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.

@Gimlisaxe

Unfortunately, lots of people have kids and then expect to get housing benefit, tax credits etc as a lifestyle choice.

This is just not true, you only get benefits for two children.

There are very few circumstances where you get benefits for more than 2

It is only in the past few years that the 2 child cap has come into place. Many many people are still claiming for 4/5 kids for years on end. They are more likely to be hit by the benefit cap though with a large family.

Going off some of the comments I now understand why the UK votes the tories in time after time despite their appalling record. And that includes people who aren’t even well off themselves. The envy that folk worse off than them get something they don’t is frightening, explains the belligerence towards immigrants, refugees, the homeless, single mums, ‘benefit scroungers’. When did the country become full of such hard hearted whingers ?

@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.

I agree. There does need to be some cap but round here that cap is £800 for 2 beds whilst a 2 bed in the cheapest nastiest area (where there are hardly any properties available anyway) is at least £950. Realistically you need to spend £1100/1200 a month. I'm incredibly fortunate now to have a council property but when I was in private I lost my £1200/ month home and had to go bankrupt.

Because my housing is so cheap, losing the £80 uplift won't put us in poverty but very nearly. And the fresh fruit, good meat, desserts after dinner will have to go.

Sure, we don't need them... but I also don't feel like they're ultimate luxuries that people should begrudge.

@Babyroobs, it came in, in 2017 so even the last child to be born, will be 4 and a half, meaning that the parents would now be having to look for a job or get sanctioned.

When did the country become full of such hard hearted whingers ?

I think it’s always been the same. That’s how Thatcher kept getting re-elected and why we’ve had a Tory government for 11 years.

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

Far too easy to claim minimum wage isn’t high enough. The reality is people make choices - where they live, if they have children, what they purchase or lease etc. Some will make choices they can afford on the salary, others won’t. Not sure why that’s the employers fault.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

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

Far too easy to claim minimum wage isn’t high enough. The reality is people make choices - where they live, if they have children, what they purchase or lease etc. Some will make choices they can afford on the salary, others won’t. Not sure why that’s the employers fault.

Because they have created a business model where they either can't afford or don't want to pay a living wage.

It's nothing to do with choices... it's not a living wage.

Minimum wage brings in about £1200 a month. That's never going to be enough to live on without a top up.

Why should the tax payer meet the shortfall whilst corporations make huge profits whilst under paying staff?!

@CiaoForNiao

The same way they coped before the uplift... debt, foodbanks, poverty, going without.

This.

I love.on UC and I currently a little over £1000 a month. Once the uplift is taken away I will be getting about £950

Rent
Council tax
Electric
Water
Food
Internet
So on and so on.

Does not leave me and daughter very much at all.

It's also very hard to get off because of the way they have done the childcare element of it. They pay up to 80% of childcare but it is paid in arrears.
So if I got a job I would have to pay the first month's child care myself, which is fine, but I don't know where I would find it as I can't exactly save a months worth of child care payments from the UC payment I get as it is to low to save anything at all, we barely scrape through most.months as it is.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

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

Far too easy to claim minimum wage isn’t high enough. The reality is people make choices - where they live, if they have children, what they purchase or lease etc. Some will make choices they can afford on the salary, others won’t. Not sure why that’s the employers fault.

But someone has to live in the expensive areas and do the minimum wage jobs.

The reality is people make choices - where they live, if they have children, what they purchase or lease etc. Some will make choices they can afford on the salary, others won’t.

You think people choose to live in poverty? Really?

@Blossomtoes

When did the country become full of such hard hearted whingers ?

I think it’s always been the same. That’s how Thatcher kept getting re-elected and why we’ve had a Tory government for 11 years.

Yes, I mean New Labour was never left wing anyway. Let's face it. If they were they'd have never got in.

@Cinderss

Ah, I see the race to the bottom has begun.

Those on legacy benefits were welcome to switch to UC at any point, in fact they’ve been encouraged to do so.

Those earning too much to qualify for benefits, I wish it wasn’t such a bitter feeling. I hate that our circumstances the last year have got so bad that we’ve had to claim. I hope the bitterness doesn’t leave too much of a bad taste.

I agree with you re the bitterness. I got no help at all during the pandemic. I'm self employed and was over the 50k threshold. It annoyed me as it was based on past earnings and therefore plenty of people I know whose income went through the floor were scuppered. And also there wasn't a similar threshold for the employed - there was a cap on how much you could get furlough however there wasn't a cap on people claiming.

However...

Luckily I did earn enough and I never once ever thought ffs they're giving people on UC £20 extra. Not at all. The gov capping help for self employed didnt magically mean people on UC weren't deserving or needed it. They're different things.

Also I have not had to live the life people on UC live. Yes things are more expensive. Yes I have less available money. However once you have enough to cover your basic needs, you have enough. Anything else is a bonus isnt it. And the point here is there are people on UC who now won't have enough to cover their basic needs.

im still working at 65 dont get my pension till next year and both of my jobs were furloughed so i got 20% less money all through both lockdowns as i am not on any benefits i managed and was grateful to get the furlough pay

@isseys4xmastinselcats If you didn't qualify for UC then your income was higher than those that qualify, even with the 20% reduction. Why are you begrudging people that have less than you?

There's a few posts in here that are a bit weird and off to me.

If anyone on this website and in this thread think that life on UC is great, then go for it. Nothing is stopping you giving up your life and claiming it too.

I do hope you enjoy being cold, can't afford heat in winter beyond a hot water bottle, using the storage heaters is a huge no no.

