Universal credit

[Lennythelion14]

How can it be right that universal credit gets paid to just one partner? Usually the man. Women with abusive partners, controlling partners and similar will have no way of escaping. Big step back in women's rights in my opinion.

[BeUpStanding]

Is that correct? If so I agree that's terrible. Is it official policy?

[SprogletsMum]

All of the cuts are a massive step back for women's rights.
If I was to leave my partner now I'd have to start a new claim for universal credit. I'd receive money for 2 of my 4 children after having waited a minimum of 6 weeks with no money. We'd starve basically so, no matter what he does, until I can afford to support us on my own, we're here.

[HerFemaleness]

That's a fairly shit choice. Stay in an abusive marriage or leave and be unable to house/feed your children. That combined with the changes to housing benefit that will impact women's refuges, it's almost like the government are actively trying to keep families together regardless of what is going on in them ....

[makeourfuture]

There is an ideology at work here. It is not at all about austerity.

[PencilsInSpace]

SprogletsMum - The UC system can't cope with claimants with more than 2 children so until Jan 2019 at least you can still claim old benefits even if you're in a full UC area.

Yes OP it's an appalling situation. Women's Aid report here. It's a couple of years old now but their worst predictions are happening.

[SuperTimbs]

Fuck this government. Utter shits.

[LangCleg]

Yes. This has been pointed out to government many times, with no budging. There is no point in Theresa May congratulating herself on criminalising coercive control with the one hand, when she removes financial independence for abused women with the other.

The whole coercive shitfest the benefits system has turned into really disadvantages women in violent relationships. The Children Act mandates it's causing your child significant harm if you allow him/her to witness domestic abuse - this is reason to remove your child. But how do you leave if there are no refuges left and you don't have access to the Universal Credit money like you used to have access to the Tax Credits? And if you can't leave because you don't have financial independence and if anyone finds out your kids will be taken away, how can you call the police when he hits you?

I honestly don't think enough of us realise the horrendous binds austerity has put many mothers in.

[BeUpStanding]

Fuck... I did not realise how terrible the situation was.

[UpstartCrow]

There are 2 current petitions to either scrap or halt UC on change.org, please sign.

[HairyBallTheorem]

What the fuck do we do? Vote for Corbyn and his merry men (emphasis on the "men") and screw up women's rights, don't vote and let the Tories in whereupon people on UC are left to starve, vote Tory and actively screw the poor...

[LangCleg]

What the fuck do we do? Vote for Corbyn and his merry men (emphasis on the "men") and screw up women's rights, don't vote and let the Tories in whereupon people on UC are left to starve, vote Tory and actively screw the poor...

This is precisely why it took me so long to catch up with the self-ID trans business. All my political (and volunteering) activity has been about the cost of austerity to women over the last eight years. Universal Credit is just one strand and there are so many more.

Thousands of children have been taken into care because of the toxic impossibilities a web of austerity cuts have wreaked on poor mothers. We've imposed poverty on mothers and then taken away their children to punish them for that poverty.

But we have to stop self-ID. If we don't, males will be in even more positions of power and authority by dint of lipstick and narcissism, and these women will figure even less in the thoughts of policy makers than they do now. And, to boot, we won't even be able to enumerate them or analyse what happens to them because our statistics will be meaningless.

I'm not ashamed to say that I have cried and lost sleep over this. What is the best thing to do?

[UpstartCrow]

Taking children into care costs the taxpayer more than it would to pay their mother a basic level of benefits.
Plus long term, the outcome for the children isn't as good.

Also, UC isn't paid to working parents in months with 5 weeks, because of the way its calculated.

[LangCleg]

Taking children into care costs the taxpayer more than it would to pay their mother a basic level of benefits.

It's not just this, either. So much of austerity has been spending a pound to save a penny. It really doesn't matter where you stand fiscally, on the right or the left. Austerity has been a dismal failure. It's cost money rather than saved it.

Public spending 101: You can't cut what people want because votes. You can't cut what they need because if you do the costs double and transfer to other budgets.

[roseannaleeXo]

No you can choose who gets the payment..

[roseannaleeXo]

Uc needs scraping it is just horrible stressful barley lasts the week after you get some money

[makeourfuture]

Together we can do anything.

Seperate we can do nothing.

[GlitterGlue]

The payments can be split and half paid to each person. Or the woman can receive it all. I don’t suppose abusive partners were sharing the tax credits or child benefit either.

You are entitled to an advance payment when making a claim. It used to be 50% of entitlement but might be more now?

[TheGoalIsToStayOutOfTheHole]

I'm not ashamed to say that I have cried and lost sleep over this. What is the best thing to do?

I am the same. I have actually been up some nights worrying about it with it all just going round and round my head and unable to sleep because of this. I know that sounds extreme, maybe I am just being ridiculous and OTT, but I am actually terrified for the future. I am poor, and disabled. But also a woman. So the only 2 parties that have a chance, are going to screw me over.

[makeourfuture]

We can change this. We can stop this.

Together.

[DodoPatrol]

Oh for goodness sake, Makeourfuture, get a bigger phone screen or something and type more than a four-word sentence at a time. None of your posts offer any actual advice, just catchphrases.

[SprogletsMum]

The 5 week month thing scares me too. Dp gets paid weekly. We live week to week. A 5 week month makes us no better off because we work weekly not monthly. And the whole we pay monthly because work pays monthly is bullshit. Dp gets paid weekly, when I worked I got paid 4 weekly. The only people I know living locally to me that get paid monthly is public sector workers.

[makeourfuture]

This is important.

[HairyBallTheorem]

Either make our future is a bot, or she fails the Turing test.

Neither of which particularly advances the discussion, unfortunately.

[QuentinSummers]

Austerity in general is killing people, especially women
theconversation.com/life-expectancy-in-britain-has-fallen-so-much-that-a-million-years-of-life-could-disappear-by-2058-why-88063

UC in particular is a disaster. But we aren't discussing it, coz Brexit. People are being expected to switch from previous benefits to UC and then have a 6 week (or more) gap in payments. Many of these people are vulnerable. People are dying because of this.
I am actually ashamed to be British at the moment because of how we are treating vulnerable people.

[makeourfuture]

People are dying because of this.

They are.