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

It does not therefore automatically follow that the welfare state 'intended' women to not work

Nobody said that! Where are you getting this from??!

It was taken for granted earner would be a man. Gender now irrelevant. Does NOT alter principle of one income per family.

Gah!

Calander people are referring to living on one wage WITHOUT the top of tax credits. Personally I'd feel rich with 21k but I'm incredibly lucky to live in an area where rent for even a small property approaches if not exceeds 1k. BTW with UC you will be penalised for being successful at saving.

Calender your DH is on a reasonable wage as opposed to NMW or just above which are the ones that UC will affect the most.

What I am saying is yes we need tax credits to top us up, but that there are jobs for example teaching as I know what my DB earns ( more than us with tax credits etc) that make it easily possible to live on one wage. Therefore living on one wage without any benefits is not an impossibility.

For the record DH is on £15,500 about £8 per hr. I know we are not on NMW but I am trying to point out that there are better paid jobs that allow SAHP to exist without help.

And that that wage doesn't need to be earned from a massively high powered job.

Garlic- maybe I wasnt explaining my pov clearly.
Ok- gender irrelevant. But my point is, the welfare state was only set up on the principle that families would be able to manage on one income, because that was the societal norm. If nurseries, childminders etc had been around in the 1940s, and if women had had equal access to higher education and professions, then the welfare state would have been founded on THAT societal norm.

In other words, I don't think saying 'but the welfare state was based on one earner' cuts any ice at all. Times were very different then. In some people's view that might be better, but in others it would be worse.

It's all very well having some rose tinted view that it would be lovely for every family to be able to live on one income. But if that meant having to live really frugally- I mean, not just doing without waitrose and foreign holidays, but real scarcity of opportunity as it meant in the 1940s - very low aspirations for many people, living a very narrow life .... How many people really want that?

Not if that wage is NMW calander. Not everybody is capable of being a teacher. Even if they were there wouldn't be enough jobs to go around.

Actually scrub that, already there aren't enough jobs to go around.

Just used the calculator. ...no charge from what I currently get....just under £1000 pm but its high due to DS disability and includes housing costs. Still less than I earned in work so yes....would still be financially better off in work.

Fair enough. I am just trying to point out that it is not going to force everyone into fulltime work really. In fact nobody is as the 35 is not full time is it? When I worked full time it was 37.5 hours I thought this was standard.
Also I'm not having a go, when we were first married we were on JSA and were only entitled to 1 lot of £50 ish a fortnigt as we lived rent free in a friends house whilst they were away and I hadn't made enough contributions. So I have been really desperatly poor thankfully without children and I have no wish to go back there.

having to live really frugally ... very low aspirations for many people, living a very narrow life

Janey, I already do. Like everyone else who is benefit dependent. And I'm about to get a whole lot poorer. As the OP says, those who bumble along taking tax credits for granted, and maybe getting HB, don't know what they're in for. The victimisation/punishment campaign is becoming a great deal more inclusive.

And it's based on extremely false premises about 'entitlement' and what the welfare state was 'never intended' to provide. Aufania has explained all this extremely clearly, perhaps you would revisit her posts if you have time? I believe I see what you're saying, but am too exhausted to try and show you why your thinking is incredibly woolly on this. Not meaning to be rude, I'm just knackered.

Calander it's not just the hours that are relevant. A couple must earn £425 between them or to continue to receive UC. That is the equivalent of an hourly rate of £11.33 per hour for one person working 37.5 hours per week. Well above NMW. Any couple with only one working who earns less than £11.33 per hour will have a choice. No top up at all or the non working person must sign on, actively seek work and accept any job offered.

have just seen this on the DWP website

"Universal Credit will be rolled out from October 2013 with approximately 12 to 13 million tax credit and benefit claims transformed into eight million Universal Credit payments."

am I reading this right...what the hell happens to the 4 to 5 million tax credits and benefit claims are they not getting UC???

this was under the "notes to editor" line www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/

janey68 spectacularly missing the point there!

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

Of course not, don't be silly.

I was addressing this "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"

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

... by pointing out that the welfare state was indeed designed to be there to support one parent working, and one looking after the kids. (Whether that parent is male or female is neither here nor there by modern standards).

My point is that what is expected of a family in terms of work hours, in order to have the absolute basics (housing, warmth, food, clothing, education) is more now than it was in the 1940s.

We should be asking why that is? We're being royally screwed here, but some of you seem intent on blaming it on the people who are being screwed the most!

