Irritated that families on UC get heavily discounted entry

[happybug1234]

feel very aggrieved this afternoon to find out that people on UC get heavily discounted entry to popular attractions:

London Zoo
London transport museum
science museum wonderlab
Cutty Sark
kew Gardens
St Paul’s cathedral

As a mum with a professional career, with both husband and I working full time, paying a mortgage, paying a fortune in childcare for 2 under 4’s I seriously despair! From experience of people I see around me, families on UC seem to have more disposable income than us as their rent is paid, have no childcare costs and all their costs subsidised on social tariffs etc.

why is the government getting away with this and why are more middle class/income people not up in arms about it! At the moment I can’t see how us working hard and being self sufficient has benefited us as a family.

OP I do understand where you're coming from. I grew up in near poverty. My mum was a single parent, didn't work and she received a decent amount of benefits, discounts etc. I got free piano lessons at school and free school trips etc. My situation is now different. I have a full time job, but I'm also a single parent now, not entitled to any benefits. So my kids don't get the same opportunities like I had. I can't afford music lessons, school trips and other things I'd really like my children to have.

I don't resent my life in any way, but I do feel my children have less opportunities.

No, this is allowed as she has saved the tax payer years of covering her rent. If they did not allow this they would also have to force people to sell their existing houses and live off that too.

There are permitted purchases and somewhere to live is one of them.

Exactly. It’s also simply not the case that working hard always brings financial rewards. It used to be a bit more likely, but not now. 700k graduates on UC is one example of that. The rising cost of living, falling not on the shareholders but the consumer, utilities in the hands of not just private investors but overseas private investors, care homes, nurseries and vets mined by VCs. Life isn’t fair, no level playing field, so if small things can help give opportunities to poorer kids, great.

Getting your rent paid means that you were living off £800 a month

Or if they have disabled kids. Honestly. The resentment towards people on UC on these boards is something else

To be fair that is a very low mortgage.

Hmmph thats practicly on your doorstep.
Try it from Aberdeen😁

Yeah dont even fucking start me on a blue light card.

Joke.

No. I was not living off 800 pounds a month. I had 400 pounds to pay bills and live on. And in 2017 I had 317 to live on - anything else you want to tell me about my life. Did you miss the part where I said my rent isn't 400 pounds at this point. It's 380. Can you read? It was 355 last year. Hth

Jeez, yes, yes they are. I work with these kids in a deprived area in Edinburgh, and helping a charity that opens doors for kids from these backgrounds into careers. My kids go to school with kids who have no food at home and parents working shitty jobs just to cover bills. I make a point of always feeding them if they come over. My mum was a teacher in Castlemilk in Glasgow where poverty is insane.

Ha!

My mum was a teacher in wishaw in Scotland and she taught in a lot of poor schools but just before she retired 10 years ago she told me that she was taking a PE session and one kid couldn't do it as his shoes were falling apart - she said she had never seen anything like it since the 50s when she was a child

Jesus I didn't see that comment. I am deaf and need hearing aids. Not sure why she thinks that is lucky.

Also, in Scotland kids have Young Scot cards and can get into some attractions like Edinburgh Castle for £1. That is ALL young people under 21, and free buses everywhere, even if you are middle class.

This is perfect example of how entitled some people are.

You don’t even count your rent as expense.

You take it for granted that’s it’s paid for you.

My mum had been teaching for 30 years, mainly in deprived areas, but even she was shocked at the poverty there. It is scary, kids with hand me down shoes that are too small, kids coming with a bag of haribos for lunch. So sad.

That's not how UC works though. There isn't a set amount someone has to earn/stay below in order to unlock a huge UC payment.

UC is composed of multiple "elements". They add them all up to get the total award amount then deductions are made on a taper basis for income and sometimes for repayments of certain loans, debts and advance payments. The remaining amount is how much the claimant will receive that month.

The most common elements are Couple/Single, Children, Childcare, Carer, LCWRA (Disability/Long term illness), Disabled Child and Housing if applicable.

Each claim has an assessment period which is one month long and the date varies based on when a claim was first made. For example if an assessment period is the 10th of the month to the 9th of the next month, the UC amount is calculated based on earnings and circumstances during that period up to and including the 9th and then the payment is made on the 16th.

There is also something called a work allowance. This is not a payment which is added to a claim but is the amount of earned income from employment per claim that can be earned before any deductions will start to be made from the UC award. If there is no housing element on the claim the work allowance is £710. If there is housing element the work allowance is £427. These amounts of earned income are disregarded then for anything above them, deductions are made at the rate of 55p per £1 from the total UC award. This is based on net income. For example, if earned income on a claim was £2000 per month and they didn't receive housing element then the calculation is £2000 - £710 which leaves £1290. Multiply this by 0.55 to get £709.50. This is how much will be deducted from the UC award and the remainder is what the claimant will receive.

So you see every claim is based on individual circumstances and earnings. There is no set "threshold" and earning over or under a certain amount will not trigger either losing or receiving a large amount of UC.

How is it fair that this charity is sending terminally ill children on a holiday of a lifetime to Florida.

Yeah, if a charity did that, and then defined "terminally ill" as a life expectancy of 90 years and my kids also with a life expectancy of 90 years were excluded and then I had to give 10 years of my life expectancy to those kids then yes, that would be unfair.

But there surely has to be an amount of which when you cross you aren’t entitled to anything?

I spent years choosing between heating and eating. I also worked crap zero hours jobs when I was on UC. With no in work allowance. For every pound I earned 67p came off my benefits

How dare you call me entitled. I worked full time for over 25 years before I claimed Uc. I took nothing for granted. I was poor. That was the point I was making. Do you understand!! Get lost. You try having your heating off for two years because you can't afford to run it and then you get back to me and call me entitled

That amount is entirely dependent on individual circumstances.

@SpryTaupeTurtle I'm out of this one truly depressing thread.
The realities of benefits needs to be told.
Groundhog day springs to mind.

£800 a month would be horrendous to try to live on: I’m not denying that. But it’s an £800 a month income; even if part of it has to be spent on housing

It’s pretty obvious that the person was referring to the amount they had after their rent was paid.