AIBU about people moaning about UC!

[Lemoncurdkid]

NC for this and sure I’ll get the backlash. I’m also aware there have been other threads. I’m hoping that people will help me see the other POV.

I’m not a stranger to claiming benefits but have never claimed UC.

I seem to see so many articles on how UC have ruined my life. This article annoyed me...

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/money/8014429/universal-credit-campaign-poverty-nicola-mclean-mum/amp/

This lady was claiming over £1600 a month in UC. That’s how much I earn monthly on a full time wage and I earn £26k a year. I don’t pay a pension either otherwise it would be £100 less.

I’m comparing my life to others on UC and there doesn’t seem to be reason to complain. Maybe that’s my issue, not to compare!

Along with UC there are many other benefits you can claim for which most don’t speak about. For example, free childcare, free travel, free dentist etc.
I know a lot of people who work 16 hours or who are unemployed, they may struggle but they are not in debt and they seem to live a much happier life than mine. Once again I’m comparing, but I’m struggling, living off credit cards after our bills are paid.

I guess my complaint isn’t that they are entitled to UC, but why complain about it? Shouldn’t we be grateful that we have this option in the UK. Rather than declaring poverty. A person on UC (depending on their circumstances) can actually ‘earn’ more money than a person working full time?

My point exactly nonny mouse. Disabled people and single mum's are extremely fortunate in the UK (people just tend to forget it)

I think it's the massive drop in income.
If you're on £60k a year then you buy/rent a house for your pay bracket, you drive a car for your pay bracket, you have a certain standard of living thay you grow accustomed to. This is for anyone on any income.
If the £60k earner suddenly dropped to £40k, while it's still a decent amount, they wouldn't be able to fullfill their financial commitments (most of which come with contracts).
I've never been on previous benefits, but I know there is a big drop from tax credits to UC and people need to cut out basics to make up for the short fall, but most financial contracts don't allow you to just stop paying, and how do you decide which parts to cut out?
I get some UC, and DH works full time in a NMW job.
We've done okay and we don't complain about it.
I worked for 7 years in a NMW job and then got pregnant, I used those 8 months before maternity leave to swap from virgin to talktalk, find cheaper energy, cheaper car insurance, move to a cheaper rented place.
And it did take all the 8 months.
I only worked part time before so my £650 wages dropped to £530 maternity pay.
Which wasn't too bad a drop and I'd spent months working on lowering everything anyways.
I had 9 months maternity pay, in which I tried to lower and save as much as I could for the future. After my maternity pay ended I changed to UC and get £430 a month. Another drop, but one I had anticipated and worked towards.
Essentially I had a £220 a month drop over 18 months, it took budgeting, moving house, saving, and we've managed to make it work.
DH warns around £1000 a month after tax, pensions and NI. I get £430 UC.
We are not living the high life but we're happy and grateful. It's the first time we've claimed anything and to be honest, the rights and wrongs of it, I wouldn't be able to personally look after my son without UC, and getting to smile and laugh with him every day is wonderful.
But would I have struggled with a £220 income drop over night? 100%.
Virgin media don't care if you've had an income drop, or your car insurance, or your electricity supplier, or your landlord, or aldi. You still have the exact same things to pay for with 5 weeks without any pay and then a much smaller income than you were used to.

My only advice is, if you know you're going to be moving to UC and it's less than tax credits, start by putting £20 to the side a week, then £30, then £40 until you can see which corners can be cut and then hopefully save that little bit extra money for the 5 weeks without pay.
I know people say "I'm skint, I can't find the £20!" And I agree, but unfortunately UC don't, and it's the best thing you can do to not risk losing your home and getting into debt.

Would anyone like to remind me, just for fun, what a member of the House of Lords gets as a daily expenses figure? How is it funded?

I've now been told that the reason it is taking so long to process my claim is because I am doing a degree and would be eligible for a maintenance loan, which I have not applied for because I don't want to be in more debt. Even though I have not applied for it because I would be eligible universal credit people have said they will still need to count this as an income. Which is ludicrous

This is an appalling attitude.

The benefit system is not there so that you don't have to take out the maintenance loan like everyone else!

I was in the exact same position - university as a lone parent and your attitude is one of the reasons people have such a dim view of benefit claimants.

UC are quite right to consider the maintenance loan amount as income even though you have not claimed it. Otherwise everyone would claim benefits instead of the maintenance loan.

1640 would include rent. So would depend on area.
In my area which I’m sure people without any idea of my life story would say just move then is 1200 pound for a tiny 2 bed flat.

