Universal Credit - how can this be right?

[beentheretoo]

I’ll admit I know very little about Universal Credit apart from what you hear on the news thankfully (touch wood) never had to claim).

A friend recently got a new job 2 days a week I congratulated her and said it’s the type of job they are always looking for people I bet they’ll be offering you more days in no time. She then said oh I don’t want more days it’ll affect my UC, I’m allowed to work up to 16 hours before they take money off me and besides I’m really looking forward to having 3 days to myself once the kids are back in school. She’s a single parent her DH left her when she was a SAHM she was on full UC for a bit then had another PT job now this new one (she has a degree but doesn’t want to go back into that field).

I was thinking about it how can they be right that if you work 16 hours you get full UC but if you work 20 you get money taken away? Where’s the incentive to work more hours? My friends DC are older so doesn’t need childcare and I’m sure loads of people would love 3 days to themselves I bloody would.

Am I getting it correct then?

Jeeezus Christ, women just can't bloody win can they?

SAHM - lazy
SAHM on benefits - lazy scrounger
WOH with top ups - she should work more
WOH ft - HOW CAN SHE LEAVE HER BAYBEEEZ!

The worst thing? When it comes from other women.

Before anyone starts on about me affording to save for a house deposit when I get top up benefits, I get a lot of child maintenance from my ex and that's how I afforded it.

And I guarantee you there are some on this thread that will still say you didn’t need the tax credits if you were getting enough CM to save it. Like @ViciousJackdaw says- you can’t win. They want you living hand to mouth and staying where you are.

@TulisaIsBrill agree with reasons why it's allowed. Specifically the deferred aspect.

I'll never be able to buy in the UK because of how it all works wrt savings etc so I have been putting loads into my pension while keeping my income the same with wage rises and top ups. My hope was to draw down and buy outright on the continent where property is cheaper in areas that are still quite nice with good weather and then live off the rest of the fund plus state pension but that looks fucked now thanks to Brexit. So I'll probably just draw down the lot, find some loophole way of spending it on my kids and a bunch of Saga cruises and then get what state provision I can once it's gone. Fucked if I'm using it to pay rent for the rest of my life.

@UhtredRagnarson

Before anyone starts on about me affording to save for a house deposit when I get top up benefits, I get a lot of child maintenance from my ex and that's how I afforded it.

And I guarantee you there are some on this thread that will still say you didn’t need the tax credits if you were getting enough CM to save it. Like @ViciousJackdaw says- you can’t win. They want you living hand to mouth and staying where you are.

Oh yes, I have no doubt about that! Child maintenance is not means tested against benefits though so nothing I can do about it. I expect some people will think I should have turned down the tax credits or something though.

I looked (after a bicker with dh and me being v dramatic 😳) at what id get if I were single, dropping hours and a banding at work.

I would have got similar on 22 hours at a band less than I was getting at 37.5 hours shift work in a supremely stressful area.

Kinda glad really.

I expect some people will think I should have turned down the tax credits or something though.

Of course! Like I’m sure they all would in the same circumstances

[quote DogsAreShit]@TulisaIsBrill agree with reasons why it's allowed. Specifically the deferred aspect.

I'll never be able to buy in the UK because of how it all works wrt savings etc so I have been putting loads into my pension while keeping my income the same with wage rises and top ups. My hope was to draw down and buy outright on the continent where property is cheaper in areas that are still quite nice with good weather and then live off the rest of the fund plus state pension but that looks fucked now thanks to Brexit. So I'll probably just draw down the lot, find some loophole way of spending it on my kids and a bunch of Saga cruises and then get what state provision I can once it's gone. Fucked if I'm using it to pay rent for the rest of my life.[/quote]
Let's get neighbouring cabins because that's my plan too

And council houses haven't been subsidised since the late 1980s, Thatcher made it illegal for councils to subsidise rents

I can only presume that is a joke?

@Chimeraforce

I calculate an allowance for certain folk, and the clever/sly ones claim U. C and register self employed. They say they work 16 hours a week, declare net profit of £1 and also claim childcare fees. I always question why you're earning £1 a year but your kids need childcare for 16 hrs week. They got bitten on the bum with s. E grant though.

Except when the minimum income floor gets activated again they'll have to get off their backsides and work.

