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

[NorthernLurker]

No Lou. Breakfast clube etc is only provided patchily still and it costs. You know how much it costs! It's not an option for every earner.

[Alittlestranger]

The principle of this is correct but the DWP hasn't decided any of the rules yet. Most of the original OP is just speculation.

If you're pissed off, write to your MP, explain to them why it's crazy.

[Roseformeplease]

Thank goodness I am not alone. I was finding this thread rather a lonely one last night.

Yes, you can travel from Norfolk. Many people commute 4 hours plus per day. Or you move, you make do, you rent a room short term until you can move your family.

Yes, you get a 2nd job, pay for wrap around childcare. Sorry, the state can't subsidise you to care for parents. I was working and saw little of my Dad in his final years. That is very, very tough but he would have shot me had I given up work to care for him - he too was ploughing his own furrow.

The minimum wage, in fact, has cost jobs. We used to run a small business (hotel) and it went up year, on year meaning we had to do with fewer staff, do more ourselves or tighten our belts elsewhere (food costs, etc). Where we might have been able to employ more people, we just had to work the ones we had (and ourselves, unpaid, in debt) a little harder. The reality is that one of the ways out of mass unemployment is through small businesses but people are so entitled now. The want the business to run around their needs: you do have to work evenings, weekends, nights, during school hours, after school hours - just whatever gets you the cash to provide for you and yours.

Someone mentioned being relieved at moving to the USA. Now that is a system without a genuine safety net - we are a long, long way from that and yet people complain.

[expatinscotland]

The US does have a welfare system, including providing healthcare for children - even in very conservative states like Texas.

And a minimum wage! AND, you can sue your employers for exploitation.

Most states, too, don't tax the living hell out of you, either.

[expatinscotland]

81p/litre of petrol (whose price affects the price of food and public transport). And set to rise! Way to go, Tories! You're all about fucking 'hardworking' anyone.

[expatinscotland]

'Surely the vast majority of schools have breakfast and after school clubs nowadays?'

Hhaahaaahahaahahaahhaaaa!!!

[noddyholder]

What sort of a country are we living in when we are suggesting commuting 4 hours living in rooms away from home and working all the hours god sends just to exist? Life is passing people by andit is precious and short.

[Fairylea]

None of the schools in my area have breakfast or after school clubs.

The nurseries are shocking despite being labelled outstanding. I wrote a recent thread about one I went to visit. I reported it to ofsted.

If I travelled from Norfolk to London (a 2 hour commute each way) where am I supposed to find childcare from 6.30am to 7pm roughly everyday. Just playing devils advocate here.

Am I supposed to completely unsettle my child between several forms of childcare and an ever increasing ratio of workers at nursery just because the government makes a minimum wage unliveable?

I thought the conservatives were supposed to support families. Well they aren't.

[treaclesoda]

the state can't subsidise caring for elderly parents?

People who care for elderly parents are subsidising the state not the other way round. If everyone lot their elderly relatives to rely on state care, the system would collapse. And that's leaving aside the human misery aspect of having hundreds of thousands of elderly people lonely, isolated and relying on poorly motivated 'carers' for their only human contact.

[5dcsinneedofacleaner]

From what I can see reading around this morning if they bring this in our company is going to be in serious trouble in fact on the point of closure. We would be expected to look for other work while working on projects (as they take longer than a month so we have a few months of no income - as far as I can figure even if we are living off a lump sum from 2/3 months before they count this as no income for the next 2 months?).

You cannot run a company full time while doing another job presumably also full time or faffing around going to interviews etc?!

We employ three other people part time who would also presumably be running off attending interviews - how the hell is that going to work.

[aufaniae]

"Like so many other changes that this government has introduced, it's my distinct impression that nobody has thought through the full implications."

I think you're spot on. This government is governing by faith (in their ideologies), certainly not evidence based policies.

What will happen to the people who have had their UC stopped for 3 years? What will happen to the children whose parents have lost their benefits? What are they supposed to do? Many will be made homeless and/or destitute if they go ahead with imposing sanctions. Dark times

[forevergreek]

I think it's a good idea. We have two preschool age and work over 110 hours a week between us. it's what you do. If you don't have enough hours find more, search for more, ask for more. Some hours they are in childcare, some we over lap between us so someone's at home, some we work when they sleep. 1-3pm and 7pm-midnight 7 days a week gives us 49hours to work without any childcare.

People with school age surely have 9-3 free ( say 5 hours to allow to getting to and from work or home). So that's 25hrs a week.
If a lone parent works from home 7pm-midnight 7 days that's 30hrs.

55hrs a lone parent could work with no childcare if they found something suitable.

I know where I work is looking for 3 people all at 45 hours a week. It's double/ triple min wage minimum ( more for certain positions) and no one has applied. You have to be in the office some time in the week ( say 20hrs) but the rest could and is allowed to be done at home easily. Work is out there, yet why aren't people taking it.

[aufaniae]

forevergreek you reckon lone parents should be working 55 hours a week?!

"Work is out there, yet why aren't people taking it." I have no idea what your company is doing wrong in advertising that job, but it's absolutely untrue that work is out there but people are choosing not to take it. We are in a recession and there are many fewer jobs than applicants.

Your maths isn't great either. If school is 9:00 to 3:30, and they have to travel half an hour then they can't start at 9:30. But a half an hour journey to work is rare if you work somewhere like London (where the jobs are!). If you have to travel say an hour and a half a day to your job then those hours are considerable lower. Then factor in 4 children (perhaps triplets as the poster above stated) at 3 different schools because of age and one with SN. Can you see now how it's starting to get very difficult?

[DreamingOfTheMaldives]

Where is this job based forevergeek and what are they doing, particularly the one at triple minimum wage? Genuine question as I'm looking for jobs at the moment. Being able to work from home part time would be great as I'm currently self employed working from home and my PFDog is used to having me around!

