AIBU to be angry about the benefits system

[Daffodilsinfebruary]

I have recently discovered by using a free, independent benefits calculator called entitledto that had I applied for Universal Credit over 2 years ago, me and my family would be over £16,000 better off.

I had assumed that benefits were for either single-parent families or people unable to work due to disability.

The majority of our savings would have been from claiming 85% back in childcare costs. We also would have had a payout of over £200 each month in addition.

For context, we bring in just shy off £4,000 a month. I thought this was a very reasonable income and we would be entitled to nil.

I feel angry that we did not know about this. A friend of mine who I met through our children attending the same nursery told me she claims 85% back in childcare costs during a conversation in which I complained of my childcare going up £150.

I did further research and 19 billion pounds apparently goes unclaimed every year.

I’ve never claimed benefits in all my life and worked hard to get on the property ladder.

should I be angry that we didn’t claim, or take it in my stride.

I wonder how many other families who could have claimed but haven’t.

Norway increased wealth taxes recently. Of its 236000 millionaires and billionaires, 30 left. That meant a loss of 0.01% of that wealthy population and was nothing next to the revenue gained from the increase. The idea of rich people fleeing the country is a myth.

I dont understand I'm earning 35k a year single parent and only get child benefit for my son. I don't get for my daughter as she is doing part time Ed post 16
I dont want to claim however I didn't realise people earn so much ans still able to? I gey single person discount of council tax but thats not alot

Read the many many previous posts about how a UC claim is calculated and how people become eligible for the money.

Here is a thing! I pay tax on my salary on my savings etc etc and I am more than happy for it to be used to help other people out! Its called society and I for one would rather be part of a community that cares for and helps those who are struggling. I dont judge how other people spend their money because I do not live their lives or have their experiences!

I know I’d agree up to a point can’t say I’m thrilled about it we pay shed loads of tax and get abit weary when hearing about people we are supporting who earn £4k wtf.

People getting that will really only be getting it for a couple of years ( unless they decide to have loads of kids), because when the high childcare costs end, the benefits will stop.

We have 4.5k a month and receive nothing. Which I think is right. Though I wish I’d left the savings section of the calculator blank and seen if that made a difference. Feel like spending the lot and then see if we qualify!

That calculator looks dodgey though because I put my husband’s wage in and it said ‘very high salary’ (it isn’t) I then put mine in which is UK average and it still said ‘very high’. Out of interest I lowered it to £18k a year for full time hours and it still said ‘very high’. Is it hell! Also it showed our take home pay the same as the gross, it wasn’t automatically deducting income tax and NI. I don’t trust it at all.

The system is broke overall though, I have a single parent friend with school age children (no childcare costs) who had 5 holidays a year and just paid £5k for her teeth done. A great use of her UC…

If the calculator said £18k is a very high salary I suspect you didn’t change the frequency of payment to yearly.

The calculator takes off income tax and NI on the same page it asks you to input your gross earnings. Then having taken off income tax and NI it asks you if your net earnings are different, and if you answer yes it asks you to input your figure.

It's funny cause I grew up on benefits and was bullied and people would be passed off they my dad could sit at home all day. However he doesn't live in luxury at all and they live poor and accept. He has health issues. My mum cares for him. However now I'm grown up I see people who are on benefits as they've told me and no one would ever guess as they appear rich and they don't get the 'shame' I guess it's OK tk be on benefits if you look rich and scam whatever you can but not of you look poor and live within your means. My sisters boyfriend came to my house and said you can tell there is a lot of money and successful people around here as my social housing area is full of mercs snd 4 by 4 and most are just part time mechanics, bar workers or on the dole, I don't care but I don't drive but I am a go getter, educated do a lot and people think I'm the poorest when I'm better off and do more than the lot of them. If you are a single women on your own working not relying on a man then your looked down on. Then they wonder why people go off with any man and buy cars they can't afford cause if you live like me people don't understand

@FlipFlop1987 you mustn't have changed payment frequency so it will look like you earn 18k a month or something.

This isn’t the case unfortunatly. As I have already stated further up this post we don’t claim UC a as morally we don’t think it’s right as between us our take home pay is just shy of £5000 and we own our own house via a mortgage. Despite our high income we are eligable for approx £350 of Universal credit a month. (I have done the online calculators and also worked it out manually). This is due to the disabled child element and carers element we would be entitled to. We have never claimed benefits in our life and have 3 kids all born before 2017. Two of those children are very poorly and receive the high rate care allowance as well as carers allowance. When you add these elements to the standard allowance and the child element we are entitled to get a total of £2898.55 before wages are deducted. Even when you deduct the 55p per £1 earned of this (and take account of the working allowance) we still would be able to claim £350ish a month which is ludicrous. We don’t need that money and we can’t morally claim it but I bet there are thousands who do because they can. We will be entitled to this for several years yet as the girls are a long way off 18. There will be people like us claiming these elements from a child aged around 2 up until their 18th birthday because they can yet there are people living in poverty and barely getting by.

@Mumof3girls9 you must recognise that that isn't a standard scenario though and as another poster has already noted research shows that in general the additional cost of disabilities is substantial and those benefits are very much needed.
Those additional elements are there for a reason of course there may be exceptions where they aren't required as for yourself.
The adaptive equipment many children with disabilities require to be able to access normal activities in general is substantial.

Oh yes I do accept that but you also have to accept that a system that allows this scenario is compleltey flawed. When I stop work I will be very grateful for any support we can get from UC but at present their dla payments cover their additional needs and all their equipment is provided by their OT,s and wheelchair services etc so we don’t have tk pay for it.

