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

Mouth cow- if it cost the same to send full time as half day at nursery, then surely someone can work full time hours for a profit

Only if full time work is available. That's the worry isn't it? Where is all this work going to come from?

Are average wages not coming down in terms of spending power due to a combination of inflation and people having to accept pay cuts, pay freezes or hours cut to avoid redundancy.

Yes, though not the hours cuts as NMW is compared as an hourly rate.

That bit about NMW increasing less than inflation - I only WISH my salary would increase AT ALL!

Yh, my poor sister has been getting increased responsibility and reduced pay for the past 3 years now. This should have been the meteoric stage of her career, but spending cuts have messed up the equation for her.

The thing about NMW is that it's already 40% below the minimum needed to live, which was evaluated at £10ph more than a year ago. As prices continue to go up, this gap between the MW and what a worker needs to buy with it will widen unless the NMW is kept in line with inflation. So your cleaners, nursery assistants &co will be getting poorer and poorer in real terms. They will be expected to ask for increased hours at shite wages, facing government interference and sanctions for not earning half the minimum they'd need to live on.

This is why the Telegraph reported 2 million people would be better off not working under Universal Credit, compared to the 1 million Cameron says will be better off working. If the real value of the NMW sinks even lower, that 2 million will go up sharpish. Possibly eroding all of Cameron's 1 million.

If the government tries to make an even more miserly NMW attractive by cutting welfare much below the levels needed to live on, it's likely to start attracting adverse attention internationally.

It's an insane project, whichever way you look at it. There's no real incentive for low earners to work, only punishments if they don't. Sticks without carrots have never been effective in national policy, often ending with something of a bloodbath. And it's costing us £ billions!

if you are WORKING, and still need to claim UC, you will have 1.5 times your housing costs deducted from your award

Don't understand that garlic.

What, the housing costs or my long bit about minimum wage?

Housing costs came from CouthyMow. Linky?

Ok Couthy, have had a quick google and I think this 1.5 x housing cost is an amount used in calculating the income floor for any earnings disregard. My brain's too fried to take this further, but looks like it's not an actual deduction more of a safety net. An impossibly complicated one, of course.

Also found mortgage interest will also be eligible for UC under similar rules to current HB rules.

Did you know you will be taxed 65p in the pound for your 'additional' earnings while still on benefits?

What comes under additional earnings?

janey68

"it's easy to see that some mums feel entitled to have the pre school years at home, or to have a job which enables them to do school drops and pick ups,"

"The welfare state has become unrecognisable from what was intended"

Where are you getting these ideas from?!

When the welfare state was brought in, the norm was for men to work, and mothers to stay at home with the kids. The man alone was expected to earn a living wage, enough to support the whole family. The idea then, that both parents should be expected to work full-time to support a family, while paying for someone to look after the kids would have been seen as completely ridiculous!

The women's movement was meant to be used to give women the same rights as men. The idea was never to turn all of us into wage slaves in this way.

If people are having to have state top-ups in order to afford to have DCs, despite one parent working full time and the other part-time, then that is an absolute scandal. However the scandal is the low wages, and the high cost of living, NOT the parents wanting to have DCs.

This is a first world country FFS! Please, for goodness sake, open your eyes. It should not be unreasonable for ordinary working families to want to have DCs and have one parent at home at least part of the time. This should not be seen as a luxury!

Please don't blame people for wanting to have DCs. instead ask yourself, why is it like this? And what could a government be doing to change it?

Because, what this government is doing now will drive us further down this road. Life will get tougher for all of us, except the ultra-rich, who are benefitting at our expense.

You get an earnings disregard. That's the amount you're allowed to earn without losing any benefits. For every pound you earn past the disregard, you lose 65p.

The calculator somebody linked above works out your disregard.
policyinpractice.co.uk/delivery/universal-credit-calculator/

Don't take all its figures as accurate, btw, it has flaws and the laws are still being made/changed.

Very well said, aufaniae.

Aufanie- you are suggesting that it's a good thing for men to go to work and women stay at home?

65p less UC, 65% income tax or both?

I'd like to answer that one, too, janey!

The point is that the Welfare system was designed to make sure that every British family could live decently, children included, on one income.

Women's lib was meant to liberate men as well as women - when women's rights and earnings were the same as men's, families could choose which parent would be the income earner or split the responsibilities between them.

It was not meant to make life so expensive that people couldn't afford to have only one income, or to have children.

So when you say the welfare system was never designed to support SAHPs, you are in fact wrong.

I dunno, laxy, use the calculator I'm tired...

Janey's posts on here are really good- exactly what I would want to say.

I didnt say the welfare system was never designed to support SAHM. Though in fact I don't think a primary aim was ever to support SAHM - rather, that was the societal norm when the welfare state was set up. Societal Norms have now progressed, and women and men aren't polarised into 'stay at home' or 'earn' - thank goodness.

The arguments about costs of living and whether it's desirable to be able to live as a family on one income are an entirely different argument. But personally I am glad women aren't pigeonholed into SAHM any more- or that men aren't pigeonholed into 'sole earner'

missing point, janey.

societal norm was 1 income. system designed to fit societal norm. ergo, system designed to to support SAHP. gender irrelevant.

UC will be designed for one member of the household to work 35 hours. It can be split, if they so wish.

I do think that if that wage is NMW then the requirement for one to work 35 hours, and at a certain point the other 24 is harsh tbh. I didn't realise this when I came to the thread.

Every pound earned above NMW means less hours for the second earner but I feel for people who can only get NMW jobs in these circumstances.

Yes, that was the societal norm, for families to be able to live on one income. . It does not therefore automatically follow that the welfare state 'intended' women to not work- simply that it was based on the norms of that time, when there were no nurseries, child minders, no access
To many professions or higher education for women etc

The Argument about living costs ( and in particular housing costs) being ridiculously high in the UK is one thing. To extrapolate from that, that women somehow 'ought' to be able to not work when they have children is something else! Very many couples nowadays do not feel that there is any reason why the mother more than the father ( or indeed, either,) should stay at home beyond maternity leave. Which leads onto the legislation about making parental leave transferable between mum and dad - hooray, about time!

Being somewhat older I can remember talk of a 'mans wage' and iirc married men were taxed very little back in the 50's, making it feasible that women stayed at home to look after the children. Back in those days, ordinary families didn't want foreign holidays and two cars etc. Foreign travel was out of their reach. I do realise it was relatively costly then and has come down in price since.

Just pointing out in my last post that things have changed,, since the welfare state was set up. The 60's happened, women wanted equal pay and rights and people wanted a better life. In case someone accuses me of thinking ordinary people should have foreign holidays. I love mine .

Arghh! 'shouldn't have not should'

What I don't understand is the belief that families can't live on one wage any more. Our income with Tax credits and CB is around £21000 and we pay our mortgage (£600ish) and bills, food etc and still put £75 a month in savings.
My DB is a teacher and earns £24000 plenty to live our lifestyle and some extra treats.
Is the problem really that people aren't prepared to live within their means.

It's not just about people wanting more material goods either.
Let's not sugar coat those 1940s, 50s and 60s when many women were deeply frustrated about the lack of choice and control over their own lives. Yes, they may have been able to live on their husbands income (albeit it a very frugal life compared to people's expectations nowadays) . But there must have been many depressed women, unable to realise their aspirations and potential.

I think the argument about living costs is one thing. To hark back to the introduction of the welfare state as some halcyon age because families could survive on one income is disingenuous in the extreme.