To ask how people will cope with Universal credit cut.

[ponyexpress22]

Surely they aren't going ahead with cutting it by £20 a week? I'm shocked that the government could stoop this low. What the hell are they doing.

I don't understand how they can justify lower payments for younger people as well. Same with minimum wage rates. It's not like you spend less on bills because you're younger.

With minimum wage it's actually there as a protection for younger people. They have less experience (both at work and in life generally) and usually fewer on the job skills and require more training etc, so if you can choose between an 18 year old and a 30 year old on the same minimum wage, you'd usually pick the 30 year old unless you want someone you can push around (like wait staff). With the difference in minimum wage, there is more of an attraction to consider the younger candidate.

@Peanutsandchilli

I don't understand how they can justify lower payments for younger people as well. Same with minimum wage rates. It's not like you spend less on bills because you're younger. My daughter is disabled and can't work, so I have to support her on the pittance she's entitled to.

Is your daughter claiming the LCWRA element of Uc if she is too disabled to work ? She would get £257.33 standard element plus £343.63 limited capability for work and work related activity element plus PIP on top, so if on top rates of PIP this amounts to almost £1200 a month ?? I understand PIP is for the extra costs of a disability . If she isn't getting LCWRA on her claim she needs to hand in sick notes and wait to be assessed.

@TheOnlyMrsM

I think the main problem is that £20 is nothing to the decision makers. They simply cannot comprehend that to some people £20 is an awful lot of money.

Rishi Sunak, our Chancellor, has an estimated personal fortune of £200 million and his wife about £430 million ( her father is one of the richest billionaires in India) so perhaps instead of targeting the poor on UC and middle income people to claw back Covid monies we should be raising funds by taxing the wealth of people like them or companies like Amazon? There would then be no need to remove the £20.

God these threads always bring out the hard left Labour zealots still bitter over the defeat.

I've got 3 children and wanted a 4th. We sat down and worked out our finances and realised we wouldn't be able to enjoy the (frivolous) things we do now - a holiday, occasional meal out - if we had a 4th.If you struggle to buy the food you want, then why did you have 3 such young children - genuine question

What would happen if you experienced a catastrophic life changing event that meant you had to rely on benefits? That’s what’s happened to a lot of benefits claimants. That would punch a hole in your smugness.

With minimum wage it's actually there as a protection for younger people. They have less experience (both at work and in life generally) and usually fewer on the job skills and require more training etc, so if you can choose between an 18 year old and a 30 year old on the same minimum wage, you'd usually pick the 30 year old unless you want someone you can push around (like wait staff). With the difference in minimum wage, there is more of an attraction to consider the younger candidate.

I remember an 18 year old I know who was earning £5 an hour. I have no idea how anyone could survive on that.

The £20 per week was always only a temporary measure, and therefore I am not upset by its removal.

What I am worried about is that the minimum wage isn't high enough to be a living wage. Everyone in full time employment should be able to afford to live without having to fall back on additional benefits. Employers should pay sufficient wages.

I am also concerned that the housing benefit system doesn't cover housing costs in all cases. The housing system needs an over hall to ensure that people have safe an secure housing. Social housing prices should be set across each region and paid directly to the landlord. However this needs to come alongside tighter controls to ensure that land lords maintain properties correctly.

@Blossomtoes

I've got 3 children and wanted a 4th. We sat down and worked out our finances and realised we wouldn't be able to enjoy the (frivolous) things we do now - a holiday, occasional meal out - if we had a 4th.If you struggle to buy the food you want, then why did you have 3 such young children - genuine question

What would happen if you experienced a catastrophic life changing event that meant you had to rely on benefits? That’s what’s happened to a lot of benefits claimants. That would punch a hole in your smugness.

Oh my goodness, yes this. People just do not consider those who lose a partner, get seriously ill or disabled etc and those people may have children already before life changes. It is such a massive classist assumption that people have chosen to be unable to afford their children.

@GoldenBlue

The £20 per week was always only a temporary measure, and therefore I am not upset by its removal.

What I am worried about is that the minimum wage isn't high enough to be a living wage. Everyone in full time employment should be able to afford to live without having to fall back on additional benefits. Employers should pay sufficient wages.

I am also concerned that the housing benefit system doesn't cover housing costs in all cases. The housing system needs an over hall to ensure that people have safe an secure housing. Social housing prices should be set across each region and paid directly to the landlord. However this needs to come alongside tighter controls to ensure that land lords maintain properties correctly.

If housing benefit covered everyones full rent surely people would choose to live in the best house they could knowing the state would pay for it in full ?? This is why there is a local allowance cap. I know the rates are maybe not high enough but you have to have some kind of cap !

What would happen if you experienced a catastrophic life changing event that meant you had to rely on benefits? That’s what’s happened to a lot of benefits claimants. That would punch a hole in your smugness.

Surely you know by now that people like this never get illnesses, disability or made redundant? They're way too superior for that - it only happens to other people(!)

@Bluntness100

God these threads always bring out the hard left Labour zealots still bitter over the defeat.

This one seems to have brought out a fair number of Daily Mail readers.

I didn’t get it because I’m on the old system of income support and it was only for those on UC so I’m sure you will cope

@Blossomtoes

I've got 3 children and wanted a 4th. We sat down and worked out our finances and realised we wouldn't be able to enjoy the (frivolous) things we do now - a holiday, occasional meal out - if we had a 4th.If you struggle to buy the food you want, then why did you have 3 such young children - genuine question

What would happen if you experienced a catastrophic life changing event that meant you had to rely on benefits? That’s what’s happened to a lot of benefits claimants. That would punch a hole in your smugness.

