to think most part-time workers don't know what's about to hit them?! (Universal Credit)

[aufaniae]

Do you work part-time and get Working Tax Credit or Housing Benefit?

Did you know that once you're on Universal Credit, you'll be expected to attend the Job Centre to prove that you're looking for better paid work / more hours, in much the same way as unemployed people must prove they're looking for work.

If the Job Centre find an interview for you, you will have to attend (with 48 hours notice) even if it clashes with your paid work.

If you are offered a job with more hours, or better pay than your current one, you will be obliged to take it, even if you have good reason for not wanting to e.g. it's only a temporary post (whereas your current one is permanent) / has no training & worse prospects than your current job / makes picking your children up from school impossible / requires you to travel much further / has nothing to do with the career you're following.

If you don't attend the interview and/or take the job, your UC will be sanctioned, you will lose the UC for months or even years (depending on if it's your first infraction).

You will be forced to continue "upgrading" your job until you earn the equivalent of minimum wage for 35 hours a week.

I suspect there are lots of people (e.g. parents who work part time so they can pick their kids up from school) who will be affected by this, but don't realise it yet.

More info here

I just wonder what the generation of children raised by external childcarers looks like. Because that is what we are talking about here, a whole generation of children raised by nursery workers and childminders.

Also lets say goodbye to massive voluntary sector that helps
Pick up the slack for the elderly/sick/disabled our communities. Not all SAHM aren't contributors in society. I don't know how many parents will be left going in to help the children with reading in schools now, how many people will be able to find the time to volunteer in soup kitchens or youth groups. So much for BIG society.

Wy should I leave my children and work long hours to pay for them, pay taxes and contribute to a system so that people like Antipag can spend time with theirs? This has been the flaw in the system which, I hope,is being addressed. Yes, you might have to travel, pay childcare, cut down on time with children but, that is the price you have to pay for having a family that depends on YOU. Your family's needs and your wish to stay at home should not necessitate other taxpayers funding it. You are not in genuine NEED - sick, desperate, disabled, you just prefer to be at home with your children.
I suspect there will be a lot of problems with the system to start with but, ultimately, work will be rewarded more highly than not working and parents will begin to take responsibility for their own children. I read that something is being done to address the cost of childcare, which will help even more.

And "they" don't take. Money taken from taxes and contributors is spent on benefits and the cost of running the state. Fewer people contributing (ie working cash in hand or not working) means the cost to the rest of us goes up.

"But I don't see why the working woman has to fund women who have chosen to stay at home with their children. Yes they can stay at home if they can afford to. If they can't then why don't they get a job like everyone else has to that can't afford to stay at home."

If you are outraged that there are couples where both are working, but still need state top-ups, then it's worth bearing in mind that the price of rent is astronomical in this country, and that's where a good deal of benefits if going. A good place to start would be to do something about the extortionate price of rent in this country, rather than blaming the individuals struggling to pay it. (A program of building council housing would be a good start as it would be an investment for the tax payer, and also bring down rents in the private sector through simple supply and demand).

Also, have you not noticed we're in a recession? It's very easy to say people should just go out and get a job "like everyone else" but the reality is the jobs aren't there.

Lastly, Tax Credits were brought in to help bridge the gap between benefits and working so that people weren't caught in the poverty trap, it was an incentive to get back to work. They can be seen as propping up employers low wages however. The Tories also claim to be trying to making work pay (with stick rather than carrot!) but the reality is this still won't be true for everyone, and the poorest will get poorer under their plans. Perhaps the problem here is low wages, not the individuals earning them?!

According to Pickles link, that says that the carers element is just over £144 a month....that's £36 a week, LESS than what carers get now.

I am so very saddened by the attitudes of some people on jere.

Horrified by the fuck you and yours attituude that seeps out of some posters.

I do hope you never fall from grace. It's only one step behind you...

Damn iPhone. 'here'. Not jere .

What a sneaky way of getting part-time workers to stop claiming tax credits.

The obvious way to get more people into full-time work is to make more full time work available - through investing in infra-structure projects - most economists think this is the way to get the national debt down. Big businesses don't want a high level of employment though, because the workforce becomes more confident to ask for better pay and conditions. So, the govenment manages to please the few who have stakes in big businesses and reduce the welfare state.

I have already said I am more than prepared to return to work and frankly if there were part time work available that topped up our income enough to balance out he need for reliance on HB and TC I would take
It, but where i live there are very few jobs at all, let alone part time ones. And the UC is set to decrease part time work yet further. And again Rose, who is going to pay for the resuction in volunteers. Currently I help children read in local schools three days a week and volunteer in a
Youth centre on a Friday night. Those are valuable contributions to society as whole, ones that the state will have to find additional funds to pay for when the people that do it currently all return to full time work. I suffer from an autoimmune condition that seriously affects my health, currently I am a poor prospect for an employer, despite being university educated with a further 4 years in further qualifications. I am
not a person that doesn't contribute and I am not a person that believes I am entitled. I am also not a person who believes that a whole generation of people raised by nurseries and childminders is good. I think there are othr, better ways to reorganise the benefits system.

"I just wonder what the generation of children raised by external childcarers looks like. Because that is what we are talking about here, a whole generation of children raised by nursery workers and childminders"

I doubt it has any effet at all, children in pre school care wont recall if it was mum or nursery that looked after them as they are tiny and at 5 they go to school anyway. School or childcarers do not raise children, they are simply looked after by them and educated. It also teaches children a good work ethic in the hope that they will not chose to rely on benefits to fund their lifestyle choice.

