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.

This is another cynical attack on the poor by the tories- along with cuts in all public services, the NHS , education this list goes on and on.
If you are rich you can afford a nice house, private education, private health insurance, you don't need a library you can just buy all the books you want....

Wake up, take a good look at our politicians- be afraid, be very afraid.
We live in interesting times indeed.

I will be screwed when this happens to us :( my DH is paid weekly and earns just above minimum wage. I didn’t realise this was part of what would happen :(

Is there a template letter I can send to my MP?

I also think the underlying reason for all this misery is to ensure that large parts of the population die off early, saving the state even more money.

Letters and petitions won't work, it will take mass action like the protests against the poll tax under Thatcher.

My friend was paid twice in November last year . The beginning and end it was so employees could shop early for Christmas. She then received no UC the following month even though she wasn't paid again until January.
Another friend was paid no rent one month of the year because the UC claim date meant it feel in a five week month.
Even the local mp who was contacted by the landlord couldn't get them to change the claim date.

I don't really understand it all, I'm not sure when I will move over to UC (is there a way of finding out), at the moment I get my HB monthly, I work part time but am self employed, I usually get payed weekly (invoice weekly). I am a single parent and money is quite tight. I have no idea how this will effect me as it's all confusing .

My DC. I Think there is a solution to that one. Most payroll software allows you to process a Pay Advance so it isn't reported to HMRC until the date she should have been paid. Her employer probably had no idea. It's a lot more complicated (we do it at Christmas too, pay our weekly paid employees 2 weeks holiday pay up front before Christmas rather than after Christmas.

I'm hoping because we don't have anyone on minimum wage that this won't affect anyone where I work. But if it does I'm not sure what we can do in a five week month.

I've tried contacting my mp. But I can't get passed his Rottweiler assistant who won't even discuss a matter so it's fruitless.
Tory mp in an incredibly safe seat, last seen at an award for kebabs.

Thanks Alexander I will tell her to speak to HR.

I presume you all know that the plan is to replace all benefits with Universal Credit including working tax credit and child tax credits and other means tested benfits, Income Support, JSA and ESA. At the moment you don't get switched from WTC or CTC unless there is a change in your circumstances or if you need to make a claim for another benefit that UC has replaced like housing benefit.
And there are different rules than on the WTC and CTC so people will be worse off

Is this only if you're paid weekly or fortnighly?
Ive signed the petition.

I don’t qualify for any benefits, and I’m not well informed regarding the system, so this may be a stupid question. Does UC replace housing benefit, and if so, how can they justify paying in arrears when rent has to be paid in advance?

I hope I never ever ever have to apply for UC ....

Wrong attitude, imagine that you will, at any time, be forced to. That way things might get done.

At the moment they are not going after pensions, but when current voting OAPs reduce in number they will.

Raisins YANBU! I have just rtft and am horrified. Working single mum here. Paid monthly and reasonable job however qualify for some WTC & HB. Got to get a change in circs done asap - thanks to PPs screenshot now know UC comes in March 2018 here, so am hoping if I get that change through can stay as is until this time next year at least (chg is annual pay increase) or until 2019. So for those that know (because I clearly haven't paid enough attention to this), when current benefits get changed to UC, does that mean 6 weeks without any money regardless? If so facing some pretty tough times!

So the leader of the majority party stops members of her own party voting because she doesn't think she will get a supportive vote? In whay way is that democratic?
In my book that sounds quite like the thing a facist would do.

I don't believe for one second she would want any family to be left without money.
Then perhaps you should inform her of the many families who are being left with no money, this is happening now, daily.

I thought the whole point of UC was to use real time wages so as to stop the overpayments that happened under tax credits when an average was used?

If a five week month means you don't qualify for state assistance then surely that's a good thing?

The aim of UC was to have just one system with tougher criteria to get more people self supporting rather than relying on state support. It was supposed to mean the end of playing the system hours wise and that both parents would have to earn where both low earners.

I can't see it being scrapped now, tweaked yes but not scrapped. Too many wanted a change to the current system that was heavily taken advantage of. Those who played the system to its full advantage caused the changes.

