To think Universal Credit are a bunch of cunts

[StarbucksStraw]

I work full time but also claim Universal Credit.

They have awarded me £0 this month because two of my wages have fallen within one assessment period therefore to them, it looks like I have earned twice as much.

This happens several times a year because of how my wages are paid, each time I have to raise a dispute, they then "move" one lot of wages to a different assessment period and adjust my statement and pay me the outstanding amount. This is usually sorted within a few days but sometimes takes longer.

This time my payment is nearly three weeks overdue. I have no money left, all of my wages have been spent on rent, direct debits etc. Every time I ask them for an update I get fuck all.

How can they leave someone in this situation? They told me to ask the local authority for help but I've had no luck.

They already have the information from HMRC/ my employer showing when I was paid and how much. What the actual fuck do the expect people to do? I can't run my car to get to work on fresh air and I doubt my son wants to live off whatever stale shite is left in the cupboard for the next fuck knows how long.

I don't know what I'm hoping for from this post... anyone else had success in getting them to hurry up?

If a full-time employee with typical expenses can’t afford to live, and the employer can’t afford to pay the employee more, then the business is not viable. If the business provides an essential service, then there is an argument to be made for government subsidy. we need certain businesses, even if they are not profitable.

However, that does not mean that the business itself still should be allowed to pull profits beyond the labor of each person working for the company. The person running the company deserves to be paid, but if the business has to be propped up to stay open, they should not be making profits for simply owning the business. For publicly held companies, stockholders should not see dividends when those dividends are subsidized by the government.

Probably because the cost of living is fucking ridiculous - particularly if the Op rents and is in the south.

@BeaRF75 - there are many people who work and get UC who dot have anything left at the end of the month- certainly not enough to pay all the expenses they cover with UC for a month. Many people, despite working and getting UC have sweet FA left at the end of the month. To tweely tell people to juts save, means you really don't understand the situation thousands of people are in every month in the UK. No money from UC is actually devastating. People don't even have a spare £100 lying around, never mind whatever it is you get from UC each month.

That makes sense though - the pay rise is backdated, so you’ll have been overpaid UC for those months as you’d have received less if you were on your new wage.

I’ve been there, it sucks, but it’s correct.

And yet oddly all the employers can pay using all those different pay frequencies and pay days and everyone can pay the right tax and NI. If UC mirrored the tax and NI system which have weekly and monthly rates instead of using a frequency that bears no relation to the pay frequency of many employees, that would be a start. It is a shit design, presumably done for cheapness of the software and implementation so that as others have said, poor people will have to pay the extra costs.

barbaric?!! go to Africa, Asia, South America... basically 95% of the rest of the world and tell them that the government not giving you money on time is 'barbaric'... see what their reaction is.

People have been so molly coddled in this country they have lost the ability to be grateful. We are incredibly lucky.

Because I have Netflix and enjoy takeaway coffee, obviously.

I don’t imagine that a typical Amazonwarehouse/Tesco employee can afford to live on typical expenses in London - and they seem to be pretty viable.

Is it ethical? Trickier question.

If they’re paying tax properly - then it’s that money that then goes back into the system (but that’s a big if).

There are other ways to express it that don’t make you look ignorant !

Employers should not be allowed to pay a wage that people cannot live on. Tax payers money should not be used to bolster corporations' profits
out of touch comments, so do
you think carers and retail staff should be on £40k +, do you see anywhere paying that?
Not everyone in a MN big job person

It's especially true that people need UC because there is such a shortage of affordable housing in many parts of the UK.

The housing costs element is the biggest single item in almost every UC claim I look at. When it's hard to find a 2-bed flat for less than £1300 in areas that are 50 miles from London, it's no wonder that so many people are dependent on state support.

And that's without taking childcare costs into account.

Do you have anything constructive to add to the discussion? Or are you just here to have a whinge about my choice of language?

It’s not the OP looking ignorant here.

Is it necessary to use that language ? I’m sure you can put your point across without it! It doesn’t give a good impression, and may make some less sympathetic to your problem.

The amount of Universal Credit I receive is equivalent to less than a month's rent.

My preference would be to be able to get by without going through this sort of nonsense all the time, but unfortunately unless I want to get rid of my car (need it to get to work) downsize my already small flat (I think my teenage son would object to suddenly having to share a bedroom with his mother) or stop eating there's not much I can do that would make a big enough difference to end my claim.

I don't drink alcohol, smoke, socialise, go on holidays, have an expensive tv package, hobbies, gym membership etc. I'm not pissing my wages up the wall then crying about my benefits - I'm upset because money that I am relying on has been delayed for a significant amount of time and I'm very much up shit creek.

How many of the people telling me to suck it up would be fine if their wages were over three weeks late and their employer went grey-rock when they tried to chase it up?

I'm guessing you don't privately rent in the south? I don't know if op does or not but I do and it's fucking brutal each month. I'd be lucky to have stale shite to eat. I'd actually started eating dinner 3 days a week with no breakfast or lunch 7 days a week just to get by, working 50 hours above minimum wage in a skilled job. Something like this would completely fuck me over for months on end and take me ages to get back on top of. I'd Rob Peter to pay Paul.

It’s you and your employer that are to blame.

Option 1) your employer pays you sensibly or

Option 2) you change your assessment period so that it starts and ends in the middle of the month

It’s not rocket science is it?

If you don't feel like synpathising because you don't like my choice of words, that's fine. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve by repeatedly moaning about it though, I'm sure you can tell from my tone that I don't care.

That’s awful, @TheTigerWhoCameToEatMyHusband
Genuinely sorry to hear that.

Wow - the usual MN vipers are out I see.

I was merely trying to understand why people in the UK can't manage without top ups to their wages. Sorry for daring to make a comment - obviously foreigners are not welcome here so I will crawl back under my rock.

Bloody hell! Fortunate? To be on a low enough wage to need universal credit? Are you even living in the real world?

I must admit, I had a bit of a wry chuckle when UC was introduced and they claimed that it would "mirror the world of work" by paying monthly.

The people who dreamed it up clearly all have white collar salaried jobs where they get paid monthly and get the same amount every month. They're not doing jobs where they have odd shift patterns and get paid extra for evening/weekend working, or get paid weekly, or are on zero hours contracts where pay can vary significantly..

I certainly think it could be feasible for UC to be tweaked to pay those who are weekly paid to have a weekly MAP and be paid weekly, ditto fortnightly.

But in the OP's case, she is on monthly pay and it's just unfortunate that her pay date varies according to when the last Friday falls, and that her assessment period starts late in the month so that she sometimes gets 2 paid twice in one assesssment period. If it started early in the month this wouldn't happen. But it could be easily sorted by changing the payment date that is reported to HMRC, while continuing to pay on the last Friday. That's exactly how they got round a similar issue when people are paid early because their normal pay date falls on a bank holiday.

I’m not unsympathetic, I hope you resolve your problem, but that language doesn’t come across well and it’s not necessary to use it! Good luck.

Because wages are low, rents are high and childcare costs can be astronomical.

Does that clear it up for you?

That's awful, and exactly the sort of situation I'm talking about. If you have no safety net because you can't save enough to build one, or you don't have financial support from a partner or family to tide you over, where do you turn when the rug is pulled from under you?

It takes ages to recover from and it's mentally exhausting trying to chase them up, work everything out and come up with a plan for survival when you basically have fuck all to go on.

I'm sorry you're in this situation @TheTigerWhoCameToEatMyHusband