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?

babyroobs As soon as you mentioned cancer I thought that your clients experiences would be different. People with cancer get treated better by a lot of government agencies - it is the policy. Other illnesses are not treated the same.

Babyroobs no offence but you're dealing with a group usually defined as "deserving poor" even if that opinion isn't verbalised.

My cpn and others I know that are trying to help people who often face discrimination - mentally ill, single parents, not British by birth - are telling a very different story.

And there have been some very well publicised cases of cancer patients dying virtually penniless while waiting on payments. It's an issue my MP has been quite vocal on.

People shouldn't panic but equally I don't think complacency is advisable either.

All the scaremongering stories in the press,? do you think these stories are not true,
If you think its easy to claim UC you are living in cloud cuckoo land,
As i have said in an earlier post, my son has not had a payment since November
UC say ESA have paid him, [he was on ESA before it was changed to UC , ESA say UC have paid him, in truth no one has paid him, the left hand doesnt know what the right hand is doing, he has felt suicidal at times, and i have helped him as much as i can, but i only have a basic state pension, UC is disgraceful and should be stopped

Yes people with serious mental illnesses like bipolar are not seen as the deserving poor.

I posted earlier on the thread saying that I’d not had a payment last month due to my employer messing up my payroll and reporting 3 months salary in one payroll. I only started in sept and it’s been a complete nightmare.
So this morning I’ve had my ‘predicted’ payment. I’ve had £77 taken off for overpaid tax credits!
Then I get the post, because I didn’t get my UC last month the council have stopped my council tax benefit and are wanting £300 by the 15th Jan.
I still don’t know if I’m going to get anything back from last month as it gone to appeal with the HMRC. I had to sort out my own tax code as my employer had me on emergency tax despite having had my P45 for 3 months.
So if I get a tax rebate it’ll affect next months UC.

This is why this benefit is so unfair. I can’t budget, I can barely make my essential bills. I’m going to have to sell my house and try to get into social housing. No one can cope with a fluctuating income like this.

Yes people with serious mental illnesses like bipolar are not seen as the deserving poor.

Not just serious conditions. All mental illness dx are still seen by far too many as

Self inflicted
Indulgent
Exaggerated
Requiring mere willpower or "strength of character" to "snap out of it"
Not debilitating

Well anyone who thinks so is MORE than welcome to have my OCD for a day - hell even 8 hours!

EVERYTHING I do is affected.

Every time I move, eat, drink, pee, bathe, answer the door, answer the phone, even sleep.

Even in my dreams I still have OCD. So even if you slept for those 8 hours (and I haven't slept a full 8 hours in over 20 years) there's no escape.

Oh - and this is me on medication!

Seriously, I'd be very glad of the break! It'd be the first one of any length in over 30 years.

All the scaremongering stories in the press,? do you think these stories are not true

I don't have any personal experience of UC but I tell you what I do know.

1. It was introduced by the Tories, not renowned at the best of times for their compassion for the less well off.
2. It was announced as part of the wider "austerity" program.
3. The UK government is notoriously shit at putting in new systems and the larger they are the more flawed they tend to be.

Those facts together give me no reason to doubt it was ever going to be anything other than disastrous for those dependent on benefits.

People on UC don't have much choice but to be battered by an inadequate system OP.

You on the other hand did have choices - you chose to live in central London, chose to have three children, your DH chose to go self-employed when he could earn more in his previous job and you chose to return to work even though you say you would be better off not working.

You could make different choices - although I'd suggest you choose to keep the children or you'll get flamed on here!

People on UC don't have much choice

Of course many do. They could move area, not have children, work or work more. Many in UC work part time by choice, have a SAHP, children etc. It's not a benefit just for those that can't do any work due to ill health.

Lots of people on it will have made choices just like the op but expect more funding to pay for them rather than take responsibility for themselves.

It's no longer seen as shameful to let others provide anymore rather than do it yourself.