I do hope you like not being able to choose where you live. Landlords are happy to let people on benefits wipe their elderly.relatives sock up, they're happy for nurses claiming IC top up to administer life saving medicines, but damn their eyes if they try to rent a property, they can go homeless. So you're stuck with Housing Associations and huge estates full of crime, drugs, prostitution and poverty.

I hope you don't enjoy eating much food. I have to limit my spending to £80 a fortnight. If you think you can be healthy and stay on budget, you're wrong. My daughter is fed well, but there are days I'll have 2 slices of toast because there is literally NOTHING else.

I also hope you enjoy staying home. The bus costs too much, forget a car, petrol coats too much, you could go for a walk but the shoes you've got are 5 years old and leak but you can't afford to replace them with anything but more cheap ones that fall apart in weeks. Not that it matters, not like you can afford a coffee at Starbucks anymore, or entry fee to anywhere but free things etc.

I hope you're not too into phones and tech, there is no way you're affording a £50 phone every month.
Internet is necessary for the UC managing though, so you have to have that pretty much. You can't get the decent package though, too expensive, cheapest you can and use it sparingly.

The one silver lining of life on UC is if you enjoy bargain hunting. I mean I've always loved a bargain and spotting yellow stickers in supermarkets. I never knew I'd end up reliant on them to stop me slipping back into malnutrition.

But.life wasn't always like this, I had a good job once, earnt over 20k a year. But then daughter came along and partner at the time convinced me that giving up work so they could concentrate on theirs was a good idea. Then they left. Now I'm stuck as sole carer to my daughter. No one to pick her up from school I'd have to use paid child care. Which I couldn't pay a month for because UC leaves me with nothing and £300 from nothing to pay that first month is... Well, I don't know,.my maths isn't good..
What is fuck all minus 300?

But anywho.
I shall look forward to seeing you all in the future, bragging about your most amazing lives now you're living it up on UC.

TL:Dr or DGAF Version:
Life for unemoued people on Universal Credit is not how they portray it in Poverty Porn TV Shows.

I think stiff little fingers are still on the money fucking 40 years later

*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.

Exactly this - they’d spend it for a quick lunch meeting so they don’t understand how much £20 means to others*

But thet aren't giving £20 to one person. It's thousands. There is only so much money to go around. Everyone on the other thread is up in arms about the NI Increase to pay for social care. But on here we are up in arms
because they aren't giving out enough money. It has to come from somewhere.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

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

Far too easy to claim minimum wage isn’t high enough. The reality is people make choices - where they live, if they have children, what they purchase or lease etc. Some will make choices they can afford on the salary, others won’t. Not sure why that’s the employers fault.

I earn around the national average wage, full time, need a degree to do the job etc etc. I also get TC's (and obviously CB) I am not sure I could pay much less than my £220 ish a month mortgage, we are a cheap area but a standard rental payment would still be a significant proportion of my take home pay.

I think people are just dense about how low some wages are.

Far too easy to claim minimum wage isn’t high enough. The reality is people make choices - where they live, if they have children, what they purchase or lease etc. Some will make choices they can afford on the salary, others won’t. Not sure why that’s the employers fault.

Absolutely yes.

Personally, I think it was abhorrent how the government did the £20/week increase in the first place because they excluded all disabled people who are unable to work from the increase. This meant that disabled people, whose costs are known to be higher than abled people, had to live on £20/wk less than abled working or out of work people this entire time. So honestly, it going away is actually returning some parity between abled and disabled. If you want to fight for it to be increased again, include an increase for the disabled in your petitions.

@Brokensunflower

*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.

Exactly this - they’d spend it for a quick lunch meeting so they don’t understand how much £20 means to others*

But thet aren't giving £20 to one person. It's thousands. There is only so much money to go around. Everyone on the other thread is up in arms about the NI Increase to pay for social care. But on here we are up in arms
because they aren't giving out enough money. It has to come from somewhere.

BoJos flat renovation would have funded 10000 weeks worth.

The HS2 Stage 1 has 40bn ring fenced to pay for it, just stage 1...

So 1 billion or 1000000000 divided by 10k or 10000 = 100,000 so 40 billion would pay 40 X 100,000 - 10k a year...

That's a hell of a lot of people that could feed and clothe themselves and their kids or a single train project.

1 yacht for 250million.. I can't even do the maths and tell you how long that could pay for a family to not starve.

Etc etc.

It’s an absolute disgrace that they are going to take this from people. Coupled with the extra NI someone on a c.20k salary (basically all the people who have kept the country running through the pandemic) will be pushed further into poverty. With the increase of food prices since Brexit, so many more people will be relying on food banks in a country that had a couple shameful level of poverty as it is. Is this really what the government want? It doesn’t make any sense. Especially when you consider the billions spaffed up the wall putting contracts into pals pockets. Despicable despicable people they are. I can’t forgive Labour for not shouting about this from the rooftops either. They are such a hopeless opposition.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Personally, I think it was abhorrent how the government did the £20/week increase in the first place because they excluded all disabled people who are unable to work from the increase. This meant that disabled people, whose costs are known to be higher than abled people, had to live on £20/wk less than abled working or out of work people this entire time. So honestly, it going away is actually returning some parity between abled and disabled. If you want to fight for it to be increased again, include an increase for the disabled in your petitions.

Absolutely not defending the government, but disabled people on UC absolutely did receive the uplift. Those claiming legacy benefits didn't though.

How has a previous poster been able to get £1000 in universal credit?