Being a SAHP is a luxury and not one that should be provided by the state. This thread itself shows why things need to change. People see it as their right not to work and believe the state should pay for that choice. Obstacles like childcare costs etc should be thought of before having children. Moaning that the government are mean and nasty for expecting you to work is sheer madness and the reason policies are changing in the first place. Thousands manage work and raise families so its not impossible in any shape or form.

Why is the price of rent astronimical. Because it is kept high by subsidies. The same goes for house prices. We have struggled at times and I think benefits should be there as a safety net for people who lose their jobs and fall on hard times. But not as a top up to let people make choices to be a stay at home parent or work less hours because they choose to. I agree with tax breaks for working parents. The system needed an overhaul.

Antipag, UC wont reduce part time work as students and those who dont claim state benefits will still want to work part time. Plenty of people do without state help already.

Volunteers will still be there, lots of SAHPs arent funded by the state so will be free so work or not and many already are likely to be doing volunteering work. There is only one volunteer at our school who is not in employment ad retured, the rest volunteer around the working hours.

So if not childminders who is raising my children if both DH and I are working or travelling to work during the children's waking hours? As I have stated previously our financial situation was very different when we decided to have children. I don't think The attitudes here are about SAHM saying they don't want to work but that there has to be a work life balance somewhere when you are raising small children. It is obviously a very different argument if all the children are at school full time. I don't know how people see this as a black and white issue. The cost of living is markedly different where we live to say, Yorkshire, and yet the only benefit that makes allowance for that is housing benefit. I guarantee under this UC system child poverty will increase with in five years.

cricketballs "if that's what it takes then you have to do it; we did and yes it was tough and there were times when I forgot what dh looked like but if we hadn't have done it we wouldn't have been able to eat."

That's very sad, and you should not have to live like that in first world country.

Yes of course on an individual level people have to do what they can to survive, but you shouldn't be accepting that this is the case as it doesn't need to be like this.

This government are steering us into the deepest recession for decades. We're in a triple dip recession right now. What are they doing to get the economy going? Nothing as far as I can see. These changes are not about saving money, they are ideological. Many of the "cuts" they're bringing in will actually cost the tax payer more money, particularly with the state having to take up caring commitments that people will no longer be able to keep up after all the changes.

While people point the finger at each other and say "well you should be working harder" the rich are getting richer with property portfolios based on extortionate rents, and shares in companies which take increasing amounts of money from us each which way we turn.

Can't you see we're getting screwed here? It's the government's job IMO to come up with creative, positive solutions which benefit everyone. But this government is implementing policies which will benefit big business and the rich at the expense of everyone else.

I think it would have been more sensible to have the age raised to five when people would be expected sign on at jobcentres. I thought that was the rule at the moment.

Of course UC will affect part time work. The pool of people not reliant on any benefit and students is a finite pool. And all the mums who volunteer at my school apart from one who works part time (although under the UC she will now be looking for FT employment) are SAHM. I don't know about where you live but we struggle to find volunteers for any social project in our town, there is no way that this will help that situation.

tories are wrecking this country, all these cut backs and yet the defict is getting bigger and out lives are getting worse

Of course UC will affect part time work. The pool of people not reliant on any benefit and students is a finite pool. And all the mums who volunteer at my school apart from one who works part time (although under the UC she will now be looking for FT employment) are SAHM. I don't know about where you live but we struggle to find volunteers for any social project in our town, there is no way that this will help that situation.

Oh that sounds as if I want five year olds to be signing on at Jobcentres. Better not give the Tories any more ideas.

some new Carers who will not qualify for Universal Credit may decide that staying at home caring for their disabled relative 100 plus hours a week for the sum of £58 is a "luxury " that they cannot afford if they have children.

moleprom the Carers element of Universal Credit is not the same as Carers Allowance. Carers Allowance will still exist, it will remain outside the UNiversal Credit and the £58 a week it consists of will not be means tested.

SAHM's often do contribute to the economy as they are available to do unpaid caring/childminding and voluntary work.

And I look after my DC's myself which incurs no cost to the state.

Sorry, I meant to say I'm a SAHM.

No sick pay for me either.

Thanks choccoluvva.

I am sick of the rhetoric that SAHM don't contribute to society. Or that we are teaching our children that they don't have to work. It simply isn't true.

It worries me

I am disabled
I work as fulltime as I can manage, self-employed, but 'earn' very little
I employ between 8 & 12 people (depending upon the time of year)

I cannot make my job more profitable for me, as my health precludes me from working more hours so will I be forced to take employed work? & if I am my team will all be unemployed, which is a very negative solution

"Why is the price of rent astronimical"

A significant factor is because of the sell-off of council housing in the 80s, coupled with the councils being prohibited from reinvesting that money in new housing.

Housing benefit does indeed subsidise the housing sector - it's a massive transfer of public money into private hands.

Now, one way to get this bill down would be to force people into cheaper areas, and smaller properties, "fine" them for living in properties deemed to be too big for them (even if they need an extra bedroom for medical reasons and/or there are no smaller properties to move into) and generally put policies in place which are likely to make people homeless. This is what the government is doing. However this is short-sighted, immoral IMO, will lead to suffering, and although the HB bill may go down it will cost us in other ways. For a start, breaking up communities and family ties in this way means the state will have to shoulder the burden of informal caring and volunteering that people did in their communities. Homeless people cost the state more money (emergency accommodation costs, associated health costs, children in insecure accommodation doing badly at school (this is well documented) meaning they have worse prospects and will eventually pay less tax as adults etc).

A better solution would be to do something positive, aimed at bettering conditions. A large programe of building council housing would be great for example. It would be an investment for the tax-payer, it would create jobs, boost the economy, provide genuinely affordable homes, save a huge amount of public money which is currently being transfered to private LLs and also drive down the rents in the private sector by simple supply and demand. It would benefit all of us - except the landlords!