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.

Thanks for the link unweavedrainbow.

Fuck off Yellow.

Make our future UC has worked really well for IT contractors. How? I do not know any contractors that have low enough income to qualify for UC confused

Or do you mean from programming the systems, perhaps

Yes. It has been a complete nightmare (slushfund?).

I see many similarities in their treatment of the poor with how the nazis treated the jews before the final solution.

Plus yellow where are these 35 hour jobs for unqualified people you speak of? We only hire on 15 hour contracts now if you weren't lucky enough to be hired in the past, and that's at the more attractive end of jobs available around here. As I said before, the most recent batch of shops opening here are hiring on 5 hour contracts. The call centres are hiring on 25 hour contracts tops. There simply are not enough full time jobs for part time workers to fill even if they were in the position to do so. Do you have a solution for that?

@Yellow tha't slal very well and good but then since people have made their decision to procreate, the goalposts have been moved. Which nobody can have prepared for.

@raisinsarenottheonlyfruit I don't know if you saw my previous post on this thread, maybe you could repeat it for those who have OP of posts highlighted?, that this 6 week delay or being initially paid - the first week is NOT payable. FOR ANYONE. Which instantly puts everyone a week in arrears with rent etc, and no way of getting that backdated.

raisin sorry I missed your post, but that is very reassuring, thank you

1. Collapse of tax revenue as anybody who can, will look to leave the country. The result being the Labour party will seek to hit people in the £40k pa bracket to try to plug the spill.

Where is this magical land people can relocate to and use the same skills to earn the same or more but pay less tax? Is it where the unicorns live in the magic money tree forest? Very, very few people will do this in reality, and those who do will leave behind a gap in the economy for others to fill.

2. 30-40% fall in the value of house prices across the country as nobody wants to be seem to have 'capital' in an political environment , where 'rich' or wealthy is open to interpertation.

Not sure what you mean by that. People will own property either as a necessity or as a means of income. Neither will stop simply because they "don't want to be seen to have capital".

3. Inflation as everybody gets paid £10 a hour a supervisor than requires £15 a hour pushing inflation through the roof.

It's not that black and white. Generally speaking higher wages means increased spending and a boom to the economy. Of course this will differ from business to business but on the whole the country will benefit from higher wages.

4. The raft of social changes and extra taxes that will be imposed on 'small' business. These being such as regarding working time restrictions on staff increased NI contributions to cover black hole caused by the black hole of Capital flight and talented people leaving. A major damage being 'cottage' business will no longer be able to exist, the sole trader or two three people employer will be unable to exist !

This is nothing but scaremongering. The major issues this economy faces is not from small business or sole traders, it is from trillions of pounds leaving the economy untaxed to foreign accounts and never returning, while wages that actually circulate within the economy and generate tax from every transaction are kept low.

4. The net result will be yes a reduction in the gap between the wealthy and the 'poor' but that is because we will have just reinvented the system that caused the brain drain in the 1970s.

I think you mean 5. Perhaps we should do a Diane Abbot on you and suggest that if you can't even count to 5 we should take any economic forecast of yours with a massive pinch of salt.

Ultimately it will be up to the government of the day to set the tax rates and policies in a way that maximises tax revenue and stimulate the economy. You might not think a Labour government would and you're entitled to that opinion, but clearly this Conservative government has done neither and the opinions of the worlds economists and their condemnation of their atrocious and chaotic handling of the economy has got to count for something. This hasn't worked for 7 years and things are worse now than they ever were. Expecting anything to change by continuing with the same is utter madness.

raisins agree entirely re the future for our DC

Yellow well I certainly didn't budget for my abusive cheating exDP to walk out on me when I got pregnant. The abuse and the cheating only kicked in after I had given birth. Clearly I should have had the foresight to plan for that! And I didn't budget for having a DD bewildered by everything and still now struggling with emotional issues who needs her mum. I work part-time because it is not financially viable to make it all work full-time at present. For my DD it is not emotionally viable to not see me. It won't be forever but right now it is what it is. But silly me. I really should have planned it all better shouldn't I?

You will also be expected to quit the job you have and take another one if it comes up, if it pays more / has more hours.

Which then means someone else has to be employed to do the job you left, and that person is then pressured to leave, and so on and so on. Can you imagine the impact this will have on low paid sectors like social care? The irony is my wages are set by local government whose budget is reduced by central government who will tell me I have to find a better paid job!

