Universal Credit should relax £16,000 savings eligibility rule

[DreamChaser23]

do you agree? This is to ensure other workers who were laid off and have 16k OR higher in savings should also be eligible for help.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-must-change-universal-credit-21792760.amp

Derbygerbil its a two way street you don't care , i don't care

It was Mahatma Ghandi who said 'the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members'.

I wouldn't like to think I live in a society where people didn't give a shit about anyone else, but clearly there are some here that don't.

@mochajoes

We kept the house when we moved in together incase it didn’t work out. The first tenants we got are still in there, they have no inclination to buy the house (we asked), and so if we sold it they would loose their home. On that basis we have decided to keep it for as long as our lovely easy tenants stay there.

In answer to do we make money. We charge £450 rent - average in our area is £650 but we haven’t ever increased. Our fault entirely but as I’ve said our tenants are trouble free so wouldn’t want them to move out due to rent increases.

Our mortgage is £350. Landlord insurance £25. So that leaves £75 a month. This covers maintenance and repairs but not much else. We pay for gas and electric checks each year and aim to do one big item a year too. Last November we replaced the boiler. The year before the upstairs flooring and shower. As I’m sure you can calculate we aren’t making a profit.

When my husband lost his job we used our savings to pay for our bills, that paid for 3 months of living, then we went on UC for one month and then thankfully my husband got another job.
I don’t see why this is different, savings are there to use in a emergency. If you use them all, then ask for UC.

Surely even the government only has so much money they can give away.

I agree with you @CalmerViolet

Something along the lines of the systems those terribly right wing countries in Scandinavia and Germany have in place?

One tier for those that have contributed - it’s a percentage of your former salary for a fixed period of time. It’s to give you time to look for a similar type of role, or to retrain.

A subsistence level benefit for those that haven’t contributed. People from the contributions based class do move onto this after a fixed period of time.

Note - people who haven’t contributed due to disability are also protected, not living off the subsistence level benefit.

I you are going to have a fantastic time at the job center @Hester54 with your attitude.

Deathgrip But you make it sound like anybody with savings over 16,000 must be very wealthy and have a good job to have that much savings, its not true

I'm on the fence about this, and I'm a broke single mum. It does seem unfair that people who are now unemployed through no fault of their own will also lose their savings. If someone loses their job through their own gross negligence then of course they use their savings.

Could a person's savings be frozen until they come off UC? Also, if a huge portion of the country suddenly started spending their savings wouldn't that have an impact on the banks?

Peppafrig why, do i need to care about them as well?

looqoo the problem I have is that nobody (or hardly anybody) was calling for the type of contribution based system you mention prior to all these people suddenly losing their jobs enmasse. A lot of people have previously viewed benefit claimants as scroungers and work shy and they couldn’t give a shit if the benefits was too low a sum to live on or if they had to use their savings, sell their homes etc in order to survive.
Now a lot of mr middle classes are finding themselves claiming benefits there is a lot of cries about how unfair it is. And a lot of people still dividing people into categories of deserving and undeserving.

@Hester54 if you have never signed on before and think people on it have it easy and are work shy. Just wait to see how many hoops they expect you to jump through to actually get the money .

I'm on the fence about this, and I'm a broke single mum. It does seem unfair that people who are now unemployed through no fault of their own will also lose their savings. If someone loses their job through their own gross negligence then of course they use their savings.

But most people who lose their job are not sacked for gross negligence and most who became unemployed before the current pandemic did so through no fault of their own, but they would have had to use their savings.

@testbank. Just picking up your latest comment (HRTFT) DWP won't allow this. It's deprivation of assets.

@Hester54

Derbygerbil its a two way street you don't care , i don't care

I do care about people beyond my immediate family unit. I care about inequality, poverty and suffering of people other than those I personally know. I also recognise that people who have saved will now need to use that money and that this will be really tough for them, and I have enough empathy to realise that will be tough for you.

I find it hard though to care too much about someone who sociopathically boasts that she has no care or consideration for others outside her “unit” and only now wants the benefit system amended to suit her wishes when she didn’t give a toss before.