Wait I’m so confused so you bring home 40 k get 600 pound a month in benefits but state this lady in the article gets more than you :/

Oh and sorry the single mums and disabled are fortunate
I am a single mum to a extremely disabled child who was hit hard last year with the benefits leaving us with 100 pound a fortnight. We nearly lost our home, I nearly asked for my daughter to be taken in to care because I struggled to put the gas on that she needed.
I couldn’t go to work ? Why ? Because no one can look after her apart from nurses whilst on treatment hours which of course due to budget cuts we have a shocking care plan and 0 restbite hours. So I do 12 hour night shifts of IVs and meds amongst other things and then fully function as a parent during the day.
I couldn’t take her out the house for months because it took 18 months to get through to wheel chair services.
I haven’t had more than 3 hours sleep in I can’t even tell you how long.
I don’t have holidays, I haven’t even had a meal out in 5 years !
We get fuck all help in looking after her but yes I am extremely lucky that they pay me 64 pound a week carers.

Oh DO fuck off.

Lifecanbeabeach, you fall into the category of claimants who should be entitled to more than what they are getting in CA. It's completely insulting that someone like you gets no more than someone who's caring duty involves doing some shopping for someone - at the same time they do their own-, sit on the sofa and chatting or watching TV together for company, and cooking a meal once a week.

CA is one of the most abused benefit but it isn't worth for dpw to investigate because any investigation would cost more than it is worth and proving number of hours of care for the purpose of care would be next to impossible.

I've now been told that the reason it is taking so long to process my claim is because I am doing a degree and would be eligible for a maintenance loan, which I have not applied for because I don't want to be in more debt. Even though I have not applied for it because I would be eligible universal credit people have said they will still need to count this as an income. Which is ludicrous

It's not ludicrous, it's because most people don't pay back their student loan.

The system is a joke yes there is Dla which you have to jump through hoops for for instance
She has been through heart failure, respiratory failure, intestinal failure etc ( it’s a long story ) anyway she is currently attached to machines for 16 hours a day and we have to take a lot of equipment with us daily. She is her her chair when attached and although can walk short periods she still uses chair 75 percent. She can not walk when attached as it’s all so heavy for her she is tiny.
We got declined for mobility Dla. So it isn’t easy as some people may think.
She gets care Dla which basically covered the gas being on 24 /7 and the extra electric we use ( medical fridges ) machines plugged in to walls etc.
So nothing left for hospital travel, hospital stays.
People live in a bubble if they think this is a lucky life.

UC wait times are ridiculous, there needs to be a safety net for them. However, prior to UC if you lost your job and needed to claim benefits you would still have to wait for your first payment in the same way. This is just huge uproar now as it’s a wait from people who are used to receiving money weekly etc.
Grown adults should know how to budget a monthly income, there just be support for this and the benefits system should have never babied people in such a way that they can blow it all on the first day and be ok because they’ll get paid again in a week - this is a positive change.
I’ve worked with a lot of people on benefits, some people receive a lot more than you would expect. When the benefit cap came in, a family I knew were receiving £250 p/w housing benefit on top of the other benefits, their benefit was reduced to 50p p/w as they were so far over the cap. It was an awful situation for them to have such a drop in income. However this meant they were originally recieving at a minimum £39,000 in benefits to begin with (no disabilities as this wasn’t included in the cap) why have we ever allowed the system to get to a point where people can receive so much money I don’t know, and I don’t agree with it. But when people have built a life based on receiving this, to take it away with no prior warning, advise or support is unfair and there’s going to be issues. Luckily UC is a short term issue (in terms of a wait for payment). Benefit reductions tend to only apply to long term unemployed.

You don't get Dla or PIP if you just need ordinary company and a bit of shopping or cooking done for you once a week.

If you actually bothered to save for your old age instead of expecting to sponge off the state, your income would be lower, and you would get tax credits. Tada! You wouldn't get UC as you have 3 kids. Go for it ...

The people with huge benefits payments ... that is mostly childcare and housing ... so going straight into private business pockets. It's actually a massive subsidy of private landlords, but they are somehow not considered spongers, and it's great we sold off our shared housing stock 😰

If you didn't base carers on dla or PIP how would you do it? Interview every single person about what they do and then follow them around to check they do it? How much is that going to cost? All to try to prevent someone getting a paltry benefit that is taxable and offers no access to things like free prescriptions etc.

Actually, those with the highest payments Were almost always those long term unemployed with a large number of children. Once the cap came in to penalise these people, we found a huge increase in one parent working 16 hours a week so the cap wouldn’t affect them.
I know it’s not popular on MN to suggest that not everyone on benefits is using it as a top up for their hard work and childcare but I do think facts need to be out there. My eyes were opened to the real poverty out there but also sadly, the real level of ‘entitlement’ some people have.

