Some families to get a total of £1,200 cash, to support with cost of living crisis.

[flashbac]

Highlights:
All families can now keep the 200 quid energy payment, no longer repayment based. This will be topped up to £400.
Low income families to get £650 straight into bank account.
(Non means tested) disabled benefit recipients to get £150.
All in all some will receive total of £1,200.
Funded by windfall tax.

I'm getting 550 not 650.
Oranges and lemons ,
Not sure if those ladies I've heard about are on UC or not. I think one might be.
I don't think the 400 should be across the board either, but I'm not going to turn it down especially as the energy company will be the biggest winners here and they will take it off the bills! And earn interest on any we don't use up as well.

But you ARE rich. Whether you own a one million pound house or are living out of your car but have one million pounds in gold bars stored in your boot, you HAVE one million pounds. Now you may not want to sell your house/gold bars, but it does not change the fact that you are rich.

As I and others have pointed out, the admin costs for the means testing would be huge. There is also a massive group of people who don't receive benefits who are just managing and those will help a lot.

They will get helped by this. Means test it and they would probably get nothing. Sometimes it is the best way to go.

I get contribution based esa, have done for last 12 years. What's the difference between that and means tested? As far as I'm aware it's only the fact that I've paid a certain level of national insurance prior to disability.

Rishi does love a one-off bung of hush-money cash.

He should be doing things that will actually help people past the current crisis, like restoring the £20 UC uplift or refusing to let companies raise the price cap by so much.

Yes, it has but I've not noticed.
PAYG smart meters so I just top them up.

There's no DD here, the system was here when we bought the house so I kept the top up system to make sure I only pay for what use.
Not what the energy companies think I'll use.

In the summertime our usage plummets.
In the winter we fire the log burner up.....

He really does. Maximum praise and no long term commitment. At least that’s the theory. A lot of people seem quite pissed off with their £400.

Contribution based is originally done on NI contributions and is paid no matter what a partner earns or how much savings you have.

Income based is based on what you need and takes those things into consideration.

Last post was in response to this.

Stick with that tariff as long as you can then @Hrpuffnstuff1 - sounds quite reasonable. The fire must help though. I’d love to have one again, but can’t in this house.

That's because they have already unleashed the culture war, and they know we will be so busy getting angry at each other that our eyes will be off the shitty conservative ball...

Unless your rent is very expensive this can’t be right as unless you are paying off debt your UC award will be more than £55pw as even the standard element for single under 25’s alone is more than that and you will be getting at least £61.85pw in PIP. If it is very expensive rent have you applied for Discretionary Housing Payments?

If your DF (and his partner) has no other income he will be eligible for UC.

If you get the whole £1200 then it’s £100 a Month help, which is more or less the same as a UC uplift if you’re on UC. And the people who aren’t on UC for whatever reason get some help but proportionately so because no matter who you are, your costs of heating your home: large or small, have gone up.

and if you have a small home, because you’re not all that well off and never have been, you get the £150 as well. And the £400 is more helpful to you because you have a small home because it costs less to heat, so your £400 could be 3 months’ free heating, where as someone richer (asset or cash) in big 5 bed has one month free heating.

I think it’s quite good.

Rent is very expensive in large swathes of the country. Large numbers of social tenants have spare bedrooms which they pay through the nose for. It’s a big problem.

We have had a clients in similar circumstances, who are often tenants, sometimes HA, sometimes private tenants, who can’t scrape up the four figure removals costs to escape a high rent or the bedroom tax. When people are skint, it’s very easy to get trapped like that. When they’re disabled, their options to escape the trap are limited.They can’t eat bricks while they pray for a way out.

Anyone who falls for this and continues voting for the Green/Lib/Lab/Con uniparty is a fool. At best it will entrench dependence on the state.

The UK government should be taking direct action on the root cause, which is the failure to allow the UK to have reliable sources of energy that are not subject to storms in the international markets.

It's well past time to start fracking UK sources of gas and start mining UK coal. We've got plenty of gas and coal, but Johnson is a puppet, and his masters won't let him.

I am not stupid, I never said ‘they’ can “eat bricks while they pray for a way out.” Which is why I started my post with “unless your rent is very expensive…”

It is important the OP checks because it may well be her UC award is wrong and she should look at applying for DHP, and DF should look at applying for UC if his (and any partner’s) only income is CA.

the “waspi” women didn’t miss out on anything though other than retiring at the same age as an earlier generation of women (not men). State pensions are not means tested and the waspi women were and are entitled to the same benefits as everyone else.

imo it’s totally unfair for women to have an earlier state pension age (I’m female) and given such a huge increase in life expectancy it’s fair enough for the state pension age to be moved. No reason the waspi women should get to retire any earlier than the current generation X or millennials imo. Especially as they are the ones who will have to pay for it.

The UK government should have taken actions ages ago - these increases have been known about for a long time.

No but you did say “that can’t be right unless <very common thing or other very common thing>”.

It is wearying seeing so many people suffer under this system and then watching loads of people online cores scepticism.

Maybe you meant it slightly differently?

Not every disabled person gets PIP. It's actually very hard to get.

UC is around £77 per week. But many are having to pay anything up to 20% council tax and the shortfall in rent.

It's all part of the evil plan. They are creating a hideous system of socialism and state dependence, where even people who previously did not struggle will have to beg for handouts just to get by,

Not benefit bashing but I think anything that is given to all pensioners (eg winter fuel allowance) ignores the fact there are some very rich old people around who don't need this ..

@Greysofa i now wfh instead of the office but i save on commute so this offsets the extra gas/ elec
We will all be getting £400 and some will if got the £150 if low council tax so thats £550 of help
They can't give everyone loads but at least there is some help which there wasn't a few months ago
I have prepayment so my £400 will go straight on gas and elec which will help
Its tough times around the world for many this is not exclusive to the uk

My mum is 76 and gets AA.
Will she get both the £400 discount and £650?
I'm confused.

@caringcarer why if they live at home their parents will benefit and if they live alone they will get some extra help