In the UK the rules are you have to provide over 35 hours of care a week to your relative(s) and you can’t be earning anymore than £151 a week. Carers allowance is £81.90. So assuming you were earning absolute max of £151 you’d be on £232.90 a week - that’s equivalent to $168 apparently. Not much to live off.

What this benefit does bring though is access to all sorts of other things - for example free accompanying carer tickets to cinema and theatre etc, and accessible seats. Accessible seats have become an absolute necessity for us recently, not always easy to find.

It isn’t easy to get this benefit at all and I doubt very much if I’d qualify. So I’m in this situation where my life has changed considerably but there’s no recognition, I’m not classed as a carer. The fact he would sadly struggle terribly without me isn’t one I like to think about but there’s no way of this is acknowledged. I think there must be loads of us in this situation, juggling employment with family caring roles, often for several people.