Wannabestressfree - so so sorry you're having to go through this too at an already very difficult time.

The people with huge benefits payments ... that is mostly childcare and housing ... so going straight into private business pockets. It's actually a massive subsidy of private landlords, but they are somehow not considered spongers, and it's great we sold off our shared housing stock 😰

Really scraping the barrel with that issue with the benefit system.

Nc because you haven't the courage of your convictions even under a relatively anon username. Nice! Yet another benefit basher with no courage.

When even the sun is critical of a right wing policy you know it's shit! (I'm under no illusions the campaign is altruistic - it's come about because the sun knows its readers are those most affected and it makes it look like they give a fuck! As if Rupert Murdoch has the slightest clue about poverty!)

"This lady was claiming over £1600 a month in UC. That’s how much I earn monthly on a full time wage and I earn £26k a year. I don’t pay a pension either otherwise it would be £100 less." It's hardly a huge amount for a family of 3 to live on given current living costs and depending where she lives.

Someone, quite possibly you, will argue she could move somewhere cheaper to live - how is that suppose to happen when she can't save for a deposit etc? The previous help for moving when necessary for benefit recipients has been abolished. Besides which why should her children have their education disrupted? The child with the health issues will already be having difficulties with this.

And the same could be applied to you - central London isn't the cheapest of locations!

"I’m not a stranger to claiming benefits but have never claimed UC." But if/when you do end up claiming benefits again you will be on UC.

"I work full time, partner works full time. We have 3DC" so you have your partners wage too, you & your DC, you're not just living on your wage. If you're not coping on 2 wages maybe post (under your usual name? 🤔) your circumstances and I'm sure mners would be able to help you towards a solution - with 3 DC this govt comsiders that an unnecessarily large family too, if you were to go back on benefits depending on dc3's age you may not get anything for them.

"Having 3DC is definitely a huge drain." Which was a choice. If that argument can be used on benefit claimants it can certainly apply to others claiming they're hard done by!

"they may struggle but they are not in debt" you cannot POSSIBLY know that for certain. As ever benefit bashers making unfounded assumptions. Most people don't tell others their intimate financial details, nobody completely knows mine!

So you can complain but people WORSE off than you aren't allowed to?!

"I guess my complaint isn’t that they are entitled to UC, but why complain about it?" Because it's very poorly administrated to the point it's almost completely unreliable so people, families are left without any income for months, leading to food, fuel and period poverty, homelessness, this impacts on physical and mental health. Draconian sanctions, journals not properly monitored, IT system (and it's ALL online) frequently crashing or inaccessible, it can't even cope with normal calendar monthly salary payments (let alone 4 weekly, weekly or variable wages!) meaning at least twice a year it mistakenly 'thinks' you've been paid twice (and one of the reasons it was brought in was supposedly to make it easier for shift and temp workers amounts to be easily adjusted - yet it's these type of arrangements it works LEAST well for)...

You really only need to read a few news articles or threads on mn or elsewhere to see the HUGE problems with this useless system!

"Shouldn’t we be grateful that we have this option in the UK" that's a dreadful argument - so just because things could be EVEN worse we should be grateful for tiny crumbs?!

"They are adults, and it's common sense. I have little sympathy when this is the excuse." Oh really? Do you get that the people most struggling with this are people with medical conditions that affect their cognitive processes? Learning disabilities, memory disorders (inc alzheimers), mental illness (especially those where lack of spending control is a well known symptom), with sensory conditions that make financial administration difficult (sight & hearing issues). People who've never experienced a monthly lump sum to manage (care leavers, victims of dv who were in that relationship from a very young age). And in addition with all the cuts support services for such people have all but disappeared!

"After the family have received the benefits why does the complaining continue?" Because the problems don't stop there! Claimants are now screen shotting journal entries to appeal sanctions as they're being deleted unethically (possibly illegally), payments aren't regular or consistent - how are people supposed to budget when that's the case?

"I still struggle to budget on a monthly wage." Do you have regular hours? Is your salary the same every month? Barring redundancy, being sacked or becoming too sick/disabled to work it's a reliable, regular income you have. That makes it way easier to budget AND apply for credit.

"and it's only violations beyond this that incur sanction." 😂😂😂🙄🙄.

There's numerous instances I'm aware of in real life, on mn and online elsewhere where people have been sanctioned for the most heartless disgusting reasons!

Mumonashoestring - and no travel time at all allowed for transport to and from childcare.

Artificially low wages (because employers know the govt will subsidise their employees so they don't have to pay them an actual living wage) don't mean benefits levels are too high!

If you believe that guff you're falling for the rich telling you that they're not the reason you're struggling - that someone poorer than you is!