So you think moving area will be easy, what with no money, and having to find somewhere to live, dont think so really
What a silly thing to say,when we are talking about people already sometimes living with no money, no food etc, going to food banks
I had never heard of food banks until the Tories, who have put more people in poverty in the last 8 years than ever before, well at least in fairly recent times

Of course many do. They could move area, not have children, work or work more. Many in UC work part time by choice, have a SAHP, children etc. It's not a benefit just for those that can't do any work due to ill health.

Bollocks! That old chestnut! Because some people were working PT the vast majority, including all disabled need punished with a system like UC? Now you see why this country is going down the swanny.

Well anyone who thinks so is MORE than welcome to have my OCD for a day - hell even 8 hours!
I remember watching a programme on people on a MH ward suffering from ocd. It was absolutely horrendous and my heart we t to them and the constant mental anguish they experienced with their costant life in fear.

The problem is that there are undeniably claimants suffering from selective ocd, who have ocd bad enough to make it impossible for them to work but they somehow can find mechanisms to cope to get involved in activities that are rewarding rather than demanding.

It's always come down to the same how does one judges who is genuine and who isn't, who would genuinely collapse in work if they were forced to and those who would find themselves quite capable after all, even if not doing so happily.

Early 30s, central London, 3 kids, 40K?

Please write a chick lit book about how you managed that. I'm intrigued

No one but no one manages central London with 3 kids unless they are very poor or very rich. And certainly not in their early 30s.

Did you inherit a flat or something?

(Awaits OP's embellishment.)

I'm not going to report this, goads as it is, because I'm just loving the instalments.

By the way, can I just 💐 for all the posters on this thread who are actually giving time and energy to communicate the problems with UC.

It's a major issue (primarily through the wait times) leading to food bank use and poverty.

A little more understanding and compassion - do we seriously feel OK about people without food? - is necessary. Urgently necessary.

I'm tired of people being hurt and forced to live abjectly and fearfully in my name.

Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for work and pensions apparently is going to hold back a vote on transferring all existing non UC claimants onto UC as acknowledges there needs to be a pause and the implications of UC looked at further. So when even this govt acknowledge UC is not working I think it’s fair to say it really isn’t currently. www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/05/amber-rudd-to-delay-universal-credit-roll-out-pilot-study?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Graphista I'd like to return to that figure of £305 A DAY in expenses for someone attending the House of Lords. Where is that money coming from? Is it tax payers? Whatever that means.

Someone upthread said Uac for a single person is £395 A MONTH. Also funded by tax payers, again - whatever that means.

Just look, please, at those figures and think about people at food banks. Old people deciding between food and fuel while Lord Fuckpants claims £305 A DAY of your tax payers pound.

What a greedy, feckless, scuzzy, ungrateful bunch the rich are.

BTW many carers care for more than one family member despite claiming for one. I'm looking after a disabled adult child and two frail, elderly parents. I genuinely am grateful for the safety net but i work very, very hard. Oh i work pt too, very pt though.

UC could have been a good idea - one application for several benefits. But the reality is dire. 5 week wait. The inability to deal with the fact that not all jobs pay monthly on the same date.
I've being trying to help someone sort out a problem with their UC. £88 a month taken out for 'overpayment '. The job centre couldn't say why and said to ring wtc. Unsurprisingly they couldn't help as its a UC claim! No-one can say what the overpayment was, why it exists or how much. None of the paperwork makes sense either.

I’m going out for a bit, chat soon.

Tax credits will tae no responsibility for claiming back overpayments, as it has been transferred to UC, another of my sons is having £50 a month taken from his UC payments, and when he rang tax credits to find out when the overpayment was supposed to have been, they said it was from 7 years ago, and nothing to do with them now as it has been taken over by UC, my son cant recollect having been getting tax credits for the year they are claiming it is for, and being 7 years ago has no details , this has come out of the blue, no correspondence before this, or if so gone to an old address,so out of his UC he is paying that back, also rent fuel, warden control payment at £30 a month
He has asked if at least it can be reduced payment while he appeals it, they said no, yet my daughter who works and is paying back an overpayment is only paying £10 a month,is this fair? no, another case of making sure UC claimants are punished,for being disabled,he is also waiting for an appeal for pip, from almost a year ago,which he will have to travel almost 100 miles for, as they dont hold appeals here

Hey OP, Amber Rudd has been persuaded by the 'scaremongers' even if you have not, and will be reviewing the abysmal UC. Do make sure to drop her a line and put her on the right path, I'm sure she'll find your contribution as helpful as everyone on here has done.