We've fallen foul of the benefits system a couple of times.
Once, when DH was made redundant. We got tax credits, free school meals etc. Once he started working again we still got the tax credits, but lost the free school meals, which if I paid the weekly amount for my 3 kids actually left us with less money. They went on packed lunches.

Second time, we were getting a certain amount of tax credits which entitled us to free prescriptions/dentist, and a reduction in our council tax. DH got a small pay rise which reduced the tax credits and lost council tax benefit which meant we were about £50 a week worse off. Plus I now have to put money away for dental check ups (one benefit of Covid is that we've not been able to have check ups so I can now afford a much needed filling when I can get an appointment). I can't afford a pre payment certificate for my prescriptions, so am rationing my medication, and trying to put a little bit of money to the side each week. It's a rubbish system.

I can't afford a pre payment certificate for my prescriptions, so am rationing my medication

this is so wrong that you have to do this.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

You will always bring in more working more hours but when you are used to receiving a certain amount with working many hours for it, the incremental increase income for those extra hours isnt huge and many people prefer to have more time and less money.

As people have tried to explain, this isn't always true, especially once you take the costs of childcare and ccommuting into account.

@TulisaIsBrill

Tax credits was a far better system. No problems with two pay packets in an assessment period - it was all done on annual income.

It's easy to avoid overpayment - all you need to know is what income your entitlement was based on, and your gross income for the year. Any gross income on top of that - into the pension it goes.

And no savings limit.

I'm afraid this is rubbish. So so many people getting overpayments of tax credits and ending up with huge debts which are deducted at source from benefits or wages. Tax credits are just a rubbish inflexible system.

UC is much better in this respect. There are lots of things wrong with it but for a claimant who gets their rent in full, who doesn't have more than two children, and who doesn't have deductions for debts or sanctions then it's just about enough to survive on. Which to be honest is how it should be. Just need to get local housing allowances and umpteen other bits sorted out and then it really will be fit for purpose.

@UhtredRagnarson

I tried to post this earlier but Mn went down for a while and my post hasn’t been saved.

I did some calculations on entitled to for a single parent on minimum wage with one child under 3 in my area. I used the nearest nursery’s rate of £35 per day (no reduction for using more days) and travel cost of £8/day.

Basically it worked out as follows that with take home + UC minus childcare and travel

Working 7.5 hours you’re left with £288.29 a week

Working 16 hours you’re left with £317.66 a week

Working 25 hours you’re left with £331.88 a week

Working 35 hours you’re left with £329.01 a week.

So you’re actually taking home less money working 35 hours a week than you are working 25 hours a week.

The financial difference between working 7.5 hours and 35 hours is £40.72. So for working those extra 27.5 hours you are essentially working for £1.48 an hour.

And this is only with one child and without taking into account the council tax/rates Reba the reductions.

I can see why people don’t see the point in working more.

I can also assure those frothing at the idea that I am stashing away all my UC to buy a house that I am not. They don’t pay enough to enable me to I’m sure that will make you very happy to know.

This is a great explanation.

@MiddlesexGirl

Did you read the part about using pension payments before you described my point as rubbish?

It's only people who didn't take the time to realise how easy it was to avoid the problem who fell foul. The rest, who take the time to understand how their declared income compares to their end of year one, and who takes the appropriate measures can do very nicely indeed.

If they don't, yeah they are in trouble. But if they do - happy days.

But you've got to be on the ball, which I appreciate most people aren't.

All you do is phone HMRC and say

'i made a pension payment which grossed up = x'

Where X = actual gross household income for tax year - income used for assessment for that tax year.

It's child's play.

If people were allowed to save for a house deposit only ( would t be difficult for the government to implement a UC ISA) then it would save tax payers millions paying rent in the future
This is absurd logic. It more less say that people opting to work much less hours should be entitled to the sane than those who work much longer hours.

So everyone can cut down their hours, claim the difference in benefits and still get to become a home owner, that means much fewer net tax payers, less to put I to the benefit pot that needs to stretch to more people.

One of the main reward of working FT is to be able to become a home owner and rightly so.

@dontdisturbmenow

If people were allowed to save for a house deposit only ( would t be difficult for the government to implement a UC ISA) then it would save tax payers millions paying rent in the future This is absurd logic. It more less say that people opting to work much less hours should be entitled to the sane than those who work much longer hours.

So everyone can cut down their hours, claim the difference in benefits and still get to become a home owner, that means much fewer net tax payers, less to put I to the benefit pot that needs to stretch to more people.

