To think UC's new AET is fucking ridiculous?

[sentfrommyiphone]

I’ve been working & claiming UC for the past 2 years. Today I got an email saying I need to attend a mandatory appointment to review my commitments, the reason for this being the AET is now £892 & I only earn £881.58.
I now have to attend regular work meetings because of this £10.42 shortfall! & if I fail to attend any of these I will be sanctioned.
The ironic thing is, I have to take time out of my working day to attend an appointment with UC about helping me find more work?
I’m on a fixed term time only contract at 20 hours a week & im paid pro rata.

What the actual fuck?

Can you:

a) get more hours

b) ask your employer for a rise of £11 a month?

Sorry OP, that's mad!

Can you ask to work a tiny bit more per month? £11 should only be 2 hours a month or so right?

It is incredibly unintuitive and impractical though, I agree with you.

They have bumped it up so rapidly over the last year, it's really quite unfair to make so many huge increases in such quick succession.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about UC so ignore me if this is impossible/a shit idea.

Aren’t you earning £15 a month walking someone’s dog?

I'm quite lucky that I have an extremely understanding manager who has said I can do an extra hour a month if need be.

But what about people who don't have that option? What if they are contracted to earn a certain amount a month and can't get the hours to meet the AET threshold? They would be expected to find another job, but what if they love the job they are in, & it fits around their family? What if they can't work anymore hours because of childcare or an illness? I would be livid if I was expected to find another employer, my work fits in so perfectly with school pick up/drop off.

It's the taking time off work to attend a work coach meeting that really gets my blood boiling, who in the fuck decided on that? What if your boss will not let you have the time off and you get sanctioned? Then you can't feed your family because you rely on UC?

The whole system infuriates me & I think it's so so bloody unfair.

Sympathy here. I am having to take time off employed work to attend a UC meeting to discuss whether I am ‘gainfully self employed’ or not. Because I declared £90 non PAYE earnings last year. Sometimes the system is stupid.

Meh. Them's the rules. I'm a lone parent getting UC and I've never had any childcare help, you don't always have the luxury of being able to work family friendly jobs. I work full time and have done since DS was 7, I had no choice but to make it work.

UC is a car crash. I never had a problem with tax credits but everyone I know has had a problem with UC.

I prefer UC. With tax credits I was overpaid without fail every single year and had to pay it back, UC is much easier.

You can't expect to stay in a job with limited earnings just because you like it and fits in with your lifestyle whilst expecting the taxpayers to pick up the bill though. Fair enough if you absolutely can't make it work any other way.

Are you able to reschedule the appointment to suit your working hours? It should be pretty brief if you’re able to say you have agreed additional hours with your employer.

You don't have to take time off work, you can ask to move your appointment.

I was shocked when we found out that if you’re self employed it doesn’t count at all towards the couples AET - so you can have an employed person and if they earn over that the non working partner is in light touch group , if they are self employed it doesn’t count so they force the non working partner to look for work or sanction ! We begged them to see sense they wouldn’t so we applied for dla for dc , and dp gave up work totally we are both carers now . They pushed us into a corner

It will be interesting to see what the labour party do with universal credit. I'm sure they've said they will change aspects of it and make it fairer for all!
Hope things get better for you.

Oh yeah, fuck people doing jobs that fit around their lives, they should all be down at the work houses doing 12 hours a day while the government pay their £2k childcare bill instead, much more economically sound 🙄

it may infuriate you but it sounds like it’s worked exactly as intended. Yes there are people who couldn’t work more hours but it sounds like you could but would prefer not to? Well I’m sorry but ”prefer” shouldn’t be funded by taxpayer so I see no issue when them asking you to work more than 20 hours pw!

Thank goodness for the new Labour government when shite like this will be sorted out.

hi, can someone explain the £892 calculation. 18 hours x £11.44 is 205 per week and £823 per month, where does £892 come from? Thanks

' The AET now stands at £892, which is what you would earn in a month if you worked for 18 hours a week at the minimum wage.'

Despite you working 20 hours a week, it is pro rata - you are ' only ' working during term time

so do you get paid for 39 (or something) weeks a year ? and x weeks holiday.

I think your work coach will inform you that you need to find more hours in order to meet the required £892

whether s/he intends you to find a 2nd job for x hours a week ?
or even worse expects you to consider leaving your job ! as s/he wants you to find a job that is 18 hours + a week for 52 weeks a year.

and heaven forbid you are in a job that pays every 4 weeks as that doesn't work for the Govt targets either !

@Zxcrgyh

£11.44 x 18 = £205.92
£205.92 x 52 weeks in a year = £10707.84
£10,707.84 divided by 12 months in a year = £892.32
( don't know why the .32 wasn't included by the Govt as maybe my calculator isn't quite accurate )

Oh yeah, fuck people doing jobs that fit around their lives, they should all be down at the work houses doing 12 hours a day while the government pay their £2k childcare bill instead, much more economically sound

There is a difference between working 12 hour days, 5 days a week, 47 weeks a year (2820 hours) and working 20 hour weeks term time only (780 hours). I don’t think there is much wrong with expecting people who claim benefits to attempt to up their hours and increase their earnings when they are only working 780 hours a year. She’s being asked to work less than 2 extra hours a month - you’re making out she’s being asked to almost quadruple her hours and work around 1000 hours a year more than a standard full time worker. She’s not.

That would be fraud, although wellmeaning, never advise that. Dwp info is pulled through straight from hmrc so op would still be in the same situation

Likewise. I spent so much time fighting an overpayment with Tax Credits, at the end of which it turned out they owed me 4k. 3 years on UC and not a single issue.

This is my calculation as well, so probably rounded to the nearest pound.

If you want the free money you have to play by their rules.
And I say that as a single parent who works FT and gets UC that covers my childcare.

I'm quite lucky that I have an extremely understanding manager who has said I can do an extra hour a month if need be.

That’s great, why don’t you ask if your manager has any more hours for you? You could earn even more then 😊