To ask why Universal Credit is so terrible? (Not goady)

[evilharpy]

I've seen several threads (one today about food banks which I can't seem to find now) where people have had some strong things to say about Universal Credit and the feeling seems to be that it is contributing to the poverty problem and forcing people to rely on food banks and causing more problems than it's helping with.

I'm wondering what exactly makes it so terrible and why it's so much worse than what came before it. Google hasn't been much help as most of the results are just official links on how to apply for it etc. But it seems to be that it's paid monthly rather than weekly or fortnightly and there's a long wait to get it?

I would just like to understand a bit more about it. And I don't mean this to be in any way insensitive or goady.

I think it’s a good idea in the long term as it allows people to manage their own income like the adults they are. In the short term it will be painful because so many claimants don’t have experience of managing money, plus it seems to have been poorly executed in terms of waiting times for payments

However the government is listening. It has paused the roll out

Bullshit. They paused the rollout because it was a PR disaster and even their own MPs were telling the government how catastrophic it is! They paused it to cover their own arses. If you believe that any of the ruling elite give a shiny shite about anyone who is struggling then you are absolutely deluded. They care about themselves, power and money.

I know years ago the job centres used to have secret lists of people they thought were basically unemployable. They left these people alone. Not everyone is employable.

Notreallyarsed

That kind of conspiratorial thinking undermines any point you may have.

The “ruling elite” as though its one homogenous evil body. Laughable.

Given your ridiculous and frankly ludicrous opinions on a policy that will push living standards for many back to before Victorian times, it’s enormously ironic that you think I’m the one with a laughable opinion.

You sound like a Tory mouthpiece and if you genuinely think that the ruling elite (Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg et al) give a damn whether people are housed, fed and warm then I suggest you google the definition of laughable and apply it to your own ridiculous statements.

Victorian Times

Thank you for genuinely making me chuckle.

Hyperbole adds nothing to a debates. Other than making others smile.

However the government is listening. It has paused the roll out. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is reintroduced.
What bloody nonsense. People who least need it are being sanctioned. People are dying. People who are dying are being assessed as fit for work.
Complete and utter poppycock!

I think, as this thread has shown, we are dealing with a generation in which a sizeable number of people think they should have more freedom than they can afford.

Want to fancy about popping Avon catalogues through doors? Fine but don’t call yourself self employed and pretend you have a job. Don’t expect the tax payer to top that up.

Can’t afford to work because you had 3 children in 5 years and only earned £20k a year anyway? Stop being surprised that you can’t Afford it. Maybe your children will think about planning their children in a way that means they can afford it.

Want to be self employed in a business that makes no money but you love doing? Great, enjoy it but don’t expect the tax payer to fund it.

The above is actually more frustrating than the tiny minority of classical “work refusers” IMO. Some people have lost sight of what working and supporting yourself really means

So, Cherrycoke, those of us that can least manage it are to go without because of an ideology. An ideology that means punishing those most in need because you disagree with a few?

I work but get wtc etc I'm living in fear of it getting rolled out as mandatory in 2020 but has focused my mind on improving my circumstances and getting a well enough paid job(has always been my plan), single parent so won't be easy but must be done as I feel it will be a trap that will be very difficult to get out of when it comes.

My xp is in homeless accommodation he has been waiting 12 weeks for uc to start he has maxed out his hardship payments which are only 3 allowed a year and owes money left right and centre.
He is also under threat of getting chucked out of his accommodation at any point as rent is yet to be payed.

He could get a fulltime job but the rent for the box room he's living in is extortionate and would leave him almost penniless.

As far as I understand it, it is 6 weeks wait for a decision if anything interrupts that claim it starts again. How will people survive and not get chucked out of their homes on this system.

@Wishingandwaiting

I’m so glad you find it funny, maybe this article detailing just some of the people who have died because of welfare reforms will really get you belly laughing.

calumslist.org/

Under what circumstances are you going without Gilend?

And I agree, the absolisnment of the serious disability premium is not good. However the government is listening. It has paused the roll out. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is reintroduced

I don't share your optimism the severe disability premium will be reintroduced. Since Tories got in in 2010 they have had no qualms in making big cuts to disability benefits:

1. Criteria for PIP more narrow so less of the sick and disabled qualify for an award. People with walking difficulties but not now severe enough in the eyes of the govt with the new PIP criteria that replaced DLA now getting now lower mobility award or none. Why huge numbers have lost their mobility cars.

1. They abolished the independent living fund that tops up care for the most severe. So many now having to pay privately for care to make up the shortfall in hours.

1. my contributions to my weekly care have increased by £30 a week in last 3 years.

