protections, and status.
• Statutory bodies must stop producing tokenistic charters and start delivering enforceable commitments.
• Carers must be included in policy design, not treated as an afterthought.

This is not radical. It is rational.

The country collapses without unpaid carers.

The least it can do is stop asking them to survive on £12.35 a day.

Closing Reflection

If you would not work for £12.35 a day, why should an unpaid carer?

Their labour is essential.

Their contribution is vast.

Their treatment is indefensible.