Universal Credit won't be paid in months with 5 weeks. (WTF?) AIBU to think no one realises

[raisinsarenottheonlyfruit]

If you get paid weekly, and there are 5 weeks in a month, in those months your pay will likely go over the Universal Credit limit and your UC will be stopped. You will have to go without that month and apply again.

WTF are they thinking?

Have they never heard of averages FFS? (That's how Tax Credits works). This is going to screw over so many people. It's ludricous.

The people claiming UC aren't any richer that month, they get the same amount of money as if it was paid in 12 monthly chunks.

This will happen to thousands of people every time there's a month with 5 weeks. (I guess they mean 5 Mondays?)

This is farcical.

There's 5 weeks in January, so if you get paid weekly that's you fucked for February.

April, July, October and December also have 5 Mondays.

This is utterly farcical and just plain callous.

That is so utterly bloody stupid and cruel

We'll starve. And get evicted.

It is ironic that the government are constantly banging on about cutting waste, we're all in it together etc. And then intentionally introduce a system that must surely increase the amount of man hours needed to process it, if hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, are having to reapply for their benefits four times a year

My MP is also concerned about this and is trying to make changes.

In theory, UC should work: in practice, it just can't.

This is unbelievable.

They're basically 'scamming' and laughing in the faces of power paid workers?!

speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/universal-credit-pause

I get the minimum of tax credits so I don’t think it will affect me personally too much but i am actually shocked and saddened for the people who will have to struggle with this new system.

It’s effectively putting families into further poverty which will have detrimental consequences for the children involved.

The whole system is utterly sickening.

I suppose there will be a category whose lives are improved by this heinous policy - those who have potential to do well in terms of natural talent, but whose natural tendency is towards laziness so might have opted for an easy life under a kinder system. They will be sufficiently scared of the awfulness of life on UC that they strive harder pull themselves out of poverty.

That's going to be a small minority though compared to those who are already doing the best they can but who need UC to survive - and their suffering is too high a price to pay for improving the lives of the category above.

I work with the people being evicted over this. It’s causing increases in stress, anxiety and other mental health problems meaning people are less capable of finding work. More children are in poverty, the most vulnerable are hit hardest. It makes me sick.

This is disgusting

Surely a government´s job should be to provide a basic level of security and stability for the people it serves. This government´s lack of regard for the impact of constant insecurity on people´s lives is sickening.

This is so completely and utterly nonsensical, cruel, and unjust.

That this hits people on in-work benefits makes a total mockery of their claims to incentivise work. If you are just scrapping by in a job you hate and you are now faced with this it would be utterly despairing.

I always thought the point of a trial was to check that something works. This doesn't and yet the Government still insists on rolling it out.

Someone should tweet a link to this thread to David Gauke (not that he gives a shit)

I would guess that being paid weekly is more common on the lower-waged end of the spectrum. So this is an attack (reckless at best, deliberate at worst) on the working class, on some of the hardest working people in society. And the callous, cynical smugness of that 'you will need to be prepared and budget' beggars belief.

I don't live in the UK, but surely this is something a legal challenge could and should be mounted against? Where I am I am pretty certain that very high courts would put a stop to this policy due to its manifest injustice. But it wouldn't occur to anyone over here to attempt to introduce it.

UC has worked really well for IT contractors.

I can't remember who said it but a report came out against Universal Credit and basically said that the issue was that everyone could agree that being in work should 'pay' and provide enough to live on but instead of sorting out policy to help achieve that goal the government have instead gone to the idea of making benefits punish instead. They make it so horrendous being on benefits of any kind thay people stop applying and then they can go 'oh look, we were right all along and most people didn't need it anyway' and use that to justify even furthee cuts.

Just like they've done with Employment and Support Allowance

UC is a farse it has fucked me over royally, since claiming ive gone 8 weeks with no money (through no fault of my own the people on the phone were even baffled as to why it thought i wasnt entitled when i earn £700 and am a single mum)
Its left me in rent arrears and owing money to my DDs nursery.
On paper it soubds like a better system but in reality it is leaving people in debt.
On top of that my phone bill was £20 more this month from all the time ive spent ringing there stupid premium rate number trying to sort out there fuck ups!

This is awful. I'm fortunate enough to not need it but would happily pay more taxes to help those genuinely in need ie people who cannot work for what ever reason that is or who cannot earn enough to have a decent standard of living.

It's their way of getting rid of ALL help for the unemployed and the vulnerable.

They don't even want dole for people. :(

Workhouses next. You wait.

Im a single mum on tax credits but luckily its not been rolled out in my area yet...im dreading it....

Dobby the six week wait isn't an admin thing, it's not about taking six weeks to set you up on the system. They just deliberately pay in arrears, because that's what employers do (except, as we can see from the diagram, they're aware some employers do pay weekly) and also because it's supposed to be 'responsive' to changing circumstances such as people getting more work one month (eg with five Fridays in it) so they pay less. It's a very deliberate way of screwing over the people who are least in the position to fight back - who the fuck chooses to live hand to mouth on zero hours? Benefits did need to be reformed, but this is barbaric. There's so much money in this country and so much inequality. It's disgusting.

Wow. That is terrible. What can we do to change things? Is it a matter of campaigning and of voting for the party which is more reasonable?

Oh and admin costs. I think admin costs of all this responsiveness are likely to swallow up any savings they make on not letting people feed themselves. It's a punitive measure.

I'm fortunate in many ways but my God the thought of having to rely on this system in a time of need terrifies me.