I'm amazed that no one has applied. All jobs I see advertised on Reed etc have shed loads of applicants

[Mosman]

We can all think of a million reasons why people shouldn't/cannot work, how about we start assuming that they aren't incapable and go forward from that stance ? Most of the reason are pie in the sky for the majority of people - how many do we all really know with triplets for example ?
The incentive - 80% childcare costs, sure start, free college courses they all failed so what are peoples solutions for certain sections of society to get them back to work ?

[dikkertjedap]

Rose they way I look at it, in current society it only matters that the rich can get richer and remain as indignant and self-entitled as they always have been and the rest can go to hell.

There is no integrity left anywhere, not in politics, not in many businesses (most notably but not solely the financial sector), not in sport (look at all the doping scandals), it is a society without a moral compass who likes to trample on those who have the least. It is a society which consists of the self-entitled grabbers and the rest who have to pay the price.

[redbobblehat]

i'm not sure about this, because on one hand i do know several people who could work more hours, and one person even said why work fulltime when you can work part time and get the same money as working fulltime
which does seem strange the system allows people to do this, only work say two days per week when your perfectly able to say work five

but it seems highly unfair people that have children that have certain needs are being crewed over again

so when will this begin then?

[Jinsei]

I do a lot of recruitment in my job. Can't think of a single vacancy in the last couple of years for which we haven't had at least 50 applicants. Sometimes we get 150+.

It's all very well saying that there are jobs out there. Of course there are jobs. But there are more people out there competing for those jobs than there are jobs available. The maths is quite simple.

[Alittlestranger]

Forevergeek your post depresses me. It's exactly this kind of hair shirted attitude that allows the Tories to plough through with this crap. Why are you not outraged that you and your partner have to work so many hours between you? Why no focus on getting better paid work and up-skilling people so that they don't have to work longer hours? There's no sense here, no strategy, it's just playing people like you off against your neighbours.

Turning the clock back 100 years should not be a sign of progress but that's exactly where we are heading.

And Mosman these people are in work, they're just not working hard enough according to the govt. They're using the childcare costs, the SureStart ett, just not for 37.5 hours a week.

[CloudsAndTrees]

People who care for elderly parents are subsidising the state not the other way round.

That there is a perfect example of completely the wrong attitude. Why shouldn't people have to expect to care for their elderly relatives in the way they expect to care for their young children?

I appreciate that people will need practical support to work at the same time as caring for elderly relatives, but they need support to care for young children too. No one is denying that that support should be available from government, it absolutely should be available in a civilised society. But there is a difference between support and having the job done entirely for you.

I don't think any of these measures (apart from those that negatively affect disabled people) are anything that plenty of people aren't already living with. Lots of single parents already work school hours. Lots of families with children already have two parents working full time.

If, and I realise it's a big if, access to childcare is improved, and if support for childcare costs is available, then I really can't see the problem with expecting people to work to support themselves rather than relying on the state. These measures will affect a lot of people, but not in a way that lots of people aren't already living with.

[expatinscotland]

'I know where I work is looking for 3 people all at 45 hours a week. It's double/ triple min wage minimum ( more for certain positions) and no one has applied. You have to be in the office some time in the week ( say 20hrs) but the rest could and is allowed to be done at home easily. Work is out there, yet why aren't people taking it.'

Where is this? What skill set is needed?

[MoreBeta]

As usual this Coalition has made a dogs breakfast of what is actually a very good idea called Universal Benefit (UB) and instead bastardised the idea into something called Universal Credit (UC).

The UB is a well regarded academic/economic idea that has been around for many years. The crucial feature of UB is everyone gets it whether rich or poor, on work or unemployed or retired. It replaces all benefits and is the bare minimum amount someone needs to live on. Like family allowance, free state education, the NHS it is accepted widely by the population as an entitlement that underpins a fair society AND simple to administer. It would be paid for by removing the tax free personal allowance, capital gains tax allowance and savings made in the tax/benefit system from lower admin and fraud.

The Universal Credit on the other hand is means tested, requires armies of people to monitor and administer it and is in effect a subsidy to employers who can pay less than the market rate for employees because the state tops up pay via UC.

A UB would mean no one had to take a job but if they did the employer would have to pay them enough to get them out of bed. In fact wages would rise and employers would have to offer contracts and hours of work that the employees found acceptable. Zero hours contracts would disappear.

I believe Ian Duncan Smith talked about UB in the past but what we got was UC. It really is a disaster in all sorts of ways and isn't even good economics.

[forevergreek]

London based, design/ programming profession ( these are graduate jobs), but the news states that x % of graduates can't find work etc .

I'm not saying 55hrs should be worked by a lone parent, I'm saying it's possible. Therefore it's possible to work the 24hrs required.

A nanny would be my answer for triplets plus one. Around £12per hr gross in London will cover all 4, ( £3 each). Min wage is £6.19. Someone with 4 children at work as specified. Could work 9.00am-5.00pm earning £49.52 a day. -£24 childcare = £25.52 profit a day. They could work 3 days therefore getting min 24hrs work at £75 profit, and will still receive benefits ontop as meeting the requirements. It's not going to be money growing off trees but it's not working at a loss and is a contribution to family funds. Over time hopefully they wages will increase. Even better they may start off over the min wage.

[expatinscotland]

'Turning the clock back 100 years should not be a sign of progress but that's exactly where we are heading.'

Too right!

[expatinscotland]

'London based, design/ programming profession ( these are graduate jobs), but the news states that x % of graduates can't find work etc .'

Of course! I'll apply today, since I had no experience of design or programming!

C'mon, everyone, let's all flood into London at once.