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Carer's Allowance is paid whatever the carer earns: no earnings limit (SSCBA 1992 s. 70(1)(b), SI 1976/409 reg. 8) #2309
Description
What the law says
A person is not entitled to Carer's Allowance on any day they are gainfully employed (SSCBA 1992 s. 70(1)(b)). Reg. 8(1) of the Social Security (Invalid Care Allowance) Regulations 1976 treats a person as gainfully employed in a week if their earnings in the previous week exceeded the earnings limit. The limit is £204 a week from 6 April 2026 (SI 2026/218); it was £196 in 2025-26 (SI 2025/352).
Earnings are net: gross pay less income tax, primary Class 1 contributions and half of pension contributions (Computation of Earnings Regulations 1996 reg. 10(4)). Trading income is treated the same way under reg. 13.
What the model does
carers_allowance_pre_overlap pays the allowance to anyone who meets the hours condition (care_hours >= 35) or reports receipt, and would claim. It has no earnings test, and earnings_limit appears nowhere in the code or parameters.
Minimal reproduction
policyengine-uk 2.126.7, and main at 6d89338:
from policyengine_uk import Simulation
situation = {
"people": {
"carer": {"age": {"2026": 45}, "employment_income": {"2026": 40_000}, "care_hours": {"2026": 40}},
"caree": {"age": {"2026": 50}, "pip_dl_category": {"2026": "STANDARD"}},
},
"benunits": {"b": {"members": ["carer", "caree"]}},
"households": {"h": {"members": ["carer", "caree"], "country": {"2026": "ENGLAND"}}},
}
Simulation(situation=situation).calculate("carers_allowance", 2026)
# array([4495.4, 0.]) the law gives 0: net earnings are well over £204 a weekHow it was found
The PolicyBench UK round 2 internal audit of policyengine-uk (October 2026). Its carers stratum draws pay of £0-£300 a week around the limit. The affected audit cells will be added below once the audit has run.
A fix with tests follows in a PR.
Activity
MaxGhenis commentedon Oct 11, 2026
Evidence from PolicyBench UK round 2, an internal audit of policyengine-uk 2.126.7 (references identical on 2.126.8). Six models answered the same 200 households. A reference adversary (a blind GPT-6.1 Sol judge, then reconciliation with the engine log) reviewed consensus disagreements and a sample of single-model misses, and each verdict was adjudicated against the engine code and the law. Cells that turn on this issue:
'With the fix' is the reference recomputed with all five round 2 fix branches merged (#2312, #2323, #2327, #2348, #2352). On #2312 alone, the 11 Carer's Allowance cells go to £0 (6 of 6 models agree in each), and the Income Tax cells drop by the tax on the allowance (£899.08 to £2,179.76).