Page 35 | To wonder why the UC savings threshold is £6,000?

GiddyLurker · 2026-04-18T20:55:20+00:00

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?

Lifestooshort71 · 23/04/2026 09:39

Apprentice26 · 23/04/2026 09:34

Many many people on Mum’s net and in the real world will not receive an inheritance so then that’s gonna push the gap between the have and the have knots even wider on a more large scale basis.
Out of my auntie’s and uncles 3 out of 4 of them will leave substantial amounts of money to their children
And the ones that had dreadful upbringing with awful abusive parents who did nothing to help them and don’t feel in any way obliged to help them after their deaths will get another blow when they have to watch that.

As Rachel Reeves appears to hate inherited wealth and pensioners, don't be surprised if the Gov takes a much bigger slice of your uncles' estates - that will sort out the disparity and hurty feelings.

Apprentice26 · 23/04/2026 10:01

Lifestooshort71 · 23/04/2026 09:39

As Rachel Reeves appears to hate inherited wealth and pensioners, don't be surprised if the Gov takes a much bigger slice of your uncles' estates - that will sort out the disparity and hurty feelings.

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Good because it’s not as though they did anything to earn it they just fell out of somebody’s vagina at the right time and the right place.
And you can shove your hurty feelings comments where the sun doesn’t shine.
Some of our cousins have had horrendously hard lives unnecessarily hard lives.

Lifestooshort71 · 23/04/2026 12:27

Apprentice26 · 23/04/2026 10:01

Good because it’s not as though they did anything to earn it they just fell out of somebody’s vagina at the right time and the right place.
And you can shove your hurty feelings comments where the sun doesn’t shine.
Some of our cousins have had horrendously hard lives unnecessarily hard lives.

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But a lump of inheritance would make it all better?

Apprentice26 · 23/04/2026 13:07

Lifestooshort71 · 23/04/2026 12:27

But a lump of inheritance would make it all better?

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Yes, I think it would
Certainly wouldn’t make it any worse would it?
The point is it’s gonna widen the gap on a much greater scale than is happening now we’ve already got a huge divide in the population and when the boomers die
There’s going to be another big gap
Just what the country needs

Eridian · 11/05/2026 09:20

Katypp · 23/04/2026 08:53

I don'y know why this line is constantly trotted out on MN.
I am not a pensioner nor do I claim benefits, so i have no skin in the game other than - like everyone else - i will get a state pension eventually.
State pension is a universal benefit that everyone expects to get (I know there is not a pot with my name on before someone points that out) as income in old age when people are not able to work.
Welfare benefits are dependant on certain conditions and are paid to people who, all things being equal, should be working.
To argue - as many do - that the state pension should be means tested yet at the same time say the £16k savings limit is not high enough for UC claimants makes no sense at all.
Of course, a lot of this talk is driven by spite towards pensioners, which is a new phenomena and founded on the assumption that today's workers will not be as well off when they are pensioners (which will obviously be true if the pension is scaled back the way some want it to be).
No one knows what is going to happen in the future, yet today's workers seem to think everything is static. I am coming to the end of a £90k mortgage on a house now worth £350k, yet spent a good few years in the 90s when my house was worth less than i paid for it. Look up negative equity.
You know all those MN bitching about their parents 'hoarding' their cash? They will inherit that 'hoard' one day. And if they managed to buy a house (two of my children are homeowners by buying a small flat crucially before they started a family), that house will go up in value (I know prices are stagnent atm but that's NOW) and before they know it, they will be one of those despised 'greedy pensioners' they hate so much.
You can't base policy on spite.

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You bought a house with a £90k mortgage and you’re complaining and trying to pretend you’ve had a hard time?

Honestly, these self-righteous pensioners are utterly clueless.

BooneyBeautiful · 11/05/2026 19:01

Eridian · 11/05/2026 09:20

You bought a house with a £90k mortgage and you’re complaining and trying to pretend you’ve had a hard time?

Honestly, these self-righteous pensioners are utterly clueless.

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But it's all relevant! £90k many years ago was a huge amount of money! I will admit though that house prices weren't as steep then in relation to income, but we were all 'make do and mend'. I bought my first house with my first husband in 1979. We had no spare money and one old banger of a car.

DD is in her first house and drives around in a two year old lease car, plus has lots of holidays abroad each year. DS is also in his first house. He has a nice Audi (a few years old) and his fiancee is a SAHM to an 8 year old and 22 month old. She does plan on returning to work part-time when something appropriate comes up, but he works away for half the week, so she has to juggle things round that.

I don't think either of the DC are too badly off and certainly have a pretty good quality of life. I am a pensioner (state retirement pension only). I have enough to live on, but don't have a car and don't go on any holidays.