As I said before, consider investing your savings to buy a pension if your concerned (assuming this is permissible). Yes, there will be restrictions associated with this, but you can’t have it all ways.

We have some savings, under £3000. I would expect to use that in an emergency and just because we dont have more does not mean we have been reckless with our money. Like a lot of people, we have saved what we can afford to save. How incredibly shortsighted of you OP

@Marylou2

“ Wow! And people thought this would bring the nation together. This situation will drive the entire country apart much further than ever. I predict that people made temporarily unemployed by the virus will be even more hostile to those subsisting on benefits on a permanent basis. Also there'll be decades of austerity to follow to pay for all of this. The squeezed middle will pay as usual while very little will change at all for those who live off the state or the very rich.”

Yes, I predict division too. I think the first people to be scapegoated will be immigrants. It’s going to be pretty easy to stop paying benefits to EU citizens - technically they are supposed to be economically active to live and work here. Given the way the population has voted over the last 4 years, then I doubly that the government will have any qualms about taking the words economically active literally and stopping benefits being paid to non U.K. and Irish citizens. Easy to find EU citizens now that most of them have just applied for Settled and Presettled status.

You do know there are ppl who can’t pay their rent never mind save a deposit?
They are some people who indeed can't pay their rent because of the very low income they are on. There will also be people who can't save because they opt for luxuries that the savers are doing without.

One of my colleague has been saving for years now. She and partner are on a lowish combined income, but are desperate to become home owner. They have chose not to have children until they get a home, they drive bangers, They don't do take away, only buy one bottle of wine per week to share, no new clothes and they have only gone on one very cheap holiday in the last 5 years after her tragedy in the family and needed something to cheer her up.

They could have the same income and a very different life time with no savings at all, so yes, I think savings put forward for a house deposit should be protected. And no, I don't vote for tories.

LizzieMacQueen I better cancel that new car now, how far can they go back?

It does seem unfair that people who are now unemployed through no fault of their own will also lose their savings.

So people claiming UC before Covid were at fault?

But you make it sound like anybody with savings over 16,000 must be very wealthy and have a good job to have that much savings, its not true

I’ve said the opposite - how much you’ve earned in the past is irrelevant, what’s relevant is whether you are able to pay for basic fundamental things now. Once your income goes away, the level of that income is irrelevant.

And compared to the rest of the population overall, having £16k in savings means you’re comparatively very well off. And you don’t need a few hundred pounds given to you each month to pay your bills and buy your food.

If your savings drop below that level, you’re entitled to help. If you have more than that, it’s deemed that you don’t need the help. It has nothing to do with whether you’re wealthy or not. We are far from wealthy, below average income between us and we have more than £16k savings. We have our own business and qualify for no financial support. We don’t need UC and thank god for that, it’s an awful system.

dontdisturbmenow here, here,

Deathgrip but that's the thing people on a good wage should have savings,

@Totallycluelessoverhere

Yes, see your point. I think we differ in that I think people will look at it as unfair that those who have contributed for years get the same as those who have never contributed and the result of that will be the people who contribute agitating for a 2 tier system, like those in Scandinavia and Germany.

but that's the thing people on a good wage should have savings,

It’s not relevant - all thats relevant is whether you can support yourself right now or not.

And you’ll still be better off than someone with no savings at the end of it because you will get help when you still have a lot of savings.

looqoo I’ve long since said there should be a two tier system, especially as many people who have been long term employed have mortgages to pay and the support with those payments when you are unemployed is not nearly as generous as the help you can get with rent and the system effectively penalises mortgage payers.
But I think what is annoying me is that the majority of people now recognising these inequalities didn’t care about them before. It’s always been “tough shit” and “I’m alright jack” kind of attitude. I really do think as a country we have had a long standing negative view of the unemployed and not really cared about benefits not being enough to live on.
Now it is starting to affect the “I’m alright jack” brigade they are up in arms and even now they are still believing themselves to be more deserving of the previously unemployed.
Most people don’t want to be on benefits, it’s a shit system with too many hurdles to jump over to get a small sum which often doesn’t meet the costs of basic needs. The majority of long term unemployed have underlying issues including physical health, mental health, disability etc that make it hard for them to get off benefits.