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.

OK, so £2000 pcm rent in london.
3 kids
2 adults
Childcare.
They're allowed to earn 380 with no loss of benefits at all.

Standard allowance (couple): £666.97
Child elements (3 children): £333 + £288 + £288 = £909
Housing element (London LHA): £2,000
Childcare element (85% of £1,836 cap): £1,560

That's £5,135.97/month

Plus the £380 so that gets us to £5500 pcm purely UC.

Gross that up for tax and see what you get.

But they can earn more than the £380 and still get UC. It tapers all the way up to £116,000pa where UC completely stops at £9.7k pcm.

I remember as a student seeing all these great student discounts, like xxx% off a laptop, or £xx off airpods or whatever...Didn't make the slightest difference to me, they were still wildly unaffordable.

But such discounts hugely benefited lower middle class families, or well paid working class families, who could stretch to the discounted price (even if it was a stretch).

Had my disposable income been the same but from UC credit, I might have been entitled to a £1 ticket to London Zoo but the squeezed middles would benefit from other discounts not available to me.

My point is that those who rely on UC still have far fewer opportunities than others, even with state help or cheap entry to cultural attractions. However hard life feels as part of the squeezed middle (and its no picnic) I'm still much more fortunate than I would be if I were eligible for UC.

It definitely depends on where you live. It seems London centric though it has expanded quite a lot.

I was very happy I could do Chester zoo even though it was during December but it was better than not doing it at all.

That's not how most people on benefits live

Very true, sadly this is not me. Maybe that's the next debate, should BLC be means tested 😅
Interestingly I do hear a lot of woe is me from Consultants, no one is happy!

I get more money off my football season ticket from being a student than I ever have had on UC. (My clubs seasons are cheap but it was only when I was a student I could afford to go back).

I receive UC as a single parent but also work full time, pay my mortgage and lol after 2 ND teens. Get of your high horse missus

I'd be all over £1 season tickets. Imagine. 😂

Works out at around 11 pounds a week.

Just for clarification I would like nothing more than to be working right now but I had an accident two years ago that meant that I couldn't at that point - I have always worked. I don't think I have ever been judged as much as I have these past two years

So have we all learnt not to be jealous of things that don't effect us or are we not their yet? Uc discounts to attractions, student discount, blc discounts, pensioner discounts.

It also saddens me that it's Reform that want to take these discounts away when Farage is a fucking multi millionaire and will never have to worry about money in his life. Fuck him.

How would Reform stop zoos etc from offering the discount?

Doesn't surprise me at all with them though.

Its horrible isn't it i have multiple organ failure i won't ever meet my grandchildren. I would happily swap lives with anyone on this thread moaning about how unfair it is that they have to pay to go to a zoo or a castle or whatever it is. If you have your health you are so rich.

I don't know tbh. Just saw a post on Facebook today saying they'll stop it. I assume they'll cut benefits - assume that's where the OP got their figures from.

This calculation is just inaccurate.

Even in London a family doesn’t get all of their rent paid, the LHA rate for somewhere like Wembley for example is £1600 a month for a 3 bedroom house.

Childcare costs wouldn’t be payable unless both parents are working.

In your scenario if neither parent is working they’d be benefit capped to receive something like £2100. So if their rent is £2000 a month they’d have £100 left.

You might be surprised but outside of the centre of the universe London, where the vast majority of the UK lives, a person on benefits couldn’t claim anywhere near £2000 a month in rent. In my area the most this family could claim would be £600. Market rents for a 3 bed are £1000 a month, so the £400 difference would come out of their benefits.

Your example is nonsense because if they were only earning £95 pounds per week, why would they need childcare to the tune of £400 per week?

The same family in my city would receive the same personal allowances plus our LHA rent allowance which would total around £2100 a month out of which they’d have to pay £1000 rent.

You’ve cherry picked one sensational example of a large family that can somehow claim childcare for hours they’re not working, and are trying to make out that it is representative of the country as a whole.

I'm really sorry to hear that.

Reform aren't the sharpest pencils in the box. A few months back when they was moaning about pip they had no clue what pip actually is, it's embarrassing to watch. I have no issues with anyone having a different opinion to me but only when its based on facts.

My son had multiple organ failure at one point. It's one of the reasons why he is disabled.

I'm sorry that you are going through it xx

Someone on those threads always claims to know someone who is getting a disability benefit that they are certain they shouldn't, it is so easy to claim etc and they often don't even know the difference between DLA and PIP.

I know. Unfortunately they are on the rise even in Scotland and they'll probably get 13 Msps in the may elections - awful.

I work full time, am a single parent so get some universal credit.
I can’t go to London zoo or kew gardens even at a discount because they are in London and I don’t live in or near London.
Getting to and Staying overnight in London for one nignt would cost me more than I spend on our annual caravan holiday.

Well. I only get a discount on train fares as I have a disabled rail card but exactly. To go to Kew Gardens on the cheap I would need to get the flix bus both ways or get train tickets 12 weeks in advance and then stay overnight

I suspect the folk on UC who use these discounts are quite minimal

You can get £2k for housing in London, that's why I chose £2000.

Nothing else you said contradicts what I wrote at all. I specifically included £380 worth of earnings and specifically said UC tapered down up to £9700pcm when UC stopped.