Yes but also from what I've read only the basic element is sanctioned the child and housing elements are not, therefore if you are currently claiming tax credits and housing benefit not JSA sanctions won't affect your income. If you are already claiming JSA then sanctions can already be applied. The more I look into this the less worried I am to be petfectly honest.

BTW all this knocks the million plus threads on mn about someone on 60k losing child benefit into a hat doesnt it

Some woman had a very nice life in the 1950's and 1960's. Even people whose husbands earned a modest wage could afford to live fairly comfortably for the standards of the day on one wage. But a lot of people rented. And many people didn't own cars and go foreign holidays. Expectations have gone up greatly. Rightly or wrongly that is a fact.

Hello, have just rejoined the thread. Am really chuffed to see it is still going, 800 + posts and we are talking politics. This is so much more interesting than reading the right hand column on the daily mail website!!! Anyway, as I am still ill I read a fabulous book today which is simple but basically explains why we are in the mess we are in. It's called beyond outrage by Robert Reich. He explains everything so well, and aufanaie he talks specifically about women going out to work, and how this allowed for a drop in wages and living standards.

Yes :(

Aufenie and garlic- I am not actually arguing whether it's 'better' or 'right' for the societal norm to be one parent at home, able to do school drop off etc, or not.

The welfare state was indeed set up within the societal norm of one parent working. That doesn't mean that social construct is 'best' . As I say, if the societal norm back then had been that nurseries and childminders existed and women had the same educational and career opportunities and aspirations as they do in 2013, the welfare state would have been established within that norm. You can't cherry pick! You can't say, oooh let's have the welfare state as it was in 1940s but without any of the social context which existed then! Many of the social constructs back then were extremely limiting and damaging to women- lack of opportunities etc- personally I am very glad that despite the dire state of the economy and the mess ups of successive govts, we at least live in a society that doesnt force women into stay

Oops staying at home and not even having access to many decent jobs

Whaaaat, Janey?
Right.
So you are NOT now saying the welfare state wasn't intended to support single-income families (which is what you did say, iirc)?
What are you saying??
It looks like "Them uppity women wanted jobs, so we changed society for them and they have to pay for it!"
Can't be that, can it?

You can't say, oooh let's have the welfare state as it was in 1940s but without any of the social context which existed then!

Yes, we can. We can say we want every British family to be able to live a healthy, safe and satisfying life on one income.

Why the hell not? Oh ...

Many of the social constructs back then were extremely limiting and damaging to women- lack of opportunities etc

... er, and? What's the relevance?

Has your evidently shaky knowledge of social history given you the impression that women's liberation cost the country money?

It didn't.

HTH.

"doesnt force women into staying at home janey68?"

I can imagine for you the very idea of staying at home with your kids would fill you with horror

do you know there are actually women who cut their lifestyle right back to the bone to stay at home and raise their kids themselves?

and I dont just mean the ones married to dentists, I mean ordinary women who live a very meagre life, just so they can take their kids to school and back and be there during the school holidays

I get tax credits, if they are taken away I'll cut back some more, I want to raise my kids with dp, not send them to someone else

isnt that radical?

Viviennemary

I totally agree that expectations have increased enormously.
My dad was an draughtsman and a very skilled engineer. My mum sah. He didn't have a car until his 30's and there was never a second car. You cycled to work, no foreign holidays and you lived within your means.
They struggled during those early years together, as many do today, starting off with nothing.
We are all so entitled now. A sahp should be entitled to do this, without feeling presurised to go to work. A wohp should have the choice to work but why be entitled to help with childcare costs to the detriment of people unable to work, the unemplyed, the disabled, the carers. These people are seeing their benefit which they rely upon dwindle away, whilst the entitled moan about their 20k + salaries.
Yes fine, I take the tax credit as a very low income family and we manage quite well. If this stops though I can hardly moan about my lot, when there are people worse off. It still wouldn't make me wohm because I don't want to.

Ssd- what an extraordinarily judgemental post to assume that I find the idea of spending time with my children awful! Weird!

I adore my children- as does my husband. It does not ergo, follow that I should necessarily want to not have a job.

Garlic- why not take things Further... Wouldn't it be lovely if all families could live on one person working a 20 hour week. Or a 15 hour week..?

My point is that these things are all societal constructs. Some countries routinely work far longer hours than we do and would find the idea of 37.5 hours a week daft. Some countries have 3 month maternity leave and find a year off weird.

You seem to be getting in a right tizzy over the simple facts I'm p