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?

51. I still work part time as no employer would put up with my health issues full time or my requirement to support my teen with severe MH issues and have to drop everything for her. Better I work PT well and claim UC than do a shit job working full time and get sacked and have to claim higher UC.

People like that - giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you're not making it up - need support and reassurance. They don't need unpleasant people discussing them, uninvited, on forums. They don't need to be used as an example in somebody else's nasty, self-righteous moral crusade. That you've done so speaks volumes about who you are.

Could you provide us with the figures on the percentage of GDP spent on benefits over the last, let's say 3 decades?

The levels of allowed capital are set by regulations. Above the £16,000 upper limit there is no entitlement . Below that amount and above £6,000 capital held is treated as generating an income which reduces as your capital diminishes to below £6,000. Capital below that amount is disregarded. Years and years ago (almost ancient history) for means-tested benefit the upper limit was, if memory serves me well, £8000 with a lower limit of £3,000. It is what it is and is set in the law.

The social model of disability purports that barriers created by society such as lack of access and adjustments and discrimination can prevent disabled people participating in society to the extent of their ability.
Quite how you manage to interpret this to support an argument that disabled people are being supported not to work on their say so because society prioritises validating them, I don't know.
The social model of disability is relevent to this discussion only on that it explains additional challenges disabled people face in finding and retaining work. It doesn't negate the very real physical barriers.
And yes, incontinence is one condition (and not that rare, up to 15% of the population suffers from it, and its under reported due to embarrassment) but there are many others that mean people couldn't function to the required standards in a paid job.

Trying my best to steer the conversation to the things that matter, but as usual MN hates benefit claimants - especially those scrounging, fraudulent disability benefit claimants. Sick of OP’s posting seemingly innocent AIBU’s which are benefit bashing threads in disguise.

Thank you.

Nope. £6k was set at the threshold in the early 1990’s and it represented a year’s salary at minimum wage - considered a reasonable cushion from emergencies and life events so that claimants didn’t have to rely on the state for every life event. The threshold hasn’t changed since then and the equivalent today would be £26k at minimum wage. So the race to the bottom is evident.

So it’s fine to support feckless women giving birth to avoid work but perfectly fine to berate disabled people who can’t work because of their condition ? It’s fine to discuss disabled people in a nasty disrespectful and stereotypical way ? Is that your point ?

This. Multi national corporations and businesses that have their tax obligations offshore are milking the tax payer for all they’re worth. We are propping up their wages bills and many of them are not paying taxes at the appropriate rates. But still we choose to ignore it and bash the most vulnerable in society because they dare to claim the benefits that they are entitled to and need.

Have you not considered that people's circumstances change? That a person may have been able to afford to accrue some savings over many years of hard work and frugality, but then their health fails and they can no longer work? It's actually not an uncommon circumstance for people particularly in low paid manual jobs, where they reach an age and stage where their body is no longer capable of work, but they're too young to qualify for pension. They've paid decades into the system and when they can't any more, you'd begrudge them the last £6k of their life's savings?

Nope. Doesn’t count. If a relative lives in it UC would assume a market rate rent being paid and would count that as part of the assessment.

Again you’re wrong. I don’t know why you consider yourself to be such a self proclaimed expert on such things.
Because you keep making one mistake after another and discounting people’s actual lived experience

If they have been working, they can claim contributions based ESA (I think it might be called something different now). My dad left work in his late 50s due to his health and claimed it until he reached pension age. It is not means tested so other household income and savings is not taken into account anyway.

Yep. Many posters taking this stance. And you and I both know the type of posters they are don’t we ? Big house, huge mortgage, two luxury cars up the drive, kids in private school or nannies for the babies. Complaining that £100k goes nowhere these days. No clue as to what happens in real life when you have no savings to cushion you because your circumstances mean you haven’t been able to save. Poverty is the fault of the poor and the feckless according to MN and always will be.

Problem is @XenoBitch contribution based ESA will be phased out as part of the next round of welfare reform and merged with UC which has conditionality and means testing. Claimants in the work related activity group won’t be able to claim beyond 12 months and if they don’t qualify for income related benefits they’re stuffed.

Nope. Worked for DWP in benefits, then benefits advisor and twenty years as a disability outreach worker. Saw it all and dealt with it all.

So you say

Well you’ll just have to take my word for it won’t you ? The same as any other poster who takes part from a professional viewpoint.

Most of them don't work.
Off the top of my head, I think about 38% of those claiming UC work, the majority not full-time.
That leaves 62% that do not work.

And ? If resources were made available to them do you not think that figure could be increased. A race to the bottom doesn’t benefit anyone.

Or exercise a great deal of caution around your comments because they just don’t add up to other people’s real life experience
Anybody that comes on here claiming to be within a certain profession is taken with a large pinch of salt by the way it’s nothing personal

Unfortunately only for 28 weeks unless they get into the support group, which is very difficult.

Yep, there was a mortgage interest payment scheme via what is now the DWP. None repayable and paid interest up to a cut off point - can’t remember what it was. The Tories stopped it.

What life experience ? Something posted by randoms on the internet - mostly as a result of ‘my friend said this’ as opposed to those of us who have worked within the system and know what the actual law dictates as opposed to what some posters think is the law ? What have I posted that is wrong and where is your evidence to prove it ? Not counting AI which is invariably wrong.