To wonder why the UC savings threshold is £6,000?

[GiddyLurker]

Why is the Universal Credit savings threshold set at £6,000? What’s the reasoning behind that number?

It feels quite specific and I just wondered whether there’s a particular logic or policy decision behind it?

…and browsing/chatting online

But mental health can be, and is, disabling. Why is it always that people come down hardest on disability benefits (12.2% of welfare expenditure) before the pension? 20% of people on disability benefits are also in work, and receive the benefits as a means to support them to continue working.

Furthermore 38% of universal credit claimants are in work. Why are we, yet again, coming after the vulnerable and lowest paid in society?

No, there aren’t 😂

Why do you think that disabled people unable to work shouldn’t take part in internet forums - or is that a thinly veiled dig at @XenoBitch for having the audacity to have an opinion you don’t agree with ? Because you can take part online doesn’t mean you can work.

Disability is complex and varied, and every single effort to get more disabled people into work to date omits one very important detail. Where are the employers who will take on someone with a proven disability, who has been out of work for years and who they perceive as likely unable to achieve the same productivity as their peers ?

Where is the campaign to enlighten employers ? Where are the financial incentives to encourage them to give the disabled person the chance they need ? Where are the intensive training courses and support to help the long term unemployed disabled people who are nothing like job ready ? There isn’t any of that. Just conditionality that most will be unable to comply with, so they end up worse off because of sanctions. Unless and until we approach this with more compassion and understanding nothing will change, and disabled people will continue to be the low hanging fruit when it comes to welfare cuts.

I know at least three who have exactly this mindset.

There absolutely are. It is a known way to game the system. It might be less than 1% perhaps of the claimants but of course it’s a great way to never have to look for work. If you think there aren’t people deliberately gaming the system then you are wrong and it completely tarnishes those who genuinely need help.

I’m sure you do.

But to qualify for SMP you have to have been working for 26 weeks continuously before going off, including in the 15th week before your due date. Assuming you take mat leave at 37 weeks, that means working for your current employer from 11 weeks.

They think they are so clever though 😂

Cool story bro. We all see you.

Lazy thinking. Mental health illness is as real and as valid as any other kind. You must do better. Perhaps you're tired out from being 1000% focused on anything because that is quite a feat.

Where is the money going to come from?

What are they supposed to do though? They may be just as unable to work as a physically disabled person and it isn't their fault that their disability isn't physical.

There was a recent thread about someone losing her job due to mental health and it was generally agreed that her workplace were doing the right thing and that she should come to terms with the fact that she can't work right now and should claim PIP.

Workplaces don't want unreliable employees and they aren't going to hire them or choose to keep them on if they are struggling.

End the triple lock.

I’m not disputing any of that at all. But as the net widens to catch more people in the welfare net, the amount of people left to contribute dwindles. You can only tax workers so much, even higher income ones now.

in terms of businesses, I work with a lot of small businesses, and now many of them are closing. The extra Ni bill half did them in and the rates increase this year is the final straw. They just don’t have the energy anymore to keep it going. We have just lost another pub locally which is so sad on top of the other ones shut over last year or so. Shops are beginning to close locally.

this is why the issue of how much savings comes up and how much can a person have and why it hasn’t increased- simply financials that every small change has a massively large impact on everyone else.

I don’t have the situation btw I can see the problem.

The only one I get on this list is free prescriptions because I have a medical exemption certificate which I had before claiming uc.
Warm home discount- nope
Train tickets no to disabled to have the luxury of being able to go on a train
Days out no- can't afford the costs to get to them
Free prescriptions-yes as have a medical exemption which i had prior to being on uc
Dentist- no can't get an NHS dentist so have to use private
Opticians no as you have to earn below a certain amount and I earn to much
Council tax no our local council doesn't do discounts for people on uc
Tech- never even heard of this
I've never got grants or cost of living payment
So im on uc and don't get one thing of that list and I doubt I'm unusual

Because they are easy pickings. There is no one to advocate for disabled people and so they have no voice.

I was on the editorial committee of a campaign group called WeAreSpartacus in the run up to the switch from DLA to PIP in 2013 - the group was comprised mainly of disabled people and some representatives from various disability charities and organisations. We were provided with the proposed PIP assessment descriptors and scoring system for comment before finalisation.

Despite glaring inconsistencies and blatantly unfair (and often discriminatory) parameters, not one of the shedload of disability representative groups made any sort of objection to the proposals.

A case in point was the reduction from 50 metres to 20 metres for the walking test. The then minister for the disabled told a blatant lie to parliament - that the change had been taken up as a result of recommendations from the disability organisations who took part in the consultation. When asked for evidence to support it there was none, because not one of the participating parties had recommended or even suggested the reduction. The minister had to apologise and, predictably, blamed her advisors. It still went through unopposed - not one of the disability organisations or charities even questioned the lie.

The descriptor for washing and bathing was also utterly insulting to disabled people. When it was pointed out that some people needed help bathing or washing due to incontinence because they couldn’t tell whether they were clean or not, the reply came back that cleanliness didn’t need to be of a high standard - just good enough to get by. So to save money no points were awarded on that basis. If you’re disabled you don’t need to be as clean as someone who isn’t disabled was the clear message being sent, and again there were no objections raised. I could go on. Those commenting here about the ease with which these benefits are awarded have no idea what they’re talking about, or of some of the ridiculous and cruel hooks disabled people are made to jump through in order to qualify.

No they don’t. The tick boxes are chosen as a result of a prescribed examination and assessment procedure. The assessor is required to write a report on their findings and to medically justify each descriptor chosen. And the criticism of assessors isn’t simply that they get it wrong, it’s mostly that many aren’t suitably qualified to be assessors. Or do you think a paramedic has the skills to assess the effects of neurological disorders - because that’s what actually happens. That’s not the fault of the assessors or the disabled people being assessed. It’s the fault of a system with a starting point which assumes the claimant isn’t genuine. It’s interesting that in all your arguments you frequently minimise.

Ah yes, jump from penalising one vulnerable group to another. And yes, l know that many pensioners are wealthy, own homes with huge amounts of equity etc, but many are not.

Which is why the state pension should be means tested.

Which is exactly what you’re doing here, so why does it make you any different ? Because you work ? Somewhere upthread you said that because you work, you’re too exhausted to take part in online forums, and yet here you are. If you’re disabled yourself you will know that there are different levels of disability which affect people in many different ways. Some people would require so much support in a work situation it wouldn’t be viable. And yet your position seems to be that if you can string a sentence together to chat online you can work. I think disabled people everywhere can be thankful that the authorities responsible for the work capability assessment don’t share your views.

Agree. The $65000 question is where do you place the threshold.

Council tax ? Gas/electricity/water bills. And for a disabled person, potentially having to lay out money for services for the things you can’t do yourself such as cleaning, cooking, simple home maintenance, mowing the lawn - shock, horror, disabled people are allowed to have gardens.

I’d say anyone with a pension/income that provides more than minimum wage yearly.

Ah yes, a programme produced by the BBC who will align themselves with, and support the rhetoric of whatever the government of the day. No bias there then. Do you ever apply critical thinking instead of meekly accepting what you’re fed ? Does it ever occur to you to ask why you’re being fed it ?

So you work all your life and then have to spend your last years penny pinching. Talk about race to the bottom.