The original ‘problem’ with the tax/benefit system which IDS originally intended to tackle through UC was that in the U.K. (unlike most other countries) people are taxed as individuals but benefits are claimed as households.

In the U.K. the lower earners never had tax breaks to take into consideration their circumstances eg dependents/childcare costs/disabilities.

Everyone was and is taxed as if they are an able bodied single childless person.

Then that was combined with a social security system borne out of the Beveridge Report after WW2 which proposed support for the poor based on assumptions like full employment and everyone being in a male breadwinner model nuclear family. These were obviously false assumptions!

So the social security system continued to provide a safety net that calculated entitlement on the need of the household ie the number of people/children. So if for example a single mother (who under the old system was deemed unable to work until her youngest was 16) would receive more benefits with each child as the family’s needs grew.

It then came into the press and public’s consciousness that this meant that large unemployed families were receiving a higher disposable income than working families who were limiting the number of children they had. This was because for working parents disposable income would decrease with each child due to childcare costs.

Tax credits were brought in to alleviate this as parents could claim up to 80% of childcare costs but this was not taken up as expected by Gordon Brown. (Imo tax credits should have been specifically for up to 100% of childcare)
Tax credits just became part of disposable income for general expenses rather than to enable working and became a subsidy for employers and landlords.

Now we have UC which in theory should be better but it was brought in by a right wing government in the context of politically motivated
cuts to incomes of the less wealthy in society so it has become a stick to beat the vulnerability a

Sorry I got cut off mid post!

The vulnerable with.

The system isn’t really going to improve until universal affordable childcare becomes the norm, the NMW increases to a weekly figure and is a real living wage, all NRPs are made to pay their maintenance, GPS/ doctors are in charge of what conditions make entitlement to disability allowances, employers are made to be more flexible, the gender pay gap is eradicated and lastly people are taxed per household.

No government will do all of this though!

Processing delays (esp housing) is an issue. However, it does say when you apply (if you add housing) that you need proof of your tenancy when you go to first appointment. When housing is processed, it will be paid then - it doesn't get delayed until the next routine payment. I used to work in a UC service centre.

Thanks, Adam. That is not the experience of several clients of Brighton JCP, so I'll ask my manager to take this up when she has her next liaison meeting with DWP. Maybe no-one has trained staff in what they need to do to trigger a payment of housing costs arrears,

Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for work and pensions apparently is going to hold back a vote on transferring all existing non UC claimants onto UC as acknowledges there needs to be a pause and the implications of UC looked at further. So when even this govt acknowledge UC is not working I think it’s fair to say it really isn’t currently.

Yet another delay in the roll-out because UC isn't working properly.

The government should just admit UC is FUBAR, not fit for purpose and put everyone back on legacy benefits until they get it working properly. They have used the poor and vulnerable as guinea pigs instead of testing the new system properly before rolling it out.

I used to go a UC "stakeholders' meeting" that was attended by the civil servants repsonsible for the UC rollout in the SE.

They sheepishly admitted that no-one had bothered to develop a phone app for UC, as they hadn't realised that for a lot of people their phone is the only device they use to access the internet. They had also not realised that a lot of people live nowhere near a library, can't afford £6 to get to a library and that, because of cuts, not many libraries were open every weekday.

They had absolutely no clue what life is like for people on low incomes.

I had to sort out my own tax code as my employer had me on emergency tax despite having had my P45 for 3 months.

That's pretty slack. It's often sensible to use the BR ("emergency") tax code for the first month, to avoid underpayments if the previous employer has used all the allowance for that month, but theyshould have changed it to the one on the P45 after you were first paid. And HMRC issue electronic updates of coding to any company with a decent payroll system.