to be shocked at universal credit amount?

[oddsocksmatchifsamethickness]

I've just become a single mum of one, husband gone. So obviously I want to bring my earnings up. I'm self-employed and will be doing so. But I put in a calculation for UC to see if I could get help while I sought new contracts. I'm self-employed. I earned 1K this month and did the calculation and it says I will get another 650 a month from UC.

Can that be right? It seems a lot, it would take my income up to a wage of 28K/year, but I only work 20 hours a week.

Is this what people get?

Exactly!

The faux naïveté

@sleepingdragon it's not far off including student loan repayment and pension payments.

@WishingWell5 but if you have children you may have to claim UC yourself and then you can join OP too and "live the dream".

Seriously there's a bigger picture. Some people are listing figures but there's a £300 pound difference it's a lot of money each month. It's ridiculous that people are envying a rough estimate that OP has put.

Your colleague is committing benefit fraud, @Suzi888. I work in welfare rights, and it is incredibly hard to convince DWP that you are separated from a partner when you are both living in the same property.

It's people like her that get genuine claimants a bad name and leads them to be treated like scroungers.

They wouldn't be at risk of growing up in poverty if the non resident parent was forced to support them would they ? The fact is that all too often they get away with contributing very little and the state picks up the costs of that.

An awful lot of people live in London and the SE, where rents and house prices are most expensive. I think it's over 18m now, so over 25% of the population.

I did a benefit calculation for a friend of a friend the other day. Her DH has just fucked off and left her with 3 kids, and she was frantic about how she was going to pay her rent on just her £40k salary.

She's entitled to just under £800 a month in UC, because rents here are so high. UC allow just under £1,200 a month for a 3-bed property in this area, but her actual rent is £1,600, so there's still a big gap between what they'll pay and how much rent costs here.

People moan about how much claimants get in benefits, but they don't realise that often a huge chunk of that goes straight to landlords.

Absolutely.

And it's obscene that for people renting, rents are exorbitant.

A single person renting a one-bedroomed flat here is now affected by the benefit cap. They get £257 pw, but the average rent for a one-bed place is £223 pw.

The implementation of the "mif" was delayed for quite a while, but I can't recall if they've announced a date for its reinstatement yet.

(I should fucking remember, I deliver a training course on UC and self-employment, I'd better re-train myself before the next course!)

Because it's easier for the patriarchy to give token amounts of money to single mothers than make fathers pay a realistic amount for their children or to make them look after them 50% of the time.

My friend gets fucking shedloads in benefits. She's on ESA and in the support group because she has severe PTSD and other MH issues, her mid-teens son gets DLA because he has a raft of MH issues, so she gets the carer's premium, child tax credit + the disabled child element and she gets full housing benefit for her council flat.

But she'd far rather be well and working in the career she trained for, and have a child who's happy and sociable, and not to have been married to the cunt that's the cause of most of their problems.

She deserves (and needs) every damn penny she gets imo.

Because shit happens, and children shouldn't have to starve when it does.

@Closuretime I think people should claim for whatever they are entitled to. But in some cases, people are struggling whilst working. And I don't think that's right. Or they are missing out on help because they want to work more hours which takes them over some arbitrary cut off point... So then (understandably!) don't work those extra hours.

I agree. I'm over pension age now, but if I wasn't and was made redundant or became too ill to work, I'd get £335 a month UC. I own my house, so no housing costs, and no kids.

That £335 barely covers my basic bills (energy, internet, tv licence, phone, insurance, water and the reduced rate of council tax - I'd have to pay 20% of the total, after the 25% discount for being a sole occupier). It would leave me about £120 a month to feed and clothe myself, and running a car would be out of the question. I wouldn't be able to afford to have the boiler serviced or anything else fixed or replaced.

I don't think the child element of £244 reflects the full cost of having a child, and unless the youngest was born before April 2017, claimants on benefits only get the child element for 2 kids (unless there's a multiple birth).

The biggest chunk of every UC claim I come across is the housing costs. Even council rents here are over £500 a month, private more than double that.

If there were enough council houses for everyone to have one, the "benefit bill" would go down by a significant amount, without people who need benefits to survive being any worse off.

@WishingWell5 I will say this again I am not sure OP is genuine, I have no idea why she has posted this shit stirring thread either. She has not even got exact figures she has posted a bloody estimate. FFS how dim can one be.

I hear that lots of people are struggling BUT you can not believe everything on MN and start getting upset. Some info even on here is not correct so you can see have things are getting mixed up and wires crossed.

When I moved over from TC to UC I wouldn't of dreamed of posting my circumstances like this for what? I called CAB for advice.

UC should deduct rent off because it always sounds like people get loads more but if people deducted OPS rent and CT it's not huge amounts of money. OP works too.

"my single friend with a disabled child (the child has no expensive extra needs, they have a learning disability & get PIP because of it)"

You think there are no extra costs in caring for an adult with a learning disability. Clueless.

I just did another calculator based on me bringing home 900/month and it said I would get 717 in total, including rent of 400. So yes I think it's just going to bring me up to the 1650-ish take home but the reason I find it a lot is because I used to bring this home when I had a job that paid 28K but yes they were deducting student loan then. I just remember hating that job and hating full-time work so much that it feels really nice to be able to have the same money without any of that hassle.

There are an awful lot of "can't believe how much I can get in benefits" threads lately. It makes one wonder.

Not if your single no children disabled.

just did another calculator based on me bringing home 900/month and it said I would get 717 in total, including rent of 400. So yes I think it's just going to bring me up to the 1650-ish take home but the reason I find it a lot is because I used to bring this home when I had a job that paid 28K but yes they were deducting student loan then. I just remember hating that job and hating full-time work so much that it feels really nice to be able to have the same money without any of that hassle.

You're just rehashing what you said at the beginning.

If you think the calculator is incorrect then make a telephone call. I'm not sure what more discussion you want...

@oddsocksmatchifsamethickness I am personally offended as a single parent. I am going to report this thread also. Because I do not know any parent speaking like this and you are giving us a very bad name. The gullible lot are falling for it. £1080 works out at £27 per week and you have bills, food and travel expenses to pay from that £270 for 2 people too.

It does

£270*

How much is your monthly food budget? For us it's around £100 and I think that helps a lot.

But if you're self employed you won't be able to only earn 900.

Food budget £100 a month for two people?