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!

It really is, Op.

The average rent where I live is £924 for a one-bed and £1,506 for a 3-bed. LHA rates are £920 and £1,450 respectively, so not a huge gap.

However, that's across the whole district council area. I live in the most expensive town in the district, so they're probably a fair bit higher here. I've seen a 1-bed flat in a letting agent's window at a rent of £1,100 a month.

I was actually quite surprised, as they've built a lot of flats here over the last couple of years, which I thought might have slowed the increase in rents a bit.

It's sweet that you were surprised...

Exactly it’s housing. People forget in the 80s there was 5.5m council homes.

We had tax credits because we had one child, family income was around £50k which was probably fairly average then and we got just over £40 a month IIRC.

What has also changed since the 1980s is that most women now work so housing costs have risen steeply because households have two salaries. Blame feminism!

They’ve built loads here too. Unfortunately they’re all of the over 55 variety so gullible pensioners whose heirs will never be able to sell them can live in a geriatric ghetto.

It’s also easy to start a thread you hope will be whipped up into benefit bashing. Do you not think there have been enough of those to date ? The fact is employers pay shit wages that no-one can make ends meet on. Coupled with greedy landlords who charge a fortune because there is no rent cap and who increase rents every year in line with benefit uprating why is it surprising that the state has to step in and top up ? In many parts of the country a single wage of £34000 wouldn’t be enough to run a home and support children.

I think it would be odd for a teacher after 20 yrs to not be on the upper pay scale

Because you heard what you wanted tk hear, not what was actually said.

And then you repeated it. Some idiot will walk away from this thinking she is a single woman swanning around on 34k plus uc

Yep, the lovely Mrs Thatcher fixed that. Along with encouraging unemployed people to claim sickness benefits for the flimsiest of reasons and decimating the manufacturing industry in favour of banking and services. The long arm of Conservative mismanagement stretches back a lot longer than fourteen years.

No it isn’t just because women work

Misogynistic claptrap.

I said 'also' ie women working is one factor among numerous.

I wish people would talk about why on earth we live in a society where a full time salary does not cover the basics rather than being angry at people on benefits.

most women now work so housing costs have risen steeply because households have two salaries. Blame feminism!

No, you said the above…

Ok I've not read the full thread but this is where I get annoyed with people thinking all those on benefits are scroungers including my late MIL. It is the housing problem in this country meaning young people can't afford to live. It should never have got like this. My daughter is well educated with a MSc in a full time career but it is not well paid. She was earning approximately £32,000 and as a single person the cheapest place she could find to rent, just a 1 bed only 37 sq m was £900 per month . This meant she was entitled to UC rent top up. She is not really young , but nearly 40. She has ended up getting a shared ownership flat with a lot of help from us as there is no top up for a mortgage, only for rent. Yes this is the expensive South East . She start out in the North but had to come where the jobs were in her field.

Its disgraceful we live in a society where honest hard work does not pay sufficiently and needs to be subsidized by the welfare state. That is not the fault of the individual benefits claimant.

It certainly did. Listening to a snippet on the radio seems to be enough to come to a conclusion these days.

I did say that, because the fact that many households have two earners has contributed to the upswing in housing costs. 'Blame feminism' is sarcasm.

And she can go to the Zoo for a quid.

I think OP implied it was problematic that this woman with no dependents and earning above NMW was getting a UC top up. But she has children, so the whole premise of her post falls apart.

From what i understand if she’s getting hundreds or even thousands in child support she still would get the same UC top up. This is because the government has basically given up trying to rely on men to pay for their children. So they see it as an unstable source of income and therefore separate it from whatever benefits she’s owed.

I actually agree the government should hold men/the non-resident parent to account and make them pay for their kids and they should face the risk of criminal convictions like they do in the U.S. when they fail to pay. Maybe if that was the case they would calculate child support as part of the parents income.

It never has, back in the day many people did several jobs and worked overtime to get by. IE 50 plus hours work a week.

It sounds nuts, but the whole thing is dictated by personal circumstances.

But even without high housing costs it remains that a person who is supporting a SAHP and two children needs to earn far more than a single person. So either you raise wages for everyone, which often just increases prices because businesses have higher costs and people earn more so can afford to spend more.

Or you have a discriminatory pay system and either 'bread winners' are paid more than a single person who only needs to feed and house themselves or businesses employ whoever can afford to work for the lowest wage.

Say what you like about UC, it does at least try to solve that issue without illegal pay discrimination or employers employing the cheapest workers.

On 'most women now work so housing costs have risen steeply because households have two salaries. Blame feminism' this is true. If banks had continued to only count one income, doesn't matter whose it is, when assessing mortgages, people would have been able to borrow less and house prices wouldn't have risen so much. Would also mean that people would have been able to buy on their own more easily as they wouldn't have been competing with two income households.