AIBU to be surprised someone on £34,000 receives Universal Credit?

[Balicious]

I was listening to BBC Radio 5 Live at work yesterday morning. They were discussing the Conservatives’ proposal to stop people spending benefits on alcohol, cigarettes, etc.—but that isn’t what my question is about.
One caller said she earns £34,000 a year as a trainee social worker and receives an additional £500 a month in Universal Credit. She didn’t mention having children, paying rent or having a disability—she simply said she struggles to live on £34,000 and needs Universal Credit to top up her wages.
What is going on? That’s more than I earn! Could I apply for a top-up too? Has anyone else heard of someone working full-time and earning well above minimum wage having their salary topped up by Universal Credit? I just couldn't get over what I was hearing!

Your figures are wrong. It's still not much but under 25s get 338.58 a month and older adults 424.90. plus the housing costs which don't usually cover private rent though social housing tenants get all of the rent. Young people who live with parents can usually manage but it's tough for those with rent liability.

You are obviously clueless.

Half of MN “a whopping 34k?!”
the other half “no I can’t live on less than 100k, anything under that is an awful salary”

This. Plus if they live with a partner with a job, they get nothing at all, except a few months of minimal contribution based ESA, or whatever its called now, under £100 pw. Their partner is expected to support them, whether or not they can afford it.

This. While everyone is bashing people on universal credit no one seems bothered by the fact people are working full time and still not making ends meet. Yet millionaires/billionaires are getting wealthier at our expense.

Thank you! Blooming google. I wonder where it got that from.

I will look in to this. After I get back from swimming teaching this morning where the children have paid £600 between them for their lessons and I’ll get £55 of it…such valid points on this thread about wages.

maybe over the savings threshold

That would lead to a massive shortage of lots of essential workers in areas with high housing costs.

Increasing minimum wage would reduce number of jobs and increase unemployment, so people may be incentivised to get jobs, but there’d be none available.

Average rent for a 2-bed property where I live is £1500 a month.

Perhaps you could draw up a budget for someone on £34k, with a child or two, paying that much rent, childcare, all their utilities and council tax and still have enough to live on.

I'm sure it would be tremendously helpful for many on here who are struggling to make ends meet.

It’s this. For decades successive governments have taken actions, or failed to take actions, that have led to housing costs being absurdly high. This has contributed to an absurdly high benefits bill that is crippling the country as the government needs to support people on decent wages with their housing costs.

Because this equates to a net amount of £3.5k pm including family allowance.

I dont know what her outgoings are, but that sounds like she should be able to live on that, assuming she's not caught up in paying stupid rent cos rental costs are out of control.

lol! The vast majority of landlords are not millionaires - government policy created the private landlord sector we have today by dramatically reducing the social rented sector and thereby creating the need for private rent.
Most employers are not millionaires either. They are hard working small and medium sized businesses our economy needs.

Stop this childish ‘hate the rich’ narrative and see that this is a tale of poor administration and policy decisions by successive governments.

I had a little read up about UC because I don't claim benefits as such other than childcare hours.

I earn less than the 34k lady in question but because of my husbands earnings, we don't qualify for UC. Which is fine obviously!

However, going off topic ever so slightly, different benefits seem to have different criteria even though they are all there to help families for the most part.

We get some help with childcare costs which is a life line, but in that case each individual persons income is taken into account, not whole household. Whereas UC, from what I have read, takes household income into account?

So if the same rules were applied to UC, I'd get that extra help as my income is low (if I worked more hours that's where our childcare costs would jump up). Whereas if my husband took a promotion, we'd lose our childcare help as I'd have consider dropping work due to the extra childcare costs (I'd probs need nursery and a childminder mixed) yet that one new salary would be less than our current combined one. So we'd be no better off. I'd be worse off losing skills and being out of the work force, but if we earned 99k each, it wouldn't affect us.

Rules seem to be so complex. In some cases the criteria is 'does this individual in this household need help' and in some cases 'does this whole household need help?'.

It would be interesting to understand the reasoning behind it.

(Disclaimer- certainly not complaining, just a thought, it is 8am on a Sunday and I'm only one coffee in!).

You're spot on there.

I think I posted upthread about 2 clients, one in social housing and the other in an ex social housing property that had been bought by a private landlord. The difference in their UC entitlement was massive, around £1k a month, purely because of the difference in rents.

Investing in more social housing would reduce the spending on UC and give people a secure home. I'd like to see every new housing development having to include at least 10% social housing.

There are a lot of private landlords with huge numbers of properties.

The problem isn’t Aunt Mildred with one BTL, it’s the ones with dozens/hundreds of properties.

17% of landlords control nearly half of all private tenancies.

Which is pretty much everyone these days

You are being unreasonable as you don’t know her circumstances.
She might have several disabled children.

Working in the public sector you get a massive pension. They get paid just fine.

"Pay into" a pension.

Employers contributions on average are far higher than private sector employers. On a like for like basis, if the person in the public sector pays the same contributions as someone in the private sector, the public sector worker gets a much better pension than the private sector one, because of the amount paid by the employer/taxpayer.

I paid 9.5%, son pays 12%. If they’re that good I have no idea people don’t try to work for one.

And my scheme was funded. As is his.

Civil servants get paid almost 29 percent into their pensions by their employers.

I wasn't a civil servant. However they are tax payers themselves so also pay towards every other civil.servants pension.