FoofFighter yes you're right, the first week of UC will be unpaid. That puts paid to their assertion this is about making it like work.

Since when did you start a new job and they say "oh, we're going to pay you in 6 weeks at a minum but he first week will be unpaid"?

Also the 6 week wait is a MIMUMIM, not an agreeement. Peopel are waiting months to get paid and getting evicted and losing childcare places in the process - and their jobs too.

I don't think the 6 week wait applies to people who have been cut off because of the 5 weeks in a month thing though (small mercies). You can reapply quicker (supposedly, anyway) if you've had an active Uc claim recently.

Someone patiently explained to some (Tory) ministers that people on very low incomes & no savings can't just budget their way to stretch into next month. Plus some folk with certain disabilities & a generally low income struggle to budget to hold back the rent money. So lots of landlords were not getting paid & suddenly widespread refusal to rent to people on housing benefits.

I think you are right. They are totally out of touch with reality and also 'intransigent' in their beliefs even when it is highlighted they won't work. However, 'Intransigence' covers the vast majority of MPs from all sides.

Frank Field points out the conception of a single payment is in theory a good idea. However, for the reasons highlighted by various posters it cannot work even if the implementation of it was sound !

There are myriad of reasons as to why a person/family might need to receive money on different weeks and why they are unable to budget a month in advance.

Also the suggestion that business pay one month in arrears is also a spurious argument. This is because many people at lower income scale do not earn salaries and get paid weekly or top up earnings via cash in hand part time jobs at the weekend !

The result is though these people may be struggling financially they are unlikely to be destitute , they may also have access to cheaper credit via a work based Credit Union to tie them over.

can't seem to spell minimum, too angry with this shitshow obviously!

Posters are saying not to vote Tory but in our area it's such a safe Tory seat that whatever we vote doesn't make a difference. I've sent messages to our MP asking him to change things but just get a standard letter with the Tory party line

Collapse of tax revenue as anybody who can, will look to leave the country. The result being the Labour party will seek to hit people in the £40k pa bracket to try to plug the spill.
And yet when surveyed, some of the biggest financial firms in the UK found that their staff would not be shifting abroad...

mountford100 this is the problem- if you only have £340 (roughly the jsa payment for a single person) a month and that's literally all the income you have, it would be extremely hard to spread this across the whole month.

There are so many requirements now too- you need to be able to access your online journal which requires internet access, plus job searching often involves a certain amount of internet use. If you can't afford the internet at home, or have used up all your data on your phone (if you had any to begin with) what are you supposed to do? I can't speak for everywhere but my local library has one computer and there is at least a 1-2 week wait to use it as you have to book in advance. The next local library is 9 miles away.

One adviser suggested standing outside shops to use free wifi which isn't an awful suggestion in itself, I've done it myself before, but if you don't live near shops that offer free wifi, or you can't get to them you're a bit screwed aren't you.

I don't know what the answer to this is, but I do know that nobody deserves to be treated this way.

Mcdonnell in his speech at the Labour Party Conference about planning for huge capital flight (run on the pound) was in affect trying to egg on money people to move their money.

He could then gain the high ground by accusing wealthy people of not caring about the country. This would enable him to instigate policies that would decimate British business and her ability to attract investment from overseas.

The almost bipartisan approach to economic management of the UK economy since 1979 will come to grinding halt with terrible consequences.

The difference between the two main parties should be 5% to the right or left of each other, that way the country lives/operates within the realms of sense.

For the record i don't believe a fair and balanced welfare system would destroy the economy.

I had to apply for UC at the beginning of this month.

I was on income support and working part time but when my youngest turned 5 I was forced to apply for UC.

I will not receive any money until 9th November. My CTC stopped immediately.
I have had to go to the job centre on the train in a different town every week, twice last week. They gave me an advanced payment but it just about covers food and gas and electric but nothing else. I will have to pay it back at £60 a month for six months and I also just received a letter saying as my tax credits have stopped I now owe them £120 even though I was forced to stop them and claim UC.

I have to prove that I have been looking for work/applying for jobs 35 hours a week. I have to account for every hour. I have found a second job pretty quickly but can't start until I've done some training and then have weeks of training/probation.

I still have to attend the job centre every week even though I have two children to pick up and drop off at primary school, I live in a different town and I am still working my part time job and am training for a second job.

