UC sanctions should be temporarily lifted

[Needachangee]

NC as been discussing with a friend who uses MN

I am on UC currently but have been sanctioned for missing appointments as my mum was in hospital. I had a single piece of toast yesterday, I just started my period, it’s 30 degrees and I have 3 potatoes and half a tin of beans to last until Monday. That’s when I can apply for a hardship payment that I might not even receive and if I do it won’t come through till Tuesday.

AIBU to think sanctions should be lifted temporarily with the cost of living crisis. I understand that there has to be consequences and incentives to make people attend the job centre but the alternative is people like myself are close to starving. The only positive outlook I have is I’m starting work in September. Food banks are scarce as everyone is struggling to buy their own shops let alone donate.

The country is on its knees so I know there can’t be an increase in UC and as I say I will be earning myself soon enough but as I’ve been sanctioned the most I will get is £100 if I’m accepted for a hardship payment to see me through till payday in September. I think sanctions should be banned temporarily as a help to people like the increase during lockdown.

Really ill informed comment but not untypical of mn.

Not all benefits are means tested.

How about employers pay a wage where people don't need top ups?

How about shareholders say use our profits to top up wages so workers don't need UC?

How about the government address the housing crisis instead of fuelling private landlords with UC.

I do know its hard to just sack someone today. I thought they had to have written warnings etc!

Not when they are relatively new in a job. Or work for a small business who do not follow the same protocols as bigger firms. Not everyone in business has to know employment law until it is to late.

I was 5 weeks into a job when I had to go to a dentists appointment, I had to chose between getting help or holding down a job with the paramedics probably at some point turning up when the infection got worse (I tried everywhere but not one dentist would see me outside work hours) I came out of dentists to be let go by text message. Only the week before, my colleague there for 18 months turned up, argued with the boss and had driven off all before 8:30am, because the boss didn't do staff retention - in fact it was 'joked' at one point we could be replaced by robots for 20k (this was more actually then we were being paid at the time!) mumsnetters never got it that an employer could just behave like this.
I never knew anyone could go to work in 2022 in a building were literally the only staff facility was a toilet but hey ho, they were also scammers it turned out which the regulator took 2 years to take action against.

Anyway I was never paid final wages including holiday pay so on Universal credit I go, because there isn't a button that say's no thanks when you've an active claim from however many months ago in background.

I think sanctions should be scrapped because for the next 2 weeks I have to cancel an inappropriate convenient timed appointment, the night before it is due to not go into the job centre (I'm now in full-time employment but I would certainly like someone to pay the wages I haven't received and I will have had to wait for wages longer then someone waiting for the first UC payment) as just the game I have to play (this thread op just makes me quite nervous now!) my first appointment at the job centre last week was over in 5 minutes - asked to see my ID and sympathised that my last employer left me high and dry.

@Florenz Ideas on how folk can do that would very much appreciated.

Of course its true why would I make it up
You don't know everything that goes on all round the country.
The job centres get together with employers usually factory jobs or cleaning jobs and the dWP can make you attend an interview.

Employers are normally desperate to fill the roles and the DWP can supply.
You have to attend and if they think you havent tried hard enough they can sanction you.
They can ask the employer for feedback on the interview. The interviewers word is taken as gospel.
There is no proof. In a court of law this wouldn't be allowed.
Awful behaviour taking away someone's money on someone else's word.
Also DWP have never provided toilets for claimants to use ever.
They have held courses and meetings but refused to provide a toilet. Again they can make you attend by threatening sanction.They have been known to tell people to use McDonald's loos if they ask.

Why should McDonald's provide toilets the DWP should if they demand people attend for any length of time.

Did they even ask McDonald's doubt it?
Nasty little scumbags with some very devious and crafty behaviour.
Sanctions again if people don't attend because they object to their being no toilet.

Foodbanks should not exist in a rich country like ours.

It isn't unreasonable to expect benefits to come with conditions. The assumption by people that it is "their money" that the DWP are "taking away" is ridiculous.

I really hate the attitude of some benefit claimants, that the system is against them, it's all unfair, it's my money because it's mine, I don't have to do what you tell me if I don't want to. It's not surprising that these people don't have jobs if this is how they approach life.

@Florenz you really have no idea of the reality of UC and the benefits system.

TBF that equally applied to quite a few people on here.

As well as having zero compassion for other people.

I've been on benefits before, nearly a decade ago was the last time. I haven't been on UC. I've had friends and family members on benefits more recently. I'm not an expert on the benefits system but not completely unaware of how it works.

If you want to get a job and aren't too picky about what it is, there's virtually no excuse for being unemployed these days.

The problem is that some people think they are too good for some jobs (they're not), prefer being on benefits to doing low-paid work, and become so used to their whole day being their own, never having to worry about what time it is or what day it is, that getting to the jobcentre on a certain day at a certain time becomes difficult for them. And then when they don't attend, or don't bother looking for work, or turn up for job interviews clearly not interested in getting the job, and they get sanctioned, the DWP are the bad guys for taking "their money " away, when that money was given with conditions attached and the claimant failed to keep to their end of the bargain.

girlfriend44 is particularly unhelpful. She has the full gamut of 'hearsay' and 'scare-mongering' in her arsenal. Work Coaches, Case Managers and DWP employees have told you the reality of sanctions but third hand rumour and gossip is more 'entertaining' even if unreliable evidence. Why believe the truth from the horses mouth when you can froth at the mouth at half-truths and misinformation.

