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.

You might not benefit from all these UC days out but being in Scotland you get a lot of freebies those in London don't who do have a lot of UC £1 trips. I would rather have the free dentist myself!

This is very true. Where I live, the local housing allowance rate for a single person over the age of 35 is £575 (for those under 35 it is £345) per month.

You won't find a one bed flat for less than £700 per month and the median is around £800 per month.

Obviously, the allowance for those with children is higher (but they also need more than one bedroom).

So, a family with say two children under 10 or two children of the same sex under 16 would be entitled to £700 per month. The trouble is that two bedroom properties start at £800 per month with a median of around £1,000 per month.

Similarly for a family with three children, or two children of different sexes aged 11 to 16, then they would be entitled to £810 per month.

Again, a 3 bed property starts at £850 per month and has a median of around £1,150 per month.

I for one am so glad they do this, social mobility is at an all time low. It's great that all children are being given a chance.

Your calculations are wildly inaccurate. Firstly your amounts for the individual elements are wrong. Also, why are you adding £380 onto the total amount of UC? And where are you getting £380 from in the first place? The work allowance (how much can be earned on a claim before deductions are made for said income) for a claim with housing element is £427. This isn't an amount which is added to the UC payment.

For the example you gave, unless there were disability/health-related or caring elements on the claim then it would be capped at £2110.25 so that is the maximum UC they would receive. They would need to earn above £881 per month to not be benefit capped.

Also to add, child benefit is included in the benefit cap so the total UC would actually be less than £2110.25. And for anyone who is confused by this and wants to tell me the 2 child benefit cap has been lifted then yes I know but that's not what I'm referring to (and that particular cap didn't have anything to do with child benefit either because there never was a 2 child limit for that) There is an overall benefit cap. The information is freely available online for people to research it themselves.

And for the previous example, the couple would also have to have a monthly earned income above the AET (Administrative Earnings Threshold) of £1534.39 per month to not be required to work search and have regular work focused meetings with the job centre.

I didn't say the £380 was added to the UC but it does form part of the household income. I made it £380 becaise it looks like the £470 allowance would be reduced in my example case. I can't member why.

If I'm wrong that increases their total income rather than reduces.

Then you say there's a benefit cap and in tbe same sentence say it's removed at earnings of £881 so my range of income is only wrong at the lower end between £380/£470 where i started and £881 which is a tiny error on a tiny part of the range.

And the whole point of my example was to demonstrate that the Mirror article was right and it was possible for someone on UC to have a total income of £113k if you gross up the £78k total income. The first example I dreamed up off the top of my head went beyond that, I had no idea idea just how high the income of some (many?) people on UC could be, essentially it's over double the highest number in the Mirror article and that's with three kids. I bet plenty of people on UC have more than three kids.

I live in London (it's only called that, but it's actuall 45 min out). Yes we're lucky to be able to use a UC discount on those places and majority of them you can go to by bus, so it's cheaper. Going by tube brings the cost up, though it's faster as bus really takes long. It's a huge help for us that we can use these tickets to go to places with a discount. Prior to have my son I was working full time, my husband still is, of course, and on two salaries we were not able to afford to see those places paying full price.

Well self evidently they would be working becaise that's where the £380/£470 comes from and self evidently they wouldn't get to a total income of £116k without working.

It's not "too late". If you actually thought UC was a better life you could sell your house, gradually work through the savings on rent/ day to day living, and then eventually end up on UC.

You don't want to, because it's not actually a better life than the one you currently have.

i made the point because the facts matter. On these threads people constantly say “the majority claiming are working” to suggest that a large percentage are slaving away in low paid jobs. They aren’t - the vast majority are simply not working at all.

You just won’t be told will you? Your numbers are wrong, doesn’t matter how many times you insist they are right.

I googled. If you receive the housing 'benefit' element the working allowance drops from
£470 to £379.

You're wrong. (Which is ironic since if you'd been right it would have increasd their income rather than reduced. 🤦‍♂️)

It's very important we punish children with lazy parents. We most certainly do not want them going to Kew Gardens and getting aspirations to go to Oxbridge, stealing the places of Jocasta and Tarquin!

On a serious note, is there any data collected to show what % of entries in any given place are the UC tickets?

See, that would stand up better if we didn’t have a government that has continued the fiscal drag policy on income tax allowances, still expects you to sell your home for end of life care, added to the tax burden for businesses, and hammered farmers with inheritance taxes, and added VAT on school fees.

So it feels like if you earn the same amount of somebody in receipt of UC then you are being fleeced - and lined up to be fleeced again in old age and then likely on your death - any chance of enjoying the security you have mentioned seems to be systematically eroded.

This government is bad at sums and at human psychology and in the long term it damages everybody.

I've checked every single challenge and so far the only number I've got wrong was the need earn 881 to remove the cap, but since I gave a range of numbers which started with them earning £379 then the difference between "able to earn £379" and "must earn £881" doesn't seem a big difference for a couple on London Salaries. It's on the extreme left hand side of the range I gave and it's lost in the noise compared to the five grand they're getting from the tax payer.

Everything else has been right (so far).

You haven’t, you’ve just insisted that you’re right.

For example, several people have asked why you think a couple who work so few hours (ie earning 380 a month) would qualify for childcare?

For example, you haven’t factored in the gap between LHA and actual rent costs.

For example, you have ignored the total benefit cap.

Total benefit cap doesn't count if one person in household claims DLA or pip. Can get DLA for Adhd which is quite a common diagnosis now

ETA, I assume what you’ve done is add up theoretical maximums, without factoring in eligibility, and used that as a sliding scale. I can see why you made that mistake, because if you just google maximums rather than do calculations then it will look like everyone gets that, but it’s still a mistake.

The reason calculators like the Turn2Us one I used to give you a figure in pp exist, is because there are lots of variables. Childcare and rent are reimbursements, so even a recipient on the maximum never sees them. If you want to see those figures come down, vote for a party that proposes more social housing and affordable childcare.

Most people who receive universal credit work.

Yes, but that’s a different set of circumstances than proposed, and eligibility still depends on all the same variables. And still no-one is being handed thousands in rent. Even if they were, they still have to hand it to their landlord/childcare provider!

For example, several people have asked why you think a couple who work so few hours (ie earning 380 a month) would qualify for childcare?

AFAICT there is no lower limit on hours to get free childcare, if you work at all you get it. But let's assume there is a cut off at lower hours. Just pick a point on the range I stated where you think they would be getting childcare. It doesn't change the fact I was standing up which was at the top end, not the bottom.

For example, you haven’t factored in the gap between LHA and actual rent costs.

I don't need to, it was irrelevant to the statement I was asked to stand up which was purely about income. But if you're going to say people on UC on (say) £80k total income might struggle to pay their rent then yes, but people with the same income who aren't getting UC also struggle to pay their rent.

And still no-one is being handed thousands in rent. Even if they were, they still have to hand it to their landlord/childcare provider!

So do people who don't get UC!!!!!

No, of course you don’t get childcare for hours that you don’t need it. Again, childcare is a reimbursement. Childcare and LHA are not ‘income’ for anyone except the childcare provider and the landlord.

Please don’t try to predict what I’m going to say, focus on what you are saying and try to get it right.

Having a growth mindset and believing you can do better has been proven to work. Stop having such a defeatist mentality

Thread over