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.

Disability cuts aside, the area I am most familiar with being sick and disabled, I also wonder if a woman is probably never going to earn much more than minimum wage (not all workers can be higher earners and the jobs that are low income are still very much needed), is making her, or father if primary carer, start working when the child is 3 whilst someone else is working as a nursery worker on similar money to look after the child logical? Obviously if the parent wants to work when the child is 3 then great but if the parent would rather look after their young child until they go to school would it not be sensible to still have that choice until the child is at least 5? Also of course if they would have the opportunity to stay at home until the child is 5 they are not going to be getting huge incomes. Working would still give them a better standard of living.

Also the comments on here where people say a woman should not be allowed to stay at home and get benefits until the child is 16, or 18 if child in full time education, imply that the person at home is getting the equivalent of a full time job salary. A quick look at the rates show this is far from the truth. It's much less. Even now single parents are not entitled to income support help once the child is age 5 so would not have enough to live on if they didnt look for work after the child is 5

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

severe disability elements and ESA are to totally different things and one doesn't replace the other.

@Notreallyarsed, I agree. I think people think those on benefits are living a life of riley. There will always be a small section of people who don't work when they could but the vast majority do not want to be living on meagre benefits.

Also papers like the Daily Mail loved to print stories of the families who had 11 children and were getting high benefits. Firstly, the government have already stopped such cases getting benefits through the benefit cap and such families are a small proportion of the population. My understanding too is the benefit cap is set too low for those who live in the South east and London where rents are much more expensive. These people may have been born and raised in these areas, forcing them to leave areas where they have family and support must cause difficulties.

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

You are confusing severe disability allowance with the £60 severe disabity premium. They are two separate benefits. Severe Disablement Allowance has been replaced by ESA, however severe disability premium is given on top of ESA to people who are sick and/or disabled live alone and get the PIP care component. It's to help with the extra living costs of living alone and being disabled. It's a big cut. I receive it Currently but will lose £49 a week when I transfer to Universal Credit. I will have some transitional cover but that won't last and any new claimants will not get it at all of course.

@Nightshirt £49 a week??? That’s incredible that they can just take £49 a week from someone and everyone is nodding along like it’s ok. Absolute scumbags this government, cretins.

What a cheery thread.
I'm really worried about UC becoming my reality. Me and my DH just about manage now. He's on NMW and works full time. I'm a SAHM and I do all the running around after my DS(2) and DD(7). Hopefully we can get our son into school nursery next year and I can find some part time work somewhere before UC rolls out in my area.
Not going to lie, I know a few people who give me the rage at times. My DH works in a high stress job with shit pay (and has been looking elsewhere else to work) while someone I went to school with has two little girls, is on income support, claims to be a single mother. Gets her rent and council tax paid forwhile also gets money off the kids dad (who works cash in hand and also claims to be single and unemployed). It's bollocks but we made the choice to have two kids, my DH made the choice to be a Chef so I guess that's that.

I’m absolutely terrified of universal credit. I have a severe mental condition (MPD) that was caused from abuse in my childhood. There is no cure. Switches are random and alters have their own agenda. It takes one bad day or one thing to cause a switch and send me over.

What are people ‘like’ me supposed to do? That very small percentage of people who want to live off the state or cheat it are putting the rest of us in the firing line. Why is this fair?

Why is this fair?

It’s not. It’s horrible and immoral and judgemental. The proportion of benefit cheats or people who choose to be on benefits is minuscule but it would appear Tory propaganda and the DM have got to people. Even MN isn’t exempt from such stupidity which makes me very sad.

@Notreallyarsed, I know cutting the severe disability premium is a huge cut. I saw it was going to happen when the Welfare Reform Bill was passsd in 2011 and have been dreading it ever since. There has been so little about it in the media. This is a cut for people who have high needs. Over £2000 a year cut.

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

@KathArtic, I forgot to tag you when I responded to your statement above Here it is again:

You are confusing severe disability allowance with the £60 severe disability premium. I was referring to the severe disability premium that is being abolished under universal credit. Severe disablement allowance and severe disability premiums are two separate benefits. Severe Disablement Allowance has been replaced by ESA. However, severe disability premium is given on top of ESA to people who are sick and/or disabled live alone and get the PIP care component. It's to help with the extra living costs of living alone and being disabled. It's a big cut. I receive it currently but I will lose £49 a week when I transfer to Universal Credit. I will have some transitional cover but that won't last and any new claimants will not get it at all of course.

I'll bet my everyone on this thread £1
though. That they'll be voted back in in 2022. Despite threads like this the British public seem to love them. Well they keep getting a majority, don't they.
Some would say it's no use moaning now.
We (collectively) had 2 chances to get them out 2015 and 2017, but Yet they still remain. Everyone knew UC was coming.
The cunts get off poverty.

@Nightshirt I’m thoroughly ashamed to be part of a society that thinks this is acceptable. It’s utterly appalling.

People on mumsnet need to realise that not everyone lives in a naice middle class area and that lots of us living in shitty towns know of people who coast along living a life on benefits because they can. Not benefit cheats - but people having children when themselves and their partner don't work and expecting the state to pay for them.

Disabled people, people fleeing from DV situations, people on low wages and people who have found themselves out of work need the support of the state - but the people who want to live off of benefits ruin it for them.

