Our area recently started the process of switching people over to UC. We were currently on tax credits and were getting £17 a week (we are paying off an overpayment so our weekly payments are reduced) which worked out at £68 a month.
We switched over to UC and were told all the ins and outs of how payments are worked out. Last month there was a tax credit repayment mix up and we ended up only getting £9 for the month. We sorted it out for this month and I just went and checked my account and they have said that we are entitled to £40 this month.
Now, at the moment, my partner is earning £290 a week after tax/national insurance and last month I earned £444 as I was off with very bad viral tonsillitis for about a week. My calculations say that that all comes to £1604. However they have calculated we have earned £1941. I don’t know how this is possible because I had time off and my partner had had no overtime.
Anyway, £40 is obviously less than £68 which is what we were getting. I read something about how they’ve pledged that “nobody should be worse off after switching to UC than they were on previous benefits”. If that’s the case, then why are we worse off? How do I go about getting this rectified, if I even can?