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

[mochajoes]

Whereas people who have been wreckless over the years spulrging their money on German cars on PCP for example are now being gifted money.

who is being gifted money?

[LooQoo]

@bushhbb

If they’ve been paying in 8k a year income tax and NI for 20 years, it’s not really scrounging to expect £400 or so a month back in benefits is it?

What is scrounging is having a couple of kids and doing the minimum possible hours to get the maximum amount of benefits, having never contributed.

[moveandmove]

I agree op.

[Stevienickssleeves]

You want UC paid for so you can spunk £16k on a holiday? You must know there are people living day to day, eating toast for dinner or unable to heat their house. What are you thinking?

[tiggertogger]

🤣 what a greedy, self-serving, idiotic suggestion. You have savings? Use them and be grateful you do. SMH

[CremeEggThief]

In the real world, a lot of us are doing our best to save £1000 or £5000 as our cushion, on low-paid jobs, despite being qualified to postgraduate level.

So, no, not much sympathy for people who have that in savings already. At least you won't be affected by the 5 week wait.

[JustAnotherPoster00]

Dont worry OP after youve used all your savings and are living off UC, to bolster your spirits I suggest you watch the queens speech about austerity when shes sitting in front of a gold piano, or a nice youtube clip with a Tory peer telling us how cheap it is to live if only the poor knew how to cook, such heart warming things

[Peppafrig]

People have been happy for this to happen to others for years . Only difference is now it's happening to them it's not ok. Do you think the government would have enough money to back date this even in just the past year to those who lost their jobs through no fault of their own . If you have savings of over £16,000 then you spend it till you get under the limit and apply again in a few weeks. If you have double the amount or even more then sorry your need to lay your bills comes before a new car and a wedding .

[TallRachel]

"Weddings and cars being used as an excise to scrounge UC is laughable. You use your saving a first, before hoarding money form the government's"

You are missing the point.

Person 1 saves up for a car and builds a bank account balance of £16,000. They are not entitled to UC

Person 2 Who got their car on PCP paying monthly might have already spent £16,000 but they are entitled to UC.

Not fair.

[Marieo]

People have been happy for this to happen to others for years

Exactly. Unless those complaining wrongly believe that everyone who has previously claimed benefits is a scrounger who has never worked, and they are by far more upstanding citizens so deserve for the rules to be changed.

[Deathgrip]

No, not sensible savers. People in a position to save more than £16k which is more than a years wage for many people.

Longer term, you need to think about how happy people are going to be contributing into a system for others to take from.

When you’re financially in need, you can claim too. In the meantime, good luck not paying into the system.

[JustAnotherPoster00]

Person 1 saves up for a car and builds a bank account balance of £16,000. They are not entitled to UC

Person 2 Who got their car on PCP paying monthly might have already spent £16,000 but they are entitled to UC.

Not fair.

Person 3 Born disabled on benefits for a majority of their life, no savings because you dont have enough to save, the cutting of housing benefit, introduction of the bedroom tax, introduction of 2 child limit and a fradulent assessment service

Whats fair?

[Marieo]

@TallRachel it's more that this has always been the case, plenty of people have lost their jobs through no fault of their own preciously and no one has been arsed about the injustice of it.

[YgritteSnow]

A deposit for your first house, that you've been saving up for five years while scrimping and living on beans?

Sorry but it is what is. Not many of us could ever have foreseen this. There are people who have lost entire businesses and livelihoods and have nothing to go back to after this. You'll have to dip into your savings unfortunately. It's shit. But it's shit for all of us in so many ways.

[Jellycatspyjamas]

People make different decisions about money all the time - in either case the person able to afford £16k+ for a car is much better off than many people on benefits. And £16k would still buy a nice car or pay for a good wedding. I think it’s ridiculous that folk with more money sitting in the bank than many people earn in a year should get government help at this time. No it doesn’t feel fair, but my guess is life doesn’t feel fair for a lot of people just now - and hadn’t felt fair for many many people dependent on an ever stigmatised benefits system for years.

[MrsSnitchnose]

If you've got £16k, you don't need help!

[LooQoo]

@Deathgrip

I can recommend a good tax advisor if you need one?

[TheFairyCaravan]

I'm torn on this because both my kids have over £16k in savings, one has a really nice German car on PCP too. Every penny of their savings is money they've earned, they've never been given it and don't go out pissing it up the wall every weekend. However their cousins have no savings, and not a great work ethic either.

So while I agree that in theory my kids shouldn't get UC that money is their house deposits it would be a bit unfair for them to lose them.

[Smellbellina]

😂 funny how people think harsher benefit rules are unfair once they might be effected by them themselves.

[YgritteSnow]

People have been happy for this to happen to others for years . Only difference is now it's happening to them it's not ok.

Indeed. I've been watching with interest that lamentations of those who sneered at benefits claimants us and are finally realising just how shit it is to be on them and just how stressful negotiating the system is. One thing I hope for is that this pandemic leads in some ways to a more equal society, more awareness of how the poor struggle and a reduction in sneery judgment but people have very short memories so I won't hold my breath.

This thread is fascinating actually. The sheer entitlement I always knew was a strong thread running through MN, actually voiced.

[Hester54]

JustAnotherPoster00 Sorry but I cant see nothing wrong with the 2 child limit, why have more if you cant afford to look after them, a single person in a 3 bed house is taking space from a family in need

[Jellycatspyjamas]

So while I agree that in theory my kids shouldn't get UC that money is their house deposits it would be a bit unfair for them to lose them.
More unfair than not having enough money to feed yourself and your kids, or paying for care that you need to survive day to day, or loosing the business you worked hard to build?

[Hester54]

Smellbellina If you have never need benefits before, why would you know what the rules are?
It seems very strange to me that two people in the same job, being paid the same, 1 persons saves a bit for whatever, the other gambles it away etc etc, but they can get help the other cant,
how does it what to make you save?

[PerkingFaintly]

But what about their tax and NI contributions. Should they not be taken into account? It’s not fair to pay into a system for 20 years and then be told that you can’t get anything back from that system

Well, this country has been voting for govts which have disregarded more and more of our NI contributions.

The windows in which NI contributions "count" for ESA (incapacity benefit) and Job-Seekers Allowance have narrowed and narrowed over recent years. (Not sure how it's working with Universal Credit, but that won't be more generous.)

There's also been plenty of talk (and some action towards) getting rid of NI completely, and simply having welfare benefits paid out of general taxation.

The aim is, of course, to rebrand all these benefits and the state pension as "charity welfare money for scrounging losers," rather than as mandatory state-organised insurance and pensions to which every citizen is entitled because they've paid their contributions.

Ie, precisely to stop us saying that we paid in during the good times and now need help in the bad.

[CatAndFiddle]

We are about to see negative interest rates. By the end of the summer, I bet. The country will not be able to afford people having cash sat in accounts. You will be forced to spend it. So, if anything, the savings limit for UC will DROP.