One of the main reward of working FT is to be able to become a home owner and rightly so.

Many people who work full time can't become home owners anymore. That's what's absurd. If you're disenfranchised no matter how many hours you put in, then you might as well play the game.

[quote TulisaIsBrill]@MiddlesexGirl

Did you read the part about using pension payments before you described my point as rubbish?

It's only people who didn't take the time to realise how easy it was to avoid the problem who fell foul. The rest, who take the time to understand how their declared income compares to their end of year one, and who takes the appropriate measures can do very nicely indeed.

If they don't, yeah they are in trouble. But if they do - happy days.[/quote]
Unfortunately most of the people I see would have no clue how to do this and can't afford to put the overpayment into pensions. There are more pressing needs.

I've not rtft but the double standards on here towards single parents never cease to astound me.

When it's a mother with a partner, being a sahm is considered such a gruelling full on job it's a struggle to do housework, let alone diy etc. But a single parent is a lazy scrounging fucker if they can't do a ft job on top of all of all of that. Work pt or not at all as a couple and it's perfectly acceptable to expect everyone else's taxes to pay top up benefits and/ or contribute to all the publicly funded services you expect to be provided with. Do so as a single parent and it's 'I'm paying for you and your dc while you sit on your arse'

I worked ft as a single parent and both dp and I do now, and I consider myself fortunate to have never needed to claim anything. But I'm not blind enough to realise my life in ft work as a lone parent was significantly less stressful than pt work as a low income single parent. Granted the welfare system is a joke, but not overly penalising a lone parent because they don't work ft isn't one of its faults.

@beentheretoo when she was a sahm with a partner did you think it wasn't right she didn't work and pay her way? Or is it just now she's a single parent working pt you want to bitch about her?

@dontdisturbmenow

If people were allowed to save for a house deposit only ( would t be difficult for the government to implement a UC ISA) then it would save tax payers millions paying rent in the future This is absurd logic. It more less say that people opting to work much less hours should be entitled to the sane than those who work much longer hours.

So everyone can cut down their hours, claim the difference in benefits and still get to become a home owner, that means much fewer net tax payers, less to put I to the benefit pot that needs to stretch to more people.

One of the main reward of working FT is to be able to become a home owner and rightly so.

A lot of people cannot seem to save on benefits. Your assuming and getting ahead of yourself that A everyone on UC/WTC would like to be a home owner and B do they even have the ability to save? The chances are slim!! It’s not as easy as people are “opting to work less hours” when you have children a lot of the the time it’s difficult to secure work within school hours for a start... not everyone has a partner which makes things even more difficult. Talk about dim

What a phrase “reward for working full time” do you want a gold star? A lot of people own homes because they have inherited property, and money as well as having parents help them with a house deposit. It is not solely because they work FT FFS!!

@boltfromtheblueblue

And council houses haven't been subsidised since the late 1980s, Thatcher made it illegal for councils to subsidise rents

I can only presume that is a joke?

Not at all a joke. Councils haven't been allowed to subsidise council housing since the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 came into force. The cost of council housing has had to be met from rents since then.

It was huge at the time, I ran the housing committee (and its sub-committees) at a London borough from1987-1991, and they talked of little else. The borough I worked at had to raise their rents massively, and the borought where I lived, where council housing had pretty much paid for itself, didn't.

One of the main reward of working FT is to be able to become a home owner and rightly so.

Where's mine then? I've worked ft except for a few weeks out of work and about 6 months when I needed to source alternative childcare.
I still need benefits to make ends meet, which apparently I shouldn't be saving for a deposit (chance would be a fine thing!) Yet because I work ft I'm entitled to a 'reward' in the way of buying a house? Confusing!
My 'reward' is not having bailiffs letters through the door because I can just about meet my council tax, or being able to have the heating on when it's cold.
While wages in industries that no one is really bothered about stay low, while the cost of living rises, there will always be this problem.
Pride, work ethic and future long off possibility of promotion (which still doesn't lift you out of the benefits trap) doesn't put food on the table or pay the bills. Money does.

Anyone who thinks they can save ££££ on benefits needs to think again.

They either receive to much or (more likely) have a distorted view of the cost of living v benefits entitlement.
Yes, some single parents seem to get "a lot" but this time will pass... and then?
How much will a single adult in their 50's actually get?