Thanks @Notreallyarsed, it's a horrid cut. As said, I am grateful the state helped me when I became chronically sick but it's frightening to see the support reduce so much. I also find it awful that those on low incomes already struggling are going to struggle even further with the reduced rates in UC and that housing benefit now doesn't cover big areas of the UK.

The Tory government do not support the concept of a sufficient welfare state. The global financial crash in 2008 was an excellent opportunity to work towards reducing welfare protection under the bogus need for austerity. They wish to follow the American model of private insurance for sickness cover, out of work benefits. As a professor said in an article, this won't effect the rich as they have enough money to never need state support, those on low incomes who can't afford privste insurance cover will be in terrible straits if they lose their job, get sick, as Welfare state cover will be threadbare. Meanwhile the middle class will find paying out for private insurance is more expensive than pooling the nation's contributions to offer welfare cover. I find it very depressing we are going down the road to the American model.

@Crazycatgal, well as someone on disability benefits, I say rubbish regarding the few effecting those on disablity. This govt could have protected disablity benefits if they wished, they are separate and fraud by own government figures was low, but they didn't want to. See my post above this to explain why.

The charity I work for support families who have been affected by the changes, some have been left without money for 6-8 weeks, the emergency payment was soon gone and they’re expected to repay that. We’ve had to sign off food bank vouchers far more than previously. I dropped a food parcel off to a family yesterday and it included two selection boxes, the parents were crying because it’s the only treats their children will have.

@DurhamDurham, thanks for sharing what is truly happening under UC. Very sad to hear.

@Crazycatgal, I know plenty of those people. But you have to understand that very few of them are genuinely feckless and conniving.

My neighbour has just had her 5th child, all under ten, all different fathers. She gets a new boyfriend and immediately has a baby. She is of very limited intelligence and only in her mid twenties. All she knows is having babies. Her life is DIRE but it’s all she knows, and she is actually a wonderful parent. She has never and probably will never work, but she will in all likelihood be in poverty until she dies. It’s really not a lifestyle to aspire to.

And without education, role models and intervention, her girls will very likely grow up with the same poverty of aspiration. It’s a cycle and it’s very common.

She’s not a skiver or a scrounger, she’s just doing what she knows, same as her neighbours, same as her mother. In that particular row of social housing, all the residents have three or more children, in small two or three bedroom houses. Some work, some don’t, all are in relative poverty and relying on benefits.

Removing the benefits won’t magically change the situation. People aren’t going to suddenly earn more or stop having babies.

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

I don't think that's true. There's plenty of posts on here from mums saying they don't work and claim, posts about rejecting extra hours or refusing to work more than 16 as they net more in benefits. People play the system to its full advantage, they don't hate it as it's free money for nothing in return.

@AnachronisticCorpse It's a vicious cycle and as you said the children end up leading similar lives. I'm not sure what would work but something needs to be done to enable the children from these families to lead different lives. Just giving them long term benefits isn't working.

@crazycatgal I’ve lived on one of the shittest estates in the UK according to a recent poll, I know well the people you’re talking about. I also know that they themselves have been failed by the system, written off at a very early age, no prospects, no opportunities.

And I fully agree with Nightshirt, the government could have ringfenced disability benefits and ensured that their propaganda didn’t discriminate against people with a disability/disabilities. Did they? Did they fuck.

So no, not everybody lives in a naice (how I hate that MNism) middle class area, but equally, not everyone is nasty and selfish enough to think that the rest of us should sneer at people on benefits because of a minority who do take the piss!

But home come they have left out the over 2 children families??? Surely it should be the same system for everyone

Disabled people, people fleeing from DV situations, people on low wages and people who have found themselves out of work need the support of the state - but the people who want to live off of benefits ruin it for them.

@Crazycatgal, to add to my comment above, this is exactly the narrative this government have been pushing via right wing media and benefit. They want you to think there are swathes of people abusing the system, living the life of riley, which has allowed them to introduce big reductions in welfare cover effecting all under the pretext the system is being hugely abused.

Were some people abusing the system? Probably, but not as many as they make out. And every system will have some taking the mick. Should there have been some loopholes addressed? Again probably. Large benefits for families of 11 understandably rile some people. Yet the reality is such families are a tiny proportion of benefit claimants. Under the coalition and now Tories the welfare state is undergoing huge sweeping changes that will fundamentally reduce welfare cover and cause destitution for some and much less help for the sick and disabled.

And yes to not enough support given to families with low aspirations stuck in a cycle of deprivation. Research shows putting in support for very young children in disadvantaged families helps increase chances. The problem is of course it can take 20 years to see the benefits and so governments shy away from it.

Also those on lower incomes should still be earning enough to afford stable housing, education and healthcare. The system seems to be keeping all the wealth to the top and our housing market is out of control.

The govt and the media have done a really good job dividing people up into good and bad benefits claimants.

So Sue and Terry, three kids, he’s a hospital porter and she works in a nursery part time, they claim tax credits and a bit of housing benefit. They read the Sun. The sun runs regular features on the ‘bad’ claimants, like Mick the druggie with 11 kids, Sheila who faked a bad back, Vicky who spends her benefits on a 3k Christmas.

Sue andTerry read that and absorb the hatred for the wasters and scroungers. But it doesn’t apply to them, as they are hard working tax payers, despite the fact over half their income is from the state.

So when the election comes they vote for the Tories who promise to stop the scroungers. Not realising they are turkeys voting for Christmas.

Divide and rule.