People aren't picky, benefits are less than a 5th of a MW job, where you may still get working benefits, so your still far better off in work.

BUT many of the people you describe are basically unemployable, have almost no work experience, health, substance abuse issues.

I come back to my first point "what does sanctioning these folk achieve?"

Wouldn't it be better to give them some sort of skills training? even if that in itself didn't lead to a job, at least they'd be meaningfully engaged.

Some help with those chaotic lives would be a good start.... and there is none.

What does not sanctioning them achieve? At least some of those sanctioned will buck their ideas up and toe the line enough in future to not get sanctioned again. Just letting people vegetate for years on end, and become absolutely disconnected from wider society, totally unemployable for the rest of their lives, is a terrible thing. And I know people that happened to.

I know this isn't the point of the thread and it isn't really the point of anything but I'm going to say this...

If mental health care in this country was better, I believe it would improve employment prospects for just about everyone really.

I don't want to get too deep into my issues, but if I had proper support, proper help, if I wasn't walking the tight rope that I currently.am, I'd be able to find a job and a job i can stick at. Instead there's sick notes, signing off, therapy wait lists of years, assessments by 'health care professional' that isn't actually a.mental.health knowledgeable person, but a chiropractor.. and the judging from people woth abhorrent attitudes and beliefs navigation. (Which I'm sure some will understand what I'm saying)

This country is in the toilet... And instead of blaming those pressing the flusher, people are blaming their fellow swimmers as if them drowning will help others swim.

It needs structure, services and support, not sanctions, to do this though.

Cutting someone’s income is punishment it’s not like stopping pocket money to teach them a lesson, it’s piling debt onto to debt. Evidence shows it doesn’t work.

I totally agree with you.

I have been signed off with MH issues for years. I would like to think I could hold down a job again, but the MH support out there nowadays is to keep you out of hospital and crisis teams. If you say to your work coach that you want to try a little part time job to test the waters, you are declared fit for work and having to job hunt for 37 hours a week (as well as having to live off half the benefits that the support group pays). Funnily enough, that can set you back in MH recovery and you end up being signed off again.
And then some people will say you deserve to get sanctioned for not trying hard enough and living a "chaotic life".

I think the amount CEOs of large corporations now receive is obscene. Their pay has shot up percentage wise by huge amounts in the last forty years in contrast to your typical worker. By all means pay such people well but the percentage increases dwarf the percentage increase a typical worker has received in the same time period contributing to massive inequality between the majority and those at the very top. A quick google and I have just found a study that says in the US CEO pay benefits has grown 940% since 1978. Typical worker pay compensation has risen only 12% during that time. I imagine U.K. isn’t vastly different. The study says CEOs are getting more because of their power to set pay, not because they are increasing productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills.

From the study:

“CEO compensation is very high relative to typical worker compensation (by a ratio of 278-to-1 or 221-to-1). In contrast, the CEO-to-typical-worker compensation ratio (options realized) was 20-to-1 in 1965 and 58-to-1 in 1989. CEOs are even making a lot more—about five times as much—as other earners in the top 0.1%. From 1978 to 2018, CEO compensation grew by 1,007.5% (940.3% under the options-realized measure), far outstripping S&P stock market growth (706.7%) and the wage growth of very high earners (339.2%). In contrast, wages for the typical worker grew by just 11.9%.

Why it matters: Exorbitant CEO pay is a major contributor to rising inequality that we could safely do away with. CEOs are getting more because of their power to set pay, not because they are increasing productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills. This escalation of CEO compensation, and of executive compensation more generally, has fueled the growth of top 1.0% and top 0.1% incomes, leaving less of the fruits of economic growth for ordinary workers and widening the gap between very high earners and the bottom 90%. The economy would suffer no harm if CEOs were paid less (or taxed more).”

www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

It's a shock if a new UC claim doesn't have a MH condition reported on it. It is endemic across all age groups.

Yeah, they shouldnt sanction people at all. Its so little that they give out any way. Its all run wrong. Sorry you're in the situation that you are. Good luck with your job in september

Two points, I have a client whoseFIT note is being refused.

@Florenz , you do know that disabled people access benefits too. Do you think we live chaotic lives, expect something for nothing? We have to jump through hoops to get benefits, answer humiliating questions whilst all the time being accused of lying. If the DW removes my benefits then yes, it’s my money.
(I bought a bottle of wine last week, are you going to complain about that)?

I hate that anyone that works for DWP, even in as a work coach, gets demonised.

My work coach was wonderful. She understood MH (she had a sister with bipolar)... said she would never feel happy making me apply for any job, but the system would have me apply for stuff that I absolutely could not do. That was not her fault at all.

I remember during one appointment... there was a chap on the next desk who was shaking hands with his work coach and thanking them for everything... and that he was off to go into a job he loved.

Two points, I have a client whoseFIT note is being refused.

This is appalling.
I've also heard of people getting their assessments, being found for for work and the DWP instructing their doctor to not issue any more fit notes as DWPs health care professional says the claimant is for for.work even when the doctor says their not. (There's a number for the letter EA50M or.some such)

I think it's appalling they can overrule someone's doctors.