to think that people with savings don't realise they may not be eligible for ANY Universal Credit

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Universal Credit will be affected by savings over £6000 and if an individual or a couple have savings of £16000 between them they will not be entitled to any Universal Credit. I'm in a full time low paid job and have no pension, but do have savings slightly above £16000 from my inheritance. It wasn't a big safety net for the future especially with current interest rates but I thought it was better than nothing. Now Nothing would actually give me a much better return and I'm going to have to spend it on topping up my income, as I don't think the chance of getting a higher paid job is likely in the foreseeable future.

Its always the same old same old.

When will people realize that earning low wages does not equal workshy?

When? if you haven't claimed anything at all ever in your working life then consider yourself blessed...not bloody clever!

Why should people with savings over £16,000 get benefit. And yet somebody could be on £12,000 a year, with no savings and no pospect of ever buying a house, is paying tax. Insanity!!

'prospect'

How about thinking about them less as scroungers and more as potential organs for your non-donating family?

You are OK with freeloading a system for your own benefit, so it's hard to see what your issue is here.

Bad form AThing. As well as being completely inaccurate.

Feminine Sorry not being snarky but I don't get that message from this thread at all.

Exactly Feminine. I know a widow with three children who works over 40 hours a week, at night so she can still drop her kids of to school and pick them up. She is knackered and hardly ever sleeps, I am worried about her to be honest. She gets WFT, I suppose to some people on here that makes her a scrounger

£16k of savings does not make you filthy rich.
It buys you a new Vauxhaul Zafira or a conservatory. I do not consider that people with Vauxhaul Zafiras or conservatories have 'made it' in life .

IfNot is right. If you are not proper rich you are getting shafted by this government.

"Child tax credits and Working Tax credit were benefits introduced by Labour. It seemed like a good idea at the time but it has just encouraged a culture of low wages and part-time work only offered by companies, knowing it will all be topped up by benefit. It needed to be changed."

Tax credits didn't seem like a good idea at the time. It was obvious they would make it easier for companies to pay low wages.

I agree that they needed to change.

But not by bundling them into this diasastrous, inflexible "universal" credit and pretending they were just regular benefits.

A good place to start might have been raising the NMW.

Rather than leaving people on low wages but taking away the money that has (up to now) made it possible for them to work for so little.

Vivennemary your post doesn't make sense. Someone working full time will still be paying tax won't they. Plus the money came from an inheritance, they didn't save it up.

If it isn't fair that some people get an inheritance and others don't then why don't the government just take everyone's inheritance. Would that make you happy?!

Most people are not saying £16K makes you 'filthy rich' but it makes you able to support yourself for a bit longer than you would if you had fuck all. Some people seem to be deliberately reading what they want.

We had children while renting, as property prices are way too high. If we'd waited any longer we'd have been in our 40's. We still rent. As I said dh is a higher rate tax payer (for now) and we have always worked very hard. I am getting the feeling that you think we are deemed less worthy of help because we rent clouds and weren't 'responsible' enough to buy our own over-priced shoe box before having dc.

Not at all. I think people have to make a choice, and I don't see renting as some terrible thing that has to be suffered. Renting a home is a perfectly normal way to live with as many benefits as there are to owning. I think anyone that has genuine reason for needing help should receive it, I just don't think that tax credits should be available to people who can afford to save up significant amounts of money.

But Clouds, almost no-one these days can afford to buy a house. Say a teacher and a bus driver, working full time, even if they saved for ten years, would still not be able to raise enough of a deposit in most places to get a mortgage.
Buying a house before you have children is a totally unreachable goal for MOST PEOPLE.

I appreciate this, I really do, and like you, I worry for our children. But again, I'm not saying that people shouldn't have children until they have a house/mortgage. I'm saying that people have to make a choice and if people want to rent and have children that's fine. If people want to buy a house that's fine. But don't have children, then claim benefits that go straight into your savings account so that you eventually get to have it all, partly funded by other people.

Child tax credits should not be paid to people who can afford to save money for house deposits.

I was a house owner. I was married and had a child whilst being a home owner. Unfortunately my marriage didn't last and I am now a single parent to a toddler. We sold our house and what little equity we had made was divided equally between me and my husband.

I work part time. My wages just about cover my rent (private - no HB). Then I have to find £500 childcare a month (makes working seem pointless really) as well as all other bills, food etc.

I receive WTC & CTC. I have the equity from my house sale plus other small savings from when I worked full time pre-child.

Each month my out goings and incomings don't stack up and little by little my 'savings' are used up. If my CTC was stopped this would happen much quicker and eventually I would have nothing to show for my hard working pre-benefit life. It's sad. I'm trying to get myself and my son a secure future. I pay more rent then I would on a mortgage but lenders will not lend to me. If I still had a property then I would be able to leave that in my will to my child. I'm unlikely to ever be able to leave my child a nest egg because I'll probably never be in a position where I'll be able to save again.

crashdoll not from this thread -true.

More like a feeling I'm getting from some posts!

Crashdoll, i am just making the point that whether you have a Vauxhaul Zafira, a conservatory or £16k in the bank for a house deposit you are hardly living it up. Yet for the person saving for the house the rug is being pulled.

Has OP been back to this thread? I was hoping she would comment on the links I gave above. Fingers crossed for her that she will be ok to keep getting CTC under UC. I don't know whether I am interpreting the 'transitional protection' information correctly though.

The thing is property, if someone has a Vauxhaul Zafira, they don't need the government to give them a car. If someone has a conservatory, they don't need the government to give them a conservatory. And if they have £16,000 in the bank, they don't need the government to give them money.

So someone with the luxury of a conservatory can have help but not someone that has sensibly tried to save a bit of money to improve their lot in the future?

After two years' unemployment, living on my earnings of around £20k. We are finally applying for tax credits. We have savings, quite a lot of them, but our interest earned is not great, meaning we are eligible for the credit.

I imagine once the shift to the new system happens we will no longer be eligible. But in the meantime, having seen my husband apply for so many jobs without claiming JSA, I feel no scruples about applying for working tax credit. I work, don't earn as much as I used to because of the publishing downturn, but I do work and always have (ten weeks off for each child, but that was all). Why should we be discriminated against because we saved in the good years instead of having holidays and smart cars?

Just make sure you keep it in a fire proof box charlearose!

clouds i just can't agree that the family who have chosen to buy the new Zafira are in any way more deserving or 'in need of' UC then their neighbour who is saving for a house. The policy makes no sense.

It will just be a huge disincentive to save in the 'traditional sense'. People will spend (perhaps on readily realisable assets) and continue to be eligible for UC whilst owning a house moves further away.

A bit of fairness in the system would make me happier. The welfare state is for people in need. Somebody with £16,000 in the bank isn't in need of help from somebody on low wages. This doesn't affect me. But I can see the unfairness of it at the present time.

No wonder there is confusion over benefits. Some people are going to foodbanks and talking about children starving. And others say £16,000 isn't much. In spite of what people say on Mumsnet I read the vast majority of folk are in favour of the changes. I wonder if that statement is right or wrong.