I will have to keep attending even when I am working two jobs until I am working more than 35 hours.

I am miles behind with my rent.

My new job is paid weekly. I thought that was a good thing until I read this thread

Rightontheedge :(

I'm sure that the work requirement if you have children under 10 is 25 hours, not 35- have you looked into that?

Also I have no idea whether you would be eligible for this or not but contact the council and ask about a discretionary housing payment- even if you only get a small amount it would help cover some of the arrears and if they say no you're no worse off.

I'm sorry you're in this position, hope things improve for you soon

I work in a full service area, so somewhere any new claim/change of circs triggers a UC claim.

As I understand it, if you earn over the threshold one month your claim is not supposed to close, it's supposed to remain open for up to 6 months so you don't need to reapply from scratch. However we have seen claimants whose claim has been closed for no apparent reason at all. And of course getting no money even for one month means you'll be in rent arrears or other debt very quickly.

Other problems we have seen:

Claimants with more than 2 DC, who currently have to claim old benefits even in a full service area, being sent backwards and forwards being told by HB/IS/JSA they must claim UC and UC sending them back again. This can take months to resolve - months with no money.

As above, people claiming contributory JSA or ESA (which are not being replaced by UC) being sent backwards and forwards between HB and UC. In their case it will be UC that pays their rent so they have an additional 6 weeks wait after they get sorted.

Terminally ill and other extremely unwell claimants having their claims closed because there is no way to request a home visit during the application process and they are too unwell to attend the job centre for the verification interview.

EU claimants being told they fail the habitual residence test because they have no right to reside as a 'qualified person'. This is even if they already have 5 years as a QP and so have permanent residence status. We even saw one claimant who took his PR card to the job centre and still failed the HRT.

ESA claimants failing a WCA. In the old days they could claim JSA while waiting for mandatory reconsideration and then go back on ESA during the appeal stage if the MR was unsuccessful. Now they must claim UC instead of JSA in those circumstances and once they have claimed UC they cannot go back on ESA even if their MR or appeal is successful. This means they lose all the disability premiums. Many try to wait it out and not claim UC during MR, however the waiting time for MR decisions has become suspiciously long over the last year or so. People are waiting 4-6 months for a decision. If tin-foil hats suited me I would wonder if this was a deliberate ploy to get people onto UC.

Claimants are expected to manage their entire claim online. This is causing massive issues for those who cannot afford access to the internet or who lack the skills. 'Universal support' is supposed to help here but is wholly inadequate. So they get sanctioned for not updating their journals or not doing something they were supposed to do because they couldn't access the internet so didn't know about it. In some cases, instead of a sanction, their claim is inexplicably closed.

I agree with a couple of PP, we need a massive great demo.

I have to prove that I have been looking for work/applying for jobs 35 hours a week. I have to account for every hour.

So let me get this right - are they saying you not only need to prove you're looking for work, but that you are spending 35 hours a week job searching? Is that right?

Can't believe you were told to stand outside a shop to use their free WiFi Ladyc! Mind you before I got back into work I was made to go on a 2-day "getting back into work" course....despite my explaining it was a wasted space and a waste of public money, I was threatened with sanctions so I duly went....on the second day because I knew more than the facilitator, I was asked off-the-cuff to present a chunk of the course. The facilitator sat and took notes and afterwards the other attendees asked if I could lead the rest of the course....the facilitator said I was free to leave then.... The course was about finding work and successful interview techniques etc...my last role pre DD? Senior HR Manager specialising in recruitment!!! So yes. The system either current, or UC, is entirely flawed

I wasn't advised to do that re wifi SassyVampire, it was someone else- thankfully I am not on UC yet, but I have been known to stand outside shops/banks to use their wifi if needs be!

RightOnTheEdge I'm sorry you're having to go through this.

I'd love to live in a world where the ministers who make these rules have to live the conditions they set for a year to "test" them. No access to their savings or well stocked freezers.

What's happening here is absolutely disgusting. I believe we all need to rail against this and make a huge fuss.

However as far as this absurd rubbish about patiently explaining to a tory about how peoples wage can't stretch the week. It makes me wonder did anyone patiently explain to Blair and brown how they failed poor people under long labour tenure, when they had every opportunity to close the gap between rich and poor even a little bit! That they widened it, only reducing it at the end when Brown rolled out tax credits.did any one patiently explain to these Labour leaders that they were supposed to support and champion the poor?