"and surprisingly often you end up with no money due to administrative mistakes or delays etc." As someone who's been on and off benefits, both while in and out of work over last 16 years very little surprises me now.

What I have learnt is if they make a mistake in your favour the money is repaid by being withheld pretty much immediately, if the mistake is in THEIR favour it takes months/years for the claimant to receive what they should have! And an apology is about as rare as rocking horse shit! Hell its hard enough getting a name!!

"Ok, she lives in London, but if I'm reading it right she's getting £1600 pm UC plus £12k pa from her pt job whilst living at her mum's??" No the £1640 was what she was getting before she started the job. Even now she's working she doesn't really get to keep all she earns as there's an amount deducted from any UC she now gets, I think 63%, so really she's only 37% of her wage better off. When you consider the costs of working - childcare, transport, clothes & shoes for work etc - for a lot of people they'll be lucky to break even! So it's not even really doing what it claims in incentivising people to work.

The best ways to incentivise people to work are:

Higher wages
Flexible employment conditions
Well supported and resourced employees

And that's even assuming there's enough jobs! Which there aren't! And this govts done sod all to create jobs too!

The average number of applicants per vacancy where I live is in the hundreds! I think last time I checked 250 - per job! We've lost several large employers including factories and 2/3 of our high street is boarded up.

Sugarhunny - the 2 payments in a month is SUPPOSED to work as you describe but for many isn't. One of the reasons is if the 2 payments in one month = more than would allow a claimant to stay eligible for the claim meaning the claim is automatically closed and they're back to square one having to restart their claim, back to minimum 5 week wait etc.

Not all those administering the claims have had effective training (and I have that from the horses mouth, a friend of mine works for dwp and is responsible for training people on the new system. She's now been seconded to 2 other areas who'd supposedly had the training but we're making lots of mistakes. Turns out their trainers hadn't understood certain things properly do my friend is basically not only having to teach them the correct way, but having to untrain certain knowledge - that's a very difficult thing to address when they've been doing it that way for months and they know and trust their usual boss more than my friend - even though they know and have been told they're getting it wrong).

Another friend who works for dwp at a job centre, so not directly administering but supposedly advising claimants - has had minimal training & is finding herself regularly of an evening reading manuals in her own time trying to understand how it works. She's finding it really stressful worrying if she's given the right advice or not.

"The issue though is the system that allowed claiming benefits to be a lifestyle choice for a small minority. Now they are rightly trying to make changes, but it seems that the hardest hit are sadly the genuine claimants." The issue here really is that certain people - inc MPs - are falling for the myth of there being loads of "lifelong scroungers" and a refusal to accept that no system will ever be perfect and a certain amount of abuse is unavoidable unless it's a completely punitive system for all.

The notion of deserving v undeserving poor is bollocks!

"everyone is entitled to an advance payment" which is then repaid under the same terms for everyone regardless of circumstance. There's no room for negotiation in the claimants favour here.

There's no payment at all for the 1st week of the claim.

Whenwillitstop1 - the situation for students is utterly disgusting and smacks of this govt wanting to prevent any but the rich from accessing a tertiary education. It's elitist bullshit!! I believe that not only do students have to apply for and take the maintenance loan but that this money is deducted penny for penny from UC claims (hoping to be corrected but doubt it). This essentially means the POOREST in society are expected to fully fund a tertiary education albeit in arrears.

Inneedahome what an utterly disgusting post! The sick, disabled and poor should be grateful for being treated like shit?! As for the comment on the USA - just because they have even worse attitudes to the poorest & most vulnerable in society and treat THEIR poor, sick, disabled, mentally ill, vulnerable society members WORSE than shit (and then wonder why there's consequences!) doesn't make the situation in the uk at all acceptable.

"That said, the biggest casualties are the disabled and lone parents who work part-time." Try being a Lp, disabled, mentally ill with disabled child and all this crap going on!

"Many people are unable to manage the identity requirements." Ugh yes! Cos people already on a very low income with no idea when they'll next get any money really want to be wasting money on driving licences and passports they won't use!

"Any other country would not offer what the UK do" actually lots of other countries have better welfare systems than the uk.

"Its not ludicrous. You are a student. Fund your own degree." Not only is this an elitist, discriminatory attitude. Do you really think if only upper mc+ can afford to access tertiary education that they'll supply enough graduate professionals for the roles needed in our society?! We'll end up with (it's already massively heading this way) huge shortages of nurses, Drs, dentists, pharmacists, opticians, physios, teachers, paramedics, accountants, lawyers, auditors, senior civil servants, scientists, engineers, social workers, town planners, psychologists...etc etc! It's a self defeating policy!