£20 /week cut to Universal Credit

I've commented before about UC but my personal experience of it was absolutely awful. Fortunately it was for a very short time when my DH was ill but the harrassment and lack of empathy is soul destroying. I certainly think the £20 should be retained.

Deedaa

DS has tried several times to claim Universal Credit but has been told he doesn't qualify because he and his son live with me. Apparently it is acceptable for me to use my pension to support the two of them.

You need to seek some independent benefits advice. CAB might be worth speaking to first

When younger son lived with us for a while when the pandemic first started, he claimed Universal Credit. He had one in person interview and everything else was done on line. He actually works in London now at the DWP and reckons a lot of the senior staff don’t really know what they’re doing!

Deedaa

DS has tried several times to claim Universal Credit but has been told he doesn't qualify because he and his son live with me. Apparently it is acceptable for me to use my pension to support the two of them.

I would advise a trip to Citizens' Advice because I'm fairly sure that he is eligible.

Deeda your son should be able to claim UC in his own right, particularly if he has parenting responsibilities. He will not be eligible for the housing element, but his local Jobcentre should help him to claim.

No change then, all these years later.
Apart from all the sanctions, which are often given for ridiculous reasons.

I think that is ridiculous. We are all be taxed as individuals, and IMO we should be able to claim as individuals, too.

I'm sure you wouldn't see your son on the streets, but it is just not fair that you should have to stretch your pension three ways in order to put a roof over his head when he is an adult.

Fair enough, if he is living with you maybe he shouldn't be able to claim for rent, but your pension should be based on your own contributions and his UC (or other benefits) should be based on his own. Both of you will have paid in separately, so I see no reason why you shouldn't be treated separately for benefit purposes.

Years ago, while he was still an MP, I think Michael Portillo spent a month living on benefits. He found it couldn't be done. Finding a job was particularly difficult because there was no money to spare to get to job interviews.

DS has tried several times to claim Universal Credit but has been told he doesn't qualify because he and his son live with me. Apparently it is acceptable for me to use my pension to support the two of them.

Not also was it UC that was topped up by £20 but also Working Tax Credits (which I claim)

The extra £20 has also stopped with Tax Credits.

(But I havn't bleated once, I've just got on with it like I always do) I new it was only temp and would come to an end at some time.

Pensioners are the biggest group on benefits, by far.
Non working people make up just 3% of benefit claims, the last I knew.
Though of course, I stand to be corrected.

Many working people in this country are earning such low pay that they need UC. That is shocking.

Germanshepherdsmum

Did you not understand my comment about overhauling the system?

No. I didn't think you made anything more than a throwaway comment. Did you give any details of your proposed overhaul?

I was commenting on the assumption that below subsistence levels of benefits encourages people into work.

Did you not understand my comment about overhauling the system?

Germanshepherdsmum

The additional £20 pw was only a temporary payment during the pandemic as was made very clear. Finding a job was all the more difficult during lockdown, hence this supplement. A basic premise of the benefits system is that anyone who can work (please note those words before you pillory me) should never be better off claiming benefits than working and that should remain the case, whilst giving the system a thorough overhaul (please note those words too). Otherwise people are simply being given a permanent £20 pw rise in income which many low-paid working people would love to get. It was entirely foreseeable that the bleating would start as soon as this temporary additional payment came to an end.

But many of the people who receive Universal Credit do work. If you understood how the UC system works, you would know that it almost impossible to better off unemployed than employed, unless childcare and/or expensive travel to work is involved. The current system forces people into accepting work which makes them worse off or not applying for any support at all.

Could you live on less than £75 a week for longer than a couple of weeks? If you couldn't why do you expect anybody to be able to do so?

The additional £20 pw was only a temporary payment during the pandemic as was made very clear. Finding a job was all the more difficult during lockdown, hence this supplement. A basic premise of the benefits system is that anyone who can work (please note those words before you pillory me) should never be better off claiming benefits than working and that should remain the case, whilst giving the system a thorough overhaul (please note those words too). Otherwise people are simply being given a permanent £20 pw rise in income which many low-paid working people would love to get. It was entirely foreseeable that the bleating would start as soon as this temporary additional payment came to an end.

