I work full time. As the Conservatives apparently want. In private rented accommodation (cannot afford two months rent and deposit to move, and anyway already have the cheapest rent I can find).
Due to working full time, I barely see my Children and have to pay upfront myself for childcare every month and they quibble about refunding the 85% they advertise to 'get us back into work'. It's a fight to have childcare reimbursed every month and they still owe me August's childcare.
I will still lose the £2400 a year that was talked about on new exactly. I will also lose £600 a year just because I am paid 4 weekly rather than monthly (assessment period "problems" McVey has already admitted). I am also losing £127 every month due to old debts, and even more being deducted every month from what's left of my UC payment, because I have debt from years ago, and MORE being taken before I see it because of the 5 week wait loan. At least I cannot be sanctioned (more deductions of up to £74 per week) because I am already working as much as I can, actually more than they say I have to.
Working is NOT paying.
What do they expect us to do in this situation where we cannot pay our essential bills despite working?? or if we dare to be disabled or ill and unable to work??
We (poor people, daring to work on minimum wage providing services the country cannot do without, like elderly care??) especially women, are being completely DECIMATED for daring to not be high-earners and for having children. Single people without children are faring even worse, the single unemployed under 25s with debt being expected to live on £37 a week after rent, even pregnant women??!!
The work allowance MUST be restored to what they were before the 2015 planned cuts.
Giving 51m to CAB to help people managed the online system is a drop in the ocean, and comes with gagging clauses to the point I would no longer trust the CAB to advocate properly on my behalf.
There needs to be a moratorium on debt repayments, which are old debts taken from people's UC at the automatic rate of £127 per month.
There needs to be a reduction in how much people are deducted for the advance loans they need to take out to survive on the 5 week wait.
There needs to be automatic split payments so people experiencing Domestic Violence are protected, an issue which TM and EMc just keep on ignoring.
There needs to be a rethink on how childcare is paid. Making poor people who move into employment, pay for their childcare every month upfront, only to experience numerous problems in getting UC to refund the 85% they promise, is not sustainable until the system can properly refund high childcare costs to people working at low wages.
There also needs to be a rethink on the issue of those who are paid on any cycle other than monthly, losing hundreds a year due to 'pay cycle issues' confirmed by McVey herself.
This is not even mentioning the flawed and lie-ridden 'work capability assessments' and the blatant discrimination and going-after the disabled and ill.
They should not be allowed, as under the old system they were not, to take people's debts or sanctions, from the money allocated to pay their rent or for their children. This is what the "6 payments into 1" rhetoric is covering up. I never minded different tops ups, and they already had the new RTI system which was all that was needed to stop fraud.
The Two-Child Rape Clause policy only harms vulnerable children, but I realise it did have support from some of the public which enabled this shitshow to go through unchallenged.
Has went too far now. People dying, people evicted, people being plunged into severe debt, mental health suffering, families with children having to go to foodbanks at record levels ("no correlation" according to the tories).
When are we going to stand up for all Low Earners, Disabled, Single Parents, Children and say that even the basic Safety-Net is being taken from people, using lies of 'personal failings' and 'worklessness' , whilst the richest benefit from tax cuts, and that enough is enough ??