I see this all the time in my job. I work with people with cancer. Just this week I have assisted a terminally ill woman who went from earning a good income to being terminally ill in a matter of month, 300k mortgage and husband has now had to leave his job to care for her. Two incomes gone virtually overnight and risking losing their home whilst also having two kids losing their mum and young husband losing his wife. it is heartbreaking and I see it multiplied hundreds of times over.

listentomydeclaration

^By not having 4 or 5 kids.
By spending their money more wisely (no fags or junk food)
By getting a job^

I only have 2 dc. I don't smoke. Or drink. Or have a social life. Or eat junk food.
I'd love to get a job but my MH means i can't at the moment.

The majority of UC claimants, from my experience, need to make better decisions.
God yes. Stupid me and my stupid decisions.
Stupid me for choosing to be sexually abused as a child leading to MH issues.
Stupid me choosing for my DP to walk out on me and our DC. Stupid me for choosing to get his new wife pregnant 3 times and and refusing to pay CMS.
Stupid me choosing to have a mental breakdown leaving me suicidal at times and unable to leave the house at others.

x2boys

Indeed im not disabled, but my child is and gets HRC and HRM, we still get tax credits, we did get the extra £500 one off payment but not the £20 weekly uplift

I (perhaps mistakenly) thought those on TCs got more than one £500 payment so overall they got the same amount as the UC uplift? No idea where I read that though so I may well have imagined it.

Other than that, the only person I know on the legacy benefits gets far more in benefits than I do on UC. (Both have the same number of dependent children.) She's also not subject to the benefit cap. She is however terrified that they will realise one day that she should have been moved over/has been over paid and will owe it all back.

There's such a race to the bottom on these threads 'I don't get £20 a week why should anyone else.' I don't get it either and it would be helpful but rather than go after the few people who get it and need it. Why don't we go after the billionaires and massive corporations to pay their tax and then we won't have to quibble over it.

@CiaoForNiao

listentomydeclaration

^By not having 4 or 5 kids.
By spending their money more wisely (no fags or junk food)
By getting a job^

I only have 2 dc. I don't smoke. Or drink. Or have a social life. Or eat junk food.
I'd love to get a job but my MH means i can't at the moment.

The majority of UC claimants, from my experience, need to make better decisions.
God yes. Stupid me and my stupid decisions.
Stupid me for choosing to be sexually abused as a child leading to MH issues.
Stupid me choosing for my DP to walk out on me and our DC. Stupid me for choosing to get his new wife pregnant 3 times and and refusing to pay CMS.
Stupid me choosing to have a mental breakdown leaving me suicidal at times and unable to leave the house at others.

x2boys

Indeed im not disabled, but my child is and gets HRC and HRM, we still get tax credits, we did get the extra £500 one off payment but not the £20 weekly uplift

I (perhaps mistakenly) thought those on TCs got more than one £500 payment so overall they got the same amount as the UC uplift? No idea where I read that though so I may well have imagined it.

Other than that, the only person I know on the legacy benefits gets far more in benefits than I do on UC. (Both have the same number of dependent children.) She's also not subject to the benefit cap. She is however terrified that they will realise one day that she should have been moved over/has been over paid and will owe it all back.

People on tax credits did get the uplift prior to them revising whether the uplift was going to be extended around April this year. because Tax credits are calculated annually they then gave people on tax credits the additional £500 which was the equivalent of what people on UC received up to the end of September. But form the start of lockdown or whenever they introduced the uplift, people on tax credits would have been getting the extra £20 a week also.

@Babyroobs yes she gets the lcwra element but she's not on the top rates of pip so she doesn't get as much as you've suggested.

@BrendaBubbles That's all well and good but it doesn't change the fact that a loaf of bread costs the same, no matter what your age. I imagine some employers would rather have a trainable 18 year old than a 30 year old who think they know everything already.

@cadburyegg your situation sounds similar to mine in some ways except I've not been moved to UC yet, thank goodness. I do have an adult DC as well as my 2 little ones but it's not for him to provide for them and anyway he is disabled. I was married and thought everything was fine when the kids were born then my ex decided to drive a coach and horses through mine and their lives. Now I'm the scrounging workshy single mum and he's a bloody hero if he flings the odd tenner my way. We manage and I've been poorer in my late teens/early 20s but it's not always easy.

Well I could have done with it but didn’t get it despite being on benefits as a carer so why would I hope others still get it, I was very annoyed to hear I didn’t qualify because I was on income support not UC so some of us never got the extra so be glad you did

It's shocking. People were struggling before. Proves have gone up a lot in the last 18 months. Food and petrol are both more expensive. More and more vulnerable people are going to be living poverty and relying on foodbanks. And when you think at all the money this government have wasted throughout the pandemic. They should hang their heads in shame.

@PoolNooodle

Well I could have done with it but didn’t get it despite being on benefits as a carer so why would I hope others still get it, I was very annoyed to hear I didn’t qualify because I was on income support not UC so some of us never got the extra so be glad you did

It is terrible that those on legacy benefits did not get the uplift. I think there is a legal challenge going on at the moment. If the government have to back pay millions to these groups of claimants, they will definately not reverse their decision !

benefit system needs stark reforms so that there is more incentive for people to work

People on UC are always better off working. The more you earn, the less UC you get but it always works out that the more hours you can work, the better off you are.

The uplift was helpful when my business was affected by the pandemic. Now my business is back to normal it don’t need it. In theory. I can concentrate on getting more business so I don’t have to rely on UC. I’ve had two months this year when I didn’t need it. Such an achievement for a single self employed woman. Feel so empowered.

@DrCoconut I'm not sure why people often seem to assume that single parents are to blame for their "bad decisions". Like you, I was (still am) married to my ex, we were together for 11 years. Like you said, the single mums are judged but the dads are heroes