Savvy I agree with you. I guess (and I'm being devil's advocate here) the argument would be that it was recognised that finding a job or, at least, a better paid one, was extremely difficult during the pandemic, therefore an uplift was needed. Howver, the situation for carers or those on ESA didn'st deteriorate. I can't think of any other justification.

I agree with you about ESA, but there are carers who only get Income Support, some of them get less than UC. I know this because I know some of them. One in particular is a carer for two disabled parents and gets less than £70 per week. The £20 uplift would have been a lifeline for people in their situation.

I did the calculations when UC first came out and the average drop in benefits for those on ESA migrating to UC would be about £50 per week.

Throughout all of this, both the UC rollout and the pandemic, all the government has done has shown disabled people and carers that we are expendable and they want us out of the way.

Savvy

Can I must point out here that people on ESA (i.e. the disabled and those too ill to work) and people on Income Support (usually carers) have not had this £20 a week uplift, it has been applied to Universal Credit only.

ESA, which not UC - it is a different benefit- with the support element is more than UC. I know this as they tried to 'trick' people (I am certain of this) to switch to UC knowing full well they would face a drop in benefit allowance.

Chakotay I think we're singing from the same hymn sheet! I don't think people are "owed" either. The point I was trying to make is that we all contribute to benefits via taxes (not just income tax or NICs), not just the "hard-working taxpayers", who are sometimes seen as a different group of people from benefit recipients.

Unfortunately, as you possibly know, UC recipients often don't receive full rent due to the Local Housing Allowance cap and have to subsidise the housing element from the "living" element. The figure I quoted was for single claimants, who can only benefit from free prescriptions if they are ill. There are many unemployed people who are somehow surviving on less than the basic £74.70.

*just not must.

Can I must point out here that people on ESA (i.e. the disabled and those too ill to work) and people on Income Support (usually carers) have not had this £20 a week uplift, it has been applied to Universal Credit only.

growstuff

love0c

Dinahmo O course it is other people's money. It is yours and mine and every tax payer. It is not the government's own money is it. If it was their own personal money they would be far more responsible on how they spend it!!

It is almost impossible not to pay some form of tax in the UK, so it's money which belongs to every single person. Most people claiming Universal Credit have had paid work at some point in their lives, so they've paid for their benefits too. The idea that one group (the taxpayers) pays and another group (benefit recipients) receives, is nonsense. It really isn't that clear cut.

The issue is whether people are happy that one group of people should have to survive on £75 per week.

I really don't agree, our tax is not a private pot for us to take from, even my state pension is paid by working age peoples NICs, the nearly 51 years of NICs I paid in went towards other peoples pensions - not mine, as a tax paying pensioner my tax also goes towards peoples Universal credits I have no issue with that at all even though I didn't claim when I was working age, in fact I claimed no working age benefits at all, and consider myself lucky I didn't need to, BUT if I had I certainly wouldn't have expected to get benefits because I paid tax and NICs and was 'owed'

The £75 (actually £74.70 ) you quote is only a part of UC the unemployment part, it will not include the child element it will not include rent as housing benefit is also paid as part of UC, or council tax relief which is set by the council, or free prescriptions/dental/sight care which is an agreement between the NHS and the DWP. People in the support group of ESA get more than the £74.70 as well.

I actually agree that the £20 should be kept, I also agree that the whole benefit system needs to be looked at, but not because people have paid into the system and think they should be getting something back

With you all the way, Dinahmo We pay our taxes in order that roads are built, libraries are kept open and to support people in need.
But our roads are a mass of potholes, our libraries' hours have been cut back, and we are not supporting our vulnerable.

love0c

Dinahmo O course it is other people's money. It is yours and mine and every tax payer. It is not the government's own money is it. If it was their own personal money they would be far more responsible on how they spend it!!

It is almost impossible not to pay some form of tax in the UK, so it's money which belongs to every single person. Most people claiming Universal Credit have had paid work at some point in their lives, so they've paid for their benefits too. The idea that one group (the taxpayers) pays and another group (benefit recipients) receives, is nonsense. It really isn't that clear cut.

The issue is whether people are happy that one group of people should have to survive on £75 per week.