1. ESA working group - people classed as still too ill to work but may be able to in the future now only get the same as those on job seekers with a cut of £30 a week. Under incapacity benefit everyone got the higher rate. This was a cruel cut

1. I know my housing benefit hasn't gone up in 7 years. Probably as they reduced the housing rates to bottom 30% of the market rate from 50%. Thankfully, I live in an area where rents are not too high and amazingly so far the landlord hasn't put up my rent in the last seven years.

Tories don't believe in much State support. They would like people to pay out insurance to cover falling ill and disabled. I can't see them reintroducing any of the benefits they have cut for the sickness and disabled.

There you go again. Exaggerating.

I don’t find “it” funny.

I find your way of discussing this issue funny.

To add to my post above, the government have shown they do not care that both PIP and ESA face to face assessments have been shown not fit for purpose and many assessors lying underscoring claimants. This has resulted in a high rate of appeals with something like 60-70% winning their appeal. The appeal process is hugely stressful and makes many claimants health worse. A govt committee just this week said the assessments are unfair and assessors are lying. They made recommendations to try and make sure people get the award first time round wihout having to go to appeal. Government's response is to not implement any of the suggestions.

Aside from disability cuts, the area I am most familiar with being disabled, I think making claimants wait 6 weeks for their first payment will cause many to go in arrears and is just punitive.

Spot on Cherry. People want it all and have every excuse as to why others should pay.

The reforms wouldn't have been needed if tax credits hadn't ever been introduced. The majority of claimants had a SAHP, one or two that worked part time and added numerous children to their existing claims.

Now it has to be brought back to bare basics to remind people the choices they make are down to themselves to fund.

It should never have got to the stage where it was acceptable to not financially support a child/children or for people to be able to opt out of working.

I find your way of discussing it depressing. The more people who minimise and dismiss the suffering of those affected, the more it becomes acceptable to treat people as if they’re expendable. That way lies madness.

It's been designed on the same principle as the victorian workhouse, as a "deterrent" rather than a safety net. The other basic principle that informs it is that if one needs it it's because one is lazy, so by making you wait for weeks you are encouraged to say: "gosh, I'd be so much better off if I had a job instead!". Then you move from the sofa, print your CV and get a job. This way you stop being a "scrounger".

Being a "scrounger" is immoral. We know this because the Daily Mail has been telling us for a decade.

The more people who minimise and dismiss the suffering of those affected, the more it becomes acceptable to treat people as if they’re expendable.

I honestly don't see anyone on here doing that, and I certainly am not. I just take the - unpopular with some - view that the welfare state is essential for the vulnerable in society BUT was never meant to prop up the numbers that it does now as a lifestyle choice, to allow people to have children without any thought of funding them themselves, to support people through three decades of pension entitlement or to let people stay forever in under-populated houses or remain in social housing when they could easily afford not to.

Now, there is obviously a whole different question around fair wages, no getting away from that, but that is a separate issue. Ditto to the security of the renting situation in the UK. I think the trouble with welfare, NHS etc. is that complete reform is needed and it just seems too hard a nut to crack, particularly when any attempts to make changes are so poorly implemented to make them even more unpopular than they would have been anyway.

We had 2 children because that's what we could afford, and comfortably look after.

Some people pop out kids then wonder how arrange childcare around shifts, or cry that they can't find work around school hours. Maybe if they planned these things life would be easier.

And Severe Disablement Allowance has been replaced, not abolished with Employment and Support Allowance.

It’s very easy to sit in your ivory tower and say that people shouldn’t have children if they can’t afford to.

But that ignores the very real factors of poverty, lack of understanding, lack of choice, forced pregnancies, poor role models, low self esteem etc etc. Obviously not in all cases but there are reasons why you see larger families in lower socioeconomic groups.

Something like 85% of separated fathers are completely absent. Eighty fucking five percent. Leaving the mothers to struggle. Why isn’t that a priority for the govt to deal with rather than punishing the poor for existing?

This govt hates the poor, they hate women and they basically won’t be happy until we’re back to workhouses.

And for fuck’s sake, people have always had children they ‘can’t afford’.

It’s just that they used to die from lack of food and ill health.

Is that what we want to go back to?

i honestly don't see anyone on here doing that, and I certainly am not. I just take the - unpopular with some - view that the welfare state is essential for the vulnerable in society..

@Whitney168, but as I keep saying on here the vulnerable, i.e the sick and disabled, are experiencing huge cuts too. It would be nice if there was more action from the people saying they don't support cuts to the vulnerable to protest at the huge disability cuts. Yet I see little, just people saying of course we want the vulnerable protected, yet the vulnerable are not being protected.

How many benefits claimants do some posters actually think chose to be on benefits? Genuine question. I know of a couple, they fit the DM/channel 5 stereotype. The rest I know hate it. It’s demeaning, they are made to feel like they have to justify their existence, and hate being worried about money all the time. It’s not the cushty life people believe, it’s not easy. And the vast majority of people on benefits are NOT workshy scroungers.