Needing advice when on weekly pay and on Universal Credit

[Onegoingontwo]

My partner is paid weekly £358 minimum, which is low income but his job has small commission bonuses so some weeks he'll get more and it's impossible to know how much by until it's landed in his bank.

We have a DD whose 1 and another baby is on the way. I am a SAHM because childcare would make us worse off and we do not have any family/friends that could babysit for us as they all work themselves.

We live in the south so rent is astronomical and has sky rocketed to scary amounts since COVID, 3 years ago we could rent a 2 bedroom house for £750 no problem and now you're looking at £1100 in a less desirable location. We are not able to move because we have no savings for the cost of deposits, upfront rent and moving vans etc and also we would be isolating ourselves from our friends and family as we wouldn't move an hour down the road, it'll likely be 6-8 hours away in the north of the country.

Has anyone been in a similar situation where they receive weekly pay and UC? We have been told by UC that our usual payments of £750ish would stop 4 times a year because there will be 4 months where we will receive 5 payments instead of 4. Then we will have to reapply (not have it recalculated but will have to claim like we're starting from the beginning again) when that happens, and there is a 6 weeks waiting policy until your first lot of money can be paid. It says on the government website to budget accordingly to prepare for these months but how can you budget for no UC pay 4 times a year when you're struggling as it is?

I don't know what to do because we are already living on the borderline. Each month were lucky if we can make it to the 10th before we need to borrow money from family. If I return to work around the times my partner is home we are worse off because I cannot do full time (currently 6 months high risk pregnancy) and the UC will stop payments putting us into a worse position.

I'd love to know how others have coped in a similar situation or if anyone has any advice?

I'm afraid there's no way round the 5 paydays in a month thing under UC, unless your DH can switch to monthly pay.

Would the 5th week's pay definitely take you out of UC completely?And bear in mind that the taper rate for income over allowances will be going down to 55% (from 63%), supposedly next month, you'll get to hang on to a bit more of the income from work.

Other than that, I can only suggest that you plan for it and try and put by a little bit each month to make up the shortfall in the 5 week months. They'll usually be July/August and December/January (bloody annoying, as they're when expenses are higher, but that's down to the calendar).

You wouldn't have to reapply each time you have 5 weeks pay in an assessment period. You'd just get less/ £0 UC then the next month starts again with your new assessment period. Your account isn't cancelled until you've had 6 consecutive assessment periods of £0.

I do appreciate how hard it must be to budget for those times though. It's easy to say to put money away to prepare for it but that's not always realistic. The work allowance and taper rate are both changing soon, it could be that this means you're entitled to a small amount for those months where you've had 5 lots of wages? Worth doing the calculations.

If he’s paid weekly, how are you only making it to the 10th? Doesn’t more money come in? I’m a little confused.

That sounds really stressful to keep having to reapply continuously. It's rubbish but you really couldn't manage it long term it would make you both ill. I would check again with the taper rate changing to make sure it will def stop. You could either ask his employer if there is any chance of moving to monthly pay or perhaps you might need to get signed off sick with stress and consider a different job which isn't great.

Sorry should have been more clear the change to weekly pay is recent, before when he got monthly pay we would get to the 10th and be short. Now he gets paid the Friday and were barely surviving past the weekend but at least I know we've got a week's worth of food shopping done.

I heard about the 55% but not taper rate, what does that mean?

When I was paid weekly I used to increase my pension contributions on months where I got five pays. That way my income for UC was stable but reduced. Not helpful if you can’t afford to do that though.

"Taper rate" is the percentage that they deduct from your (potential) maximum UC amount after deducting the work allowance.

It's currently 63%, so when it changes, your UC will go up a little. And you'll get about £42 a month more because the work allowance is going up.

The work allowance is going from £293 to £335 (if you have housing costs on your claim, it's a different rate for those without housing costs.)

The taper rate (how much they deduct from your award per £1 of your wages) is currently 63p per £1, but will change to 55p per £1.

So that should make you a little better off.

An extra wage of £358 won't wipe out £750 of UC. He'd need to earn almost £1200 in that extra week to wipe £750 out.