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.

Well if your calcs are correct Gluteus I am well and truly f'kd!

Its crazy. And it will affect the retail economy. Shops like Peacocks and B and M etc where ppl on a low income tend to shop will notice a drop in footfall.

The tories have form for ill thought out disgusting schemes to rob the poor. Hopefully this will spectacularly back fire on them like the much hated "poll tax" did.

Sorry Sassy, I do think they are right.

I did another calculator today on the same situation and it came out as WTC and CTC on £13,200 full time, one child, single - £443.76 per month, but on UC it will be £201.59.

Over the course of the year, that's just under 3k. So a very similar result.

That is a very large sum to take away from someone.

As I've said before, the Tories were never bothered they lost the House of Lords vote on changes to tax credits, as they knew UC would be coming and would save them far more.

Thanks gluteus for doing some number crunching. I think I have, wrongly, not taken enough notice of this. I think I hadn't realised the impact and as I am not sure when I will be moved over, have no idea of when this will begin to bite, but I guess in another 18mths or so, I am potentially going to start to really struggle. £60-odd a week down will make a lot of difference and not in a good way

I don't think many people realise TBH.

Here's the calculator: www.betteroffcalculator.co.uk/#/calculator/new/step1

I'd just make up the details (i.e date of birth etc) but keep the main details the same (couple/single, number of children).

As long as your circumstances don't change, you shouldn't be moved on to UC yet. There is some breathing space for some of us.

Thanks for that. Been a long day so will look at properly another time. Feels like the air pocket is getting smaller everyday though doesn't it?

Definitely. God only knows how people with disabilities will cope, or those who have children with disabilities, anyone who is a carer, it’s going to be very very hard.

And all the while we have 15 billion to implement this new reform. And a billion to chuck at the DUP. And however much brexit will cost.

We have money for that

Beyond depressing and frustrating isn't it? (Oh..ditched Halloween name btw!) Priorities and attitudes so very wrong!

I’ve done single and couples number crunching, and single parents seem hit the hardest.

What that will mean for those trying to leave abusive relationships, I don’t know.

20 years ago I was on 14k in my first office job. You’d be very lucky to get that where I live, 20 years on. What’s happened to wages?! And yet house prices/cost of living so high.

It’s such a mess

Can only hope labour keep fighting.

Does anyone know if a child being awarded DLA counts as a change of circumstances to move over to UC? My ds already gets it and I have now been advised to apply for my dd, which, if she is awarded will also mean tax credits will go up (I already receive Carers Allowance). I've tried to find out online but there doesn't seem to be much info for this circumstance.

No it doesn't count as a change of circumstances.

You can check what counts in this link
Sparkles.
www.welfare-benefits-unit.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/What-triggers-a-claim-for-Universal-Credit-in-a-full-service-area.pdf

Also that is a full service area, live service areas will have less changes that will mean a move to UC.

Universal Credit led this woman into an abusive sex for rent situation.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/welfare/2017/11/top-graduate-fleeing-bedsit-how-universal-credit-nearly-destroyed-me

Goodness, Helena, that article lays it out in all its raw brutality, doesn't it. That poor woman. I can see this happening to many, many more - and it will be mainly women that suffer. The government should ask themselves why that is, but of course they won't, because they're more interested in punishing poor people for being poor.

Oh my god, Helena, that article. Made me cry

Omg that article 😔😔😔😡

Wow that article. Teresa May should be forced to read it. But would she care even if she did. I doubt it. She would say that it shows that universal credit works as the lady in the article now has a job.

I think its time for us all to get marching, a mass poll tax style protest may be the only thing this government listens to.

That article

I'm a type 1 diabetic on an insulin pump.

Should my pump fail, at any hour of the day or night - I need immediate access to different types of insulin (in cartridges that are injected rather than the vial I use with my pump) or yes, I will die within a couple of days.

Precious hours wasted waiting in the middle of the night until a pharmacy opens to go get stored insulin mean I'd need admission to hospital for diabetic ketoacidosis. Once DKA has started from lack of insulin it's gone past being safe for me to manage at home.

Nice big fat bill for NHS, utterly unnecessarily, for my admission, even leaving out the fact that it's playing with my life.

So no diabetics can't keep their insulin off site.

Leaving out the practicality - are you so spectacularly thick you can't see the psychological damage you do to people of you keep them away from the drug that keeps them alive? And make it into an obstacle course to be able to access it?

Kath you are either very stupid or possibly a sociopath.

It would be nice if everyone on low incomes just didn’t go into work.

I know it’s not practical. I know this country doesn’t do mass strikes like France do, but I just wonder what would happen if everyone did.

No child minders, no retail staff, no nursery assistants, no teaching assistants, no waiters/waitresses, no cleaners...the country would come to a standstill.

They couldn’t fire everyone. They couldn’t sanction everyone. Could they?

Maybe then they might realise how valuable the low paid workers are.

It’s like the scene from a bugs life. When you realise there are more of us ants, than there are of the ones at the top.

It would only work if everyone did it though. It’s a nice fantasy...

Kath, I think I know you. If not, you remind me very much of my least sympathetic, least empathetic, nasty, spoilt, closed minded ex friend. That’s exactly the kind of thing she’d come up with, along with “work harder”, “well they can afford to SMOKE” and “it’s their own fault”

Repulsive attitude.

For gods sake the posts about the pharmacy storing insulin are ridiculous.

If someone cant see that someone having to schlep to a chemist every time they need to take life sustaining medicine because they haven’t got enough money to be able to run a fridge is very wrong indeed I despair

Oh my goodness. Just read that article. Long day at work today so only just catching up. I identify with so much she mentions. Life and circumstances can change for anyone in a heartbeat. It doesn't mean that they will always be like that, but whilst they are, having support shouldn't be seen as this awful thing that should be punished by sanctions etc. I have previously described how I ended up facilitating part of a course I was forced to go on. The system automatically assumes a lack of intelligence, a dependency on benefits, an unwillingness to work etc. But for all of us on this thread that just isn't true. And it seems that yet again being female and given the figures above, a single female with DC, is an offence to be punished in itself. It is beyond depressing!