AIBU to be surprised someone on £34,000 receives Universal Credit?

Where the hell is all this going on? I'll leave my council and come work there 😳.

Isn’t it just 🙄

All the sarky comments - how dare the OP suggest this is unreasonable - but there is the minor detail that the UK can barely cover it's debt interest payments. Eventually the shit will hit the fan.

There are people on Facebook groups for UC advice who are asked to post their statements when they ask a question. The amount of rent some pay is ridiculous

I bang on about it all the time. If everyone was in social housing, the "benefit bill" would be a lot less.

I once had two clients living in identical houses the same street, both non-working single parents with 3 children and 3-bed entitlement. One was a council tenant with rent of around £130pw, the other was privately renting a former council house that had been bought under RTB and subsequently sold on to a BTL landlord. Iirc, her rent was over £1,300 a month. The difference in the amount of UC was massive, I can't recall the figures now, but it was a huge amount of money. And the one getting the most UC was actually worse off, because the housing costs were higher than the LHA rate, so she didn't get the full amount covered.

The selling off of council houses by Margaret Thatcher is one of the neoliberal policies Burnham is attacking.

Yes massive shortage in my LA too and you can't get a band 4 support worker for love nor money. The hike in private rentals is killing people whilst wages have remained stagnant. If we put a cap on the rental costs a lot of money would be saved.

It is, isn’t it?

I am more bothered by all that tax ending up in private landlords hands because we haven’t bothered building enough council houses

Blue hair. Rainbow lanyards. WfH five days a week. TOIL. CPD. Lots of sick days. Animal-free staff restaurants. A time allocation during work hours to be a trans rights ally and activist. No stretch targets. Strike days. The right never to be sacked. Annual vegan picnic. Bring your pet to work days. Bring your offspring to work days. Bring your dead ancestors to work days. Clean the bugs off the office plants days. Anti-static carpeting. Recyclable work stations. Bike, tandem and penny farthing parking. Support dog clothing allowance. Hourly drumming and chanting sessions during leap years. Subsidised Botox. December seasonal celebration. Compulsory gender affirming care. Errr...that's it. Ed

She likely has high rent & childcare

Oh don’t worry… read the thread . @Balicious made a complete t*t of herself

Oh here we go again...

This place is getting so tedious

I read the OP and knew it was nonsense. Thank you for confirming ☺️.

She will almost certainly have children.

She’ll have student loan and pension contributions coming out of her pay. It sounds like she has children and in private rental.
There are over 25 current social worker vacancies on my council website it’s a low paid role for the hours and responsibilities/stress.

UC is not just money in hand for those who can't/don't want to work, it is also towards housing and childcare, so it's highly unlikely the trainee social worker is being handed money for nothing. We need to encourage the population to stay in the workforce. If that means subsidizing their rent and/or childcare costs then so be it. About 40% of people in receipt of UC are working FT.

'AIBU to be surprised/shocked/outraged at...[insert here]'

Indeed. If they has spent as long listening as they did posting ....

Very believable.

Years ago now, in the early days of UC, I had a client who was a nurse at whatever grade is the equivalent of a nursing sister. She had 3 kids and lived in a privately rented 3-bed house. She was entitled to a fair bit of UC because her housing costs were so high. She was on £36k at the time.

Her delightful husband had left her and fucked off to Ireland so she couldn't go after him for maintenance.

But failed.

And rather than own it…. Nope gets defensive and angry.

Tells is a lot about what @Balicious is likely like in RL

Says the person being unpleasant.

You have no idea what her circumstances are. She will have been assessed and everything will have been taken into account.
It isn't as easy to get benefits as some people seem to infer and people on benefits are not living the high life spending it all on "booze and fags"
I think it's very sad that we are back in benefit bashing territory and that the poorest people are again being blamed for the state of the economy.

I would probably claim, I think you have more joy if you rent

Public sector workers are rarely held to account in the same way private sectors employees are- you have to be spectacularly shit to be got rid of and, even then, you'll likely be paid off rather then sacked. Other than that, anything else that comes with an organization that never has to worry about being credible, efficient or cost effective, I suppose.