To ask you to watch Panorama re Universal Credit

[longwayoff]

God, this looks grim already. Look what we're allowing to happen.

GrandTheft - Everyone will be on Uc eventually. Its not so much about work hours more about amount earned as to whether they leave you alone or ask you to job search. Also if you have kids, one of you has less commitments than the other depending on the age of your youngest child.

Helena. I work for macmillan and if we have clients in this situation, we can ask the DWP to do a home visit to them to set up their Uc claim. it sometimes takes a few calls on our part but they do it eventually.

I really hope they don't want us to job search for hours a week. We have 2 jobs each. Our DD is 2. And I've been back at work since she was 8 months old.

Funnily enough before i went on mat leave I was security in the job centres.

We usually get about 600 between us from 1 job which is monthly paid. The other is about 100 a week which is weekly. Then the tax credits.

Babyroobs i didnt realize you worked for them You give great advice and have been helpful to many on here

Grand - With that income between you both , you would not have to job search and one of you would have no work commitments at all if you chose not to as you have a child under 3.

Helena - Thank you. I work as a macmillan benefits advisor and Uc has just come to our area recently so a lot of our clients who are just diagnosed are having to go onto UC when they drop to SSP. It hasn't been too bad so far - if someone is on chemo or radiotherapy they seem to be assessed for work capability quickly and automatically get the Limited capability for work and work related activity element sorted fairly quickly and without any assessment which is good, so they get extra money. I have only had one case ( although one too many) where a terminally ill man was threatened with sanctions two weeks before he died which was awful. The 5 week wait is problematic for people having cancer treatment and I seem to be begging Macmillan a lot for grant money just to cover these people until the first payment comes through.

That's not guaranteed income though. Sometimes it can be 4 or 5 weeks between shifts with the weekly paid one.

We are paying full rent though so we need to work.

I applied for income support when she was a baby and was told I don't get anything. The only way I'd have got money was for DP to claim jsa and me to go on his claim. Which as she was a tiny baby I wasn't exactly looking for work.

Hence me going back when she was 8 months. And dp took holidays when she was due but ended back at work when she was 10 days old.

this is going to irreparably wreck the economy as well as peoples lives.

And very well off people who think they arent going to be directly affected may well find themselves INdirectly affected once their cleaners and childminders have to apply for it.

Just watched this and it’s prompted me to do a benefits calculation online, as I’m currently not receiving UC but am out of work, disabled and also a carer. I’m going to be £130 a WEEK worse off apparently. There’s something to look forward to when they change me over

The problem we have is those who are in power live in their own bubble. They are taking advice from the university educated advisors who also live in their own bubble. No one is cutting through all the reports and talking to the people this will effect.

They are not listening because what they are hearing they think is wrong so must
be ignored as they have a report from their advisors saying something else.

I was listening to a woman on the radio a couple of weeks ago who had forecast Brexit, Trump, recessions, etc Her big secret was she talked to all sorts of people.

She could see how things actually were not what advisors had said things were.

One thing I didn’t get was when one of the guys went to his appointment but couldn’t see the person because they were on holiday. Why was he sanctioned?

I could see the frustration with the landlord who would love to rent his rooms but only if he got the money directly. Hence the reduction in landlords who would let their places to people in receipt of housing benefit going down from 7000 to 50 because they know getting the rent would be too much trouble.

Sorry but don’t know who the person was in the blue tie but he didn’t make sense.

He was the one talking about landlords going on the land lord portal and dismissed the presenter when she said it was impossible. But then indicated that the landlord portal wasn’t actually up and running yet.
Or did I miss hear.

The whole thing was ridiculous.

Whilst it is fashionable to condemn btl landlords. A lot of those landlords would lease their places to councils long term it made sense to everyone.

Now it is not worth it.

I really don’t know what purpose it served to stop giving the housing benefit to the land lord. From what I can see it caused and in the end costs more money than it saved.

@babyroots

A friend was told tgey will not pay him the HB element bc he was renting a room in the landlord's home. Is this correct?

I have found a few problems with the habitual residency test. People apply and fail the HRT that they have to sit as part of the UC application process if they are from another EU country. A lot seem to fail and this can further delay things whilst extra evidence is provided, leaving them with no money for months on end. until it is sorted. I've heard of a recent young woman who has been here form Poland since the age of 10 but has never worked and now applying for Uc has failed the test leaving her and her baby without support.

waffly - I think it would depend if he had a proper tenancy agreement . He wasn't related to the landlord was he?

Justbeingjobless - if you are switched over to Uc under managed migration ( which has currently been put back) then your money should be protected and you should not be worse off.

Babyroons thank you, that’s put my mind at rest a bit :) Whilst theoretically I should be able to manage on the lower amount, I became disabled and lost my job whilst in the middle of phone contracts/credit card bills etc, all of which I could easily afford when working, and can just about afford now, but would be up shit creek if I lost basically the entire amount of my current CTC payment. That’s another huge problem when you suddenly find yourself reliant on benefits - existing financial commitments which you can’t just get rid of and still need paying.

He did and a rent book and he isn't related. They asked for documents for bills he paid but it was all included in the rent. He was receiving hb fine until they moved him onto UC .

Also a friend who us on jsa still is on about 73 a week but someone in the same situation but a new claimant is only getting 57 a week UC. How can he only need 57 to live on if others need 73?

I hate this government so much.

We all need to remember that the Tory government have no interest in helping the vulnerable in society. They have contempt for the working class and are in no way interested in bettering society. UC is designed to punish and divide.

waffly - Is there an age difference? The £57 a week on Uc sounds like the under 25's rate unless the person on Uc is having deductions made for things like the advance which would lower his payment. I think the UC rate is actually slightly better than the JSA rate when comparing the same age group.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/08/life-on-the-poverty-frontline-un-turns-its-gaze-on-uk?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It might be. One is 25 but only got a few pounds less when he was 24. The other is 24 I think. Nothing costs less when you are 24.

Also the one that got no HB under UC is 31 and covering 11 weeks (not including waiting time) got what i cslculate to be about 57 a week.

One of them is street homeless now too.

Sorry 24 year old is 23 maybe.

I live in a town with less than 70'000 people in it.

We have at least 5 foodbanks, a soup kitchen and a clothing bank. And that's without the pop up food banks whichnwere set up after a woman in her 60's had walked 6 miles in horrific weather with ballet pumps on her feet. She was from an 'affluent town' who obviously didnt see the need......... I recently bundled a load of clothes for a teenager who had 1 set of school uniform, 2 pairs of pjs and 1 pair of shorts to her name.

All of this has.come into being in the years since the Tories came into government, things are so bad that the food banks here cannot cope. Theyre running out of food constantly.

If's sad and it's wrong. Such a depressing way to.exist. I really think they want us to go back to the days of workhouses and starvation.

"after a woman in her 60's had walked 6 miles in horrific weather with ballet pumps on her feet"

#WASPI

Littlecloudling. You will want some help one day. I hope you have to ask someone with more empathy than you. I wouldn't like to think of you aged 62, in a region where there is more chance of meeting the Queen at a bus stop than getting a job. In your cold council home clutching your eviction notice because you owe £4k in rent. You will never have seen the £4k and had the opportunity to squander it because, although entitled to it, you've never been paid it. Oh, he was a miserable bugger wasnt he? Sorry you were irritated by him, how upsetting for you.