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

@Devlesko and what of all those thousands of people made redundant over the years through no fault of their own? It was ok for them but not for people now.

Peppafrig not much more, saved up over many years and a little inheritance going to help us in old age, ( no pension )

No, of course not. People should use their own money first.

@Hester54 well then by the time you pay your bills you could very well be entitled to it in a few weeks.

Another case of- “If I can’t have it, no one can!!”

If anyone and everyone was allowed to get full UC, then there wouldn’t be enough to go around, therefore the people in dire need of UC would end up getting less.

I can only afford around £15 a month to save and there are people a lot worse off than me, who don’t have a penny to save and probably go into negative balance by the end of the month.

I suggest some of you watch “the platform” on Netflix, it shows how the people at the top take more than they need and it ends up with the people at the bottom getting nothing. It’s almost perfect to show what’s happening now

Peppafrig Because they may well have had a very generous redundancy payout,

why dont people just spend a bit of their savings and drop below £16k then?

because my guess it's a lot more than £16k

"Or you could have inherited nothing but grief and hardship from your parents. What's your point?"

Yes, because thats relevant

@Hester54 yes people made redundant from minimum wage jobs often get very generous redundancy payouts . I don't know what rose tinted glasses you wear but you really don't know how the real world works do you.

Pity the £16k savings doesn't apply to huge business owners who are laying off staff and expecting the government to bail them out. .

Most people want to do the right thing. They want to work, save up, help society and raise a family. They see others who do the opposite, save nothing, act fecklessly, behave appallingly.

The state always perversely helps the terminally lazy and profligate. Always has, always will. If you lose your job and have saved a few scraps for your long term future, prepare to get shafted. Better to just spend money like water and live extravagantly

Peppafrig i would call in the tens of thousands very good, you seem to forget the average wage is £36,000 not every one is on min wage,

Plus those so desperately wanting universal credit while sitting on £16,000 would soon be wanting to use their savings when they attend their first meeting at the job centre. It is not pleasant to have someone sanction you or tell you go apply for any job going including dish washing whatever they decide you should do. The same people moaning will be ones who can't believe they have been made to take a job cleaning toilets .

AltogetherNo and the jealousy is very obvious to see, some people have work very hard, given up thing to have what they have.

@Pinksunday1210 exactly.
I read this recently. We are all being shafted by the ultra rich, which at the poor end starts at over £100k a year.

Why are people assuming those with savings over 16k must be working in top jobs, living in mansions in London? I have a friend who's on benefits, has been for years due to disability. She's managed to save up close to 16k but now she has to spend rather than save otherwise she loses her benefits. She has scrimped and saved for years and years whereas if she'd just spent it all it wouldn't have been a problem. She hasn't had a holiday in years, doesn't drink, rarely eats out etc but apparently she's in the wrong for having savings. The mind boggles.

Welcome to the "cushty, sponging" life on benefits OP!

I really do think some people have their head up their arse and can't believe how little benefits actually are. People have been shouting for years about UC and the joke that it is. I'm personally not on UC but I have enough friends who tell me absolute horror stories. It's not the bed of roses that you thought huh?

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 as you’ve saved, rather than spent

You can get something back from the system, just not until you are at a point of needing it.

If we're on fairness, it's also not fair for someone who did nothing 'wrong' and worked hard for years but who than has, for example, a child with significant additional needs that require constant care to have to scrape by for the rest of their lives on paltry disability payments and carer's allowances, without any hope of seeing any savings at all, let alone £16k. None of this is truly about fairness, it's about making sure people don't die of starvation. If you want more than that, be sure to vote accordingly at the next election...

There isn't enough UC money to go around, who knows what this will cost the UK in the end.

And guess who'll end up getting the shitty end of the stick as happened after the global crash in 2008, thats right us disabled people

@Hester54 yes of course your typical universal credit applicant has just came of a £36,000 a year job with tens of thousands of pounds of redundancy money. Yep I really need a shot of those rose tinted glasses.