Working Families

The way we work in the UK is bad for us. For many parents paid work means raising children in poverty. Half of all children living in poverty have at least one parent who is working, and many parents scrape together small incomes from several low-paid jobs. Families who are cash poor are often extremely time poor.
At the other extreme, there are the cash-rich families with very time-poor parents, often working in 24/7 global jobs – for them, family life suffers as well. However, we know that work is important for individuals and for families, so we have spent the last 35 years trying to make it better for everyone.

We support parents on low incomes to enable them to stay in work. Our legally trained advisers on the Working Families’ Helpline take over 3,000 calls each year from people who have problems at work (50 per cent are maternity-related) to help them resolve the issue and stay in a job. We help people write letters and prepare for meetings they may have with their employers all the way through to resolution.