If a five week month means you don't qualify for state assistance then surely that's a good thing?
It doesn't mean you don't qualify, it just means that the government has messed it up. If they did 13 payments over the year, rather than 12 then that would be sensible.
It's also important to point out that the point of this thread is that if there is a five week month you are removed from the system. You then have to reapply invoking not only a six week wait but a week in which you receive no money at all.
As for your comment about a system that was heavily taken advantage of perhaps you could provide facts and figures for that because according to the ONS fraud figures are actually quite low.

Universal Credit affects my eldest son who is in residential care. He has just applied and will have to wait until December for his first payment. He has no other income. His PIP has stopped (due to his placement in residential care) and he definitely is not yet ready for work yet (due to mental illness). He was offered an 'advance payment' of £100 to tide him over with expenses such as toileteries, clothing, hair cut and so on, and he will pay it back over 6 months through deductions from UC.

Once it is secured, all but £24 p/w of the UC will go towards paying the costs of his accommodation.

UC is also affecting individuals with disabilities and limited capacity to work.

Those who played the system to its full advantage caused the changes.
Nonsense.

I do benefits advice. The way that "transitional arrangements" (ie being paid the same on UC as you were before until that "extra" money gets swallowed by inflation, even if you're entitled to less on UC) works is like this: if you stay on your "legacy benefits" (so JSA, ESA, IS, WTC, CTC, HB) without any "changes of circumstances" (ie anything that would trigger a new claim of a "legacy benefit", so going into or leaving work, child leaving education, a partner moving out or moving in, birth of a child, out of area house move) the you will be transferred to UC when the government gets round to it-that's 2019 at the earliest but the government is notoriously bad at sticking to timetables, so probably not till 2020 or even later. You will receive the same amount of money as you were receiving on the old benefits but you will receive no annual increase until inflation cancels out your extra money. This applies regardless of whether or not UC has been rolled out in your area earlier-legacy claimants without change of circumstance stay on legacy benefits until transferred and they will keep getting the same amount of money when transferred even if it is more than they would be entitled to than on UC. Of course, if there's a change of circumstance then transitional arrangements are lost and people are transferred to UC immediately without any extra money. (Personally, I think people should just sit tight as much as possible. I hope that Brexit triggers an Election soonish which hopefully Corbyn will win and Labour will then cancel this nonsense. At least that's what I hope and pray. Otherwise so many people will suffer).

I very rarely post on here but I am sitting in bed reading this in utter disbelief. I feel sick to my stomach that this is the first I have heard of this. I am from a very deprived part of a deprived city and this will hit many of those who I grew up with hard. It would have affected me too but there were a few factors that helped me in the genetic lottery. Firstly, I am extremely bright - top 1% ( crap at grammar though before someone picks holes) so despite my terrible school I got 7 GCSE or more ( there were 5 of us from an intake of 200 who got 5 or more) . Secondly, I am gay so no teenage pregnancy. I lived a chaotic lifestyle as a teenager and I don't kid myself that I would not have had a pregnancy if straight. Also I would not have had an abortion ( catholic school actively brainwashed us - the silent scream etc). Thirdly, I don't have any physical disability. And finally the depression caused by the awful environment I grew up in dissipated in my early thirties allowing me to live a normal life. I am now a partner in a top twenty law firm..... Which proves of course that you too can achieve this if the wheel of fate spins for you. If you are of average intelligence, a heterosexual woman, have learning difficulties, or a physical disability, or if you have disabling mental health conditions caused by your environment then sorry - You are the undeserving poor.

I am in the process of getting divorced. Will this change in circumstance mean that I have to re-apply for UC (receive WTC and CTC at the moment)? Was reading this thread in bed this morning thinking I should just stay married but that's ridiculous.

It is very frightening.

Maybe it's time to act:

petition.parliament.uk/petitions?q=Universal+credit&state=open

yellow if a person gets paid 4 weekly, and gets paid at the start and finish of a 5 week month they do not get anything the next month!! This is not a 'good thing'. A person on the same salary, paid monthly, would still get payments.

The 4 weekly paid people have not earned any more. It's just the payment dates have fallen so they don't qualify.

And people taking advantage of the system- what the less than 1%? So millions should suffer because of that?