\n We often hear in the news about different professions going on strike because they feel they are not paid enough.\n<\/p>\n
\n I understand their frustration, but I want to speak for those of us who never have that option \u2014 unpaid carers.\n<\/p>\n
\n I am the full-time carer for my lovely mum, who needs round-the-clock support, seven days a week.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is my privilege to care for her, but it comes at a cost. Carer\u2019s Allowance is \u00a383.30 a week, and you can only claim it if you earn under \u00a3196 a week after tax.\n<\/p>\n
\n Even if I earned the maximum and received the allowance, I would take home only about \u00a3279 a week \u2014 just over \u00a314,500 a year.\n<\/p>\n
\n That equates to less than \u00a32 an hour when you consider the reality of caring 24 hours a day.\n<\/p>\n
\n I am lucky, as a psychotherapist, to be able to work remotely at odd hours when my mum is asleep.\n<\/p>\n
\n Many carers don\u2019t have this chance, and are left with even fewer options. For all of us, there are no weekends, no holidays\u00a0and no strike action available.\n<\/p>\n
\n Campaign groups have highlighted this injustice for years, yet little has changed. It\u2019s time for more than warm words \u2014 families like mine need action.\n<\/p>\n
\n Would you work for less than \u00a32 an hour?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We often hear in the news about different professions going on strike because they feel they are not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-113716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}