Carer’s allowance and DLA are benefits.

It’s brilliant all the equipment your DDs need is funded. Really it is. For many, it is not the case. For many, there’s plenty of equipment (or better versions of) they would benefit from that is not funded. For example, the Innowalk, a proper changing table rather than a stretcher over the bath or shower trolley, specialist bikes/trikes, off-road wheelchairs/all-terrain wheelchair wheel adaptor, SN buggies including beach wheels/bike adapters/skis. Some only have a single track hoist funded but would benefit from H-frame hoist with transit coupling. Suitable vehicles cost a lot (even with motability, the AP can be significantly more than the remaining DLA received and not everyone is eligible for a grant).

Yes true but my original post was about people claiming for childcare. Obviously if you have disabled child elements on the claim they are going to last until the child is 18 or even older in some circumstances, but that help is there because of the extra costs of having a disabled child so most people will claim it for that reason. Having multiple severely disabled children on a claim of course is going to run into well over £1300 a month extra Uc entitlement before earnings reduce it, but I guess it costs a lot if you have a disabled child who oyu have to pay extra costs for - care, equipment, replacing things if they break them. It is a huge amount of money especially on top of the actually DLA itself but if both parents or even one can't work I guess it is just kind of replacing the income they could have earned had they not been caring for disabled kids. Some children are so disabled they need both parents not to be working to give the other a break. In those situations then UC & DLA is their only income. If you don't need to claim it for your disabled children then it's great that you don't need to.

The benefits system is broken. Needs a complete overhaul with the emphasis on people paying their own way if they can and benefits going to those who are in temporary dire need. That’s what it was supposed to be set up for. I don’t include child benefit in that because that was originally a tax allowance in the same way as we all get a tax free element to our income.

Just temporary dire need? What about people who are disabled?

Many working people have to claim because their wages aren't enough to live on. That's why they are entitled to them.

Sorry haven't rtft, I don't understand, why are you angry that you didn't know you could claim uc ....but later on say you live comfortably and didn't need it anyway...so what is the issue? That you don't want other people to have had it?

When I was a single parent earning £34k a year and paying £800ish a month childminder, I got approx £540 a month towards childcare. The system incentivises people to work, because the big obstacle used to be childcare costs. Long term it probably works out better for society as a whole to incentivise work even if it means some people who think they don’t need it are eligible. It’s not about each individual case, it’s about the overall benefit to society. And I would rather pay my taxes into a system which might be flawed but at least exists. People should have a safety net.

It better advantages people if everyone eligible gets the benefit and can use it as they think fit to provide care for their children. The current system incentivises mothers (or fathers, but esp mothers) to leave their children to be brought up by others for profit, rather than bringing up their children themselves. This is unjust. Choosing to stay at home with one's children if one can should be encouraged. We are not all just economic units to add to the GDP. Countries such as Sweden include childrearing as part of their GDP because mothers/parents/grandparents nurturing their own children produces good outcomes - those societies also put in infrastructure to enable parents to be at home with their children e.g. activity centres etc. The UK system assumes staying at home with one's children is a waste of money. If the money was paid to do with as one chooses, e.g. pay grandparents, stay at home, use a childminder/nursery then that would be much, much better for society - and women, 60% of whom would prefer to spend more time with their children rather than go out to work full-time (survey last year). I am happy to pay taxes to provide childcare, but I would much prefer a system that worked in favour of women choosing to work or not.

I'm genuinely amazed you are entitled to so much
I did the entitled thingy after I went back from mat leave on around 35k and my partner's on around 16k and we got nothing bar child benefit and the tax free childcare/ 15 hours at 3
so I would really like to know how some on a lot more get so much!?

It depends on a lot of things . Your LA rate if you rent , how many children you have , if any children , are any of those children disabled , do you have carers element etc .

I have an income ( if we both do full time hours ) of £4k monthly - but we have children on the award , disability elements , carers elements , a 4 bed LA rate … my husband has expenses claimed back on his wage .., so we can - dependant on how many payments in an assessment period- get a payment from them some months . I had been out of work a while and realised we could have got payments ( this was before we opened a claim ) but I didn’t think we would be entitled so I hadn’t bothered .

It all really depends on the individual situation .

It would also be easy to say that we have £4k a month how would we need any more - but then our outgoings are very high - due to children / disabilities/ high rent - so actually that extra really helps .

I think what people should really be angry about on this thread in regards to benefits is those who are playing the system and receiving money they shouldn’t .

If UC decide that someone on £4k needs more , due to their situation , then they probably do. UC is different to previous benefits and actually makes it beneficial to work ( no matter what - you are always better off working on UC because what ever you earn , your award is reduced by around half of that . So even if your award is reduced by say £300 - that means you are £150 better off as you have that from your wage . If you didn’t earn that £300 you would have £150 extra UC so less than you would when working if that makes sense ? ) so for me , the months I don’t get UC - the reason is we have had more income .

I know of - not personally as in she’s not a friend but I see her on fb and have a friend who is friends with her - a woman who has children and quite blatantly by the sounds of it , commits fraud. She says her partner does not live with her and claims benefits whilst her partner works full time in a high paid job . She gets all the benefits that someone who is on a low income would ( FSM etc ) . They have just came back from Disneyland ( Florida , not Paris ! ) , she has a brand new car , the children are in designer clothes as is she and her partner has a chunk of money saved up with the view to put it on a deposit to buy . These are the people we should be angry at .

https://www.gov.uk/national-benefit-fraud-hotline You only have to believe, not prove, and they do the rest.