To think my universal credit feels generous.

[MoonBaby1]

I got to my early 40s without ever needing to claim but circumstances find me single and paying the lions share of child related outgoings.

I work full time on£31,000 and have found out this year thanks to applying that I get on average about £800 from UC. It has been an absolute life changer and will hopefully be able to afford a modest uk holiday actually during the summer holidays and pay the school back some debt im in for after school care.

So many benefits bashing threads so I just wanted to present another side that as a cash strapped mum of two who works full time, UC is making a positive difference to our life. I didn't even think id qualify!

Are you both working for less than the minimum wage?

What can I say, I don't know who you are hanging around with 🤷‍♀️. The average pay in the North East in around 34k.

Teesside has loads of highly paid engineering role, Wilton, Fujifilm, Johnson Matthey, BAE, offshore workers, have you never come across many of the thousands of people who work in places like this?
Anyway I'm not going to argue with you, we'll done for getting a 30k job, hopefully your friends will get there too. But again, to suggest that having a job in the North is not the norm is ridiculous.

The North has many who are doing very well, and those who are not. But the idea they are all poor is misplaced.
Having lived there I know. Plenty of well heeled places.

I pay more than that and I'm a scumbag single mum.

We need our population to have disposable income to spend on goods, leisure and services. If people haven't got disposable income, areas become more and more deprived, crime goes up and crime costs the country much more than welfare. Suggest deporting foreign prisoners and posters are up in arms. Talk about the unlimited budget for asylum etc and we are shouted diwn. Tax money should be directed at lower income/high rents, working families. Relative poverty is soul destroying and removes hope and opportunities. Most of UC goes to landlords and childcare. I always ask the question, but where do people live without UC and in the absence of social housing? The gig economy, importing a working population who will live in the HMOs etc is causing a downward slide. The OP and her children will have a better quality of life, that will see improved outcomes for her children and the area she lives in. Long term, people living in relative poverty, costs the country a fortune, particularly in health outcomes. You've got to look at the wider picture.

I think it is more about priorities. Rape cases are taking 3 years to come to trial, schools don't have enough funding to hire the appropriate number of TAs or fund a broad curriculum, we have to rely on the US for defence, there isn't enough funding for hospital maintenance, social services are overstretched, policing is inadequate in many places and billions of pounds worth of debt interest repayments have to paid.

I realise there is lots of waste everywhere but do you really think paying for people to go on holiday is the best use of public money?

I looked up the first two. Yes unemployment is higher than the national average, but not much. Yes average earnings are lower. , quite a lot, but so are housing costs. InB in both places average earnings are well above the £30k that you claim there are no jobs paying.

It doesn't seem to be anything like as bad as you feel it is, but I can appreciate that feeling disadvantaged is also a bad thing.

But could do, prior to splitting with ex? If two people chose to have children then choose to seperate, surely they factor in the costs?
The parents no longer want to be together, so someone else picks up the bill for that choice?

Seems an over generous use of taxpayers money. Some of whom will be earning significantly less than £31k.

Exactly. The ex no longer wants to contribute enough and no one is enforcing he does. And this ridiculous rule that CM is not counted despite the fact that many many non resident parents pay reliably and regularly. I guess they do have to now find two lots of housing though which doesn't come cheap. .

And yet on another thread so many grudge people who’ve worked and paid tax all their lives getting a state pension. Terrible ageism.

And child maintenance payments should be taken into account. It’s a joke.

Yeah this basically is a benefits bashing thread. Oh my benefits are too generous...how do you think that's gonna fly?

Give them to charity then or to a homeless person. Or don't claim if you don't need the money?

Mine isn't remotely generous and I'm chronically disabled.

Nothing stopping them applying for UC too.

The last time I became a single parent, it was because DH up and decided to die suddenly. I must remember to get out the Ouija board and tell him how feckless he is for choosing sudden death over employment when he has children to fund.

Less than 40% of people claiming Universal Credit are in any kind of work. Of those claiming UC, the average hours worked is 21 per week. Less than 11% of UC claimants work 30 hrs per week or more. So, unless I am missing something massive (fully prepared to admit that I might be!) how is this a problem of businesses not paying a proper wage? I couldn’t pay my bills if I worked 21 hrs per week.

Then they should apply for UC as well. They may well be missing out on a top up.

I’m sorry for your loss. And obviously, you didn’t “choose” that. Different circumstances.

That's it isn't it. A single person newly unable to work due to illness or disability and qualifying for the LCWRA has just had their UC ( excluding housing costs ) cut from around £830 to £615 per month with the halving of the LCWRA element of UC. How any sick person lives on that I do not know. UC is so generous for some yet absolute rubbish for others. Sick and disabled people being targeted over families with two healthy parents to provide for them.

I find it difficult to accept that somebody who has been coping but finds with a rise in the cost of living but no other changes that they need a bit of extra help is immediately given nearly another ten grand a year tax free.

At the same time as people are being forced to pay privately, if they can, for operations that the NHS is unable to provide without waiting months or even years in misery and pain.

We've never been eligible for help. Oh works full time earns roughly 40k. We have 4 kids. No money for luxuries like holidays but we get by. I applied when 2 child cap was lifted and am shocked. We've had £800 pm nearly last 2 months. Haven't spent it as keep thinking it's a mistake and they'll ask for it back. We share one car between us. Thinking might be able to run two cars now!

No one is paying for her to go on holiday. She has prioritised that after clearing her feet with the money she owes for ASC.

She could spend it on coffees, takeaways and all the useless things other people spend their money on like nails, eyebrows, botox, tattoos and £200 haircuts.

When you qualify for a benefit, you don't get a letter telling you "this is for a holiday".

She's not going to the Maldives, she's hiring a caravan FFS.

UC is only "generous" if you have childcare costs and high private rents. It is not the claimants who benefit, but we must blame the claimants and not the LL who are lining their pockets with taxpayers' money in exchange for often substandard housing; they're providing a valuable service

Exactly-why aren’t they chasing the other parents to pay?

Assuming the UC is £800/month with a salary of £31K per year then total income is now the equivalent of earning £45K per year.

The person above with the four kids sounds like she has no high private rent or childcare costs and is now getting £800 a month purely by having four kids and the two child cap being lifted? If they'd had high rent or childcare costs they likely would have been getting UC prior to the cap lifting.