To change over to UC?

[Holiday21plea]

Hi. I will have childcare costs from next week. £520 a month. I’m currently on the old system WTC. I’ve used a benefit calculator to compare both and I called CAB to do one too. It’s just an estimate obviously but it does show I would be better moving myself voluntarily onto UC.

I am worried it will be a mistake as all I hear is negative reviews. The 5 week wait to start the process is not really an issue. Although the way you have to pay childcare costs upfront and UC then pay the following month is really wrong.

Shall I change over?

urgh. I really feel for you. I am far from dim and have tried to set up an excel calculator to understand the effect of me moving from tax credits to UC, but I literally can't get my head around combining them both. Individually yes I understand, but to try to compare is a nightmare. I stuck with tax credits, as i thought, better the devil you know and if you can live with what you get, dont rock the boat until pushed.

UC you need to provide "proof" every month or your childcare element isn't paid. Sometimes you provide proof and they still don't pay it! So if your UC pay your payment on the 10th November it covers October childcare which you need to have already paid and provide screenshot of bank account etc. I found it a struggle in the first few months.

Also if your paid from employment different days of the month (eg the last Tuesday) some months UC calculate you have been paid twice so you have earned too much to qualify. If you get paid on the same date every month this probably wouldn't affect you.

Some people are a lot better off on Uc and I think it's much better how it is based on real time earnings rather than tax credits which is calculated over the year and results in people being overpaid.
However on UC, it is stricter I think, lone parents cannot work 16 hours a week until their kids leave education ( although I'm not sure how many actually do), they are encouraged to look for more hours. the aim is to get people working and be better off working. the work allowances are quite generous on UC.

@Hollowtree3 I literally have a headache. I updated my childcare costs with WTC and today logged into my app and they gave me my figures. I find WTC so efficient. They always pay you on time. I could live on what they give me to be fair. I’m not sure what to do!

@dontbelieveboris I’ve never know anything like it paying childcare costs upfront. I think I could get used to it but it makes me skeptical..

@Babyroobs the work allowance sounds worse from my understanding. My wage is £1200 every month. Same pay date. My understanding is that they would deduct so much off of my wage?
This is the part that I think it doesn’t seem to want to help people better themselves and WTC don’t work like that at all. In my experience you will only be overpaid if you haven’t notified WTC is good time because they alter changes after around 1 week usually.

UC do pay upto 85% of childcare costs where as WTC is upto 70% so it could mr this reason why I might be better off changing over.

UC is extremely harsh if you have a mortgage or a disabled child. The old system was far better in these cases. I'm not looking forward to having to swap.

@Holiday21plea
It depends on your situation I suppose, I had young ones in full time childcare and I was on a low wage, childcare was 80% of my wage roughly so the months they messed up and forgot it I was in a mess, I'm used to it and now the kids are in school it's bad but not can't afford food bad

I do like the journal part where you can ask questions without being on hold hours though

Personally unless you are massively better off I'd stick to WTC

[quote Holiday21plea]@Babyroobs the work allowance sounds worse from my understanding. My wage is £1200 every month. Same pay date. My understanding is that they would deduct so much off of my wage?
This is the part that I think it doesn’t seem to want to help people better themselves and WTC don’t work like that at all. In my experience you will only be overpaid if you haven’t notified WTC is good time because they alter changes after around 1 week usually.

UC do pay upto 85% of childcare costs where as WTC is upto 70% so it could mr this reason why I might be better off changing over.[/quote]
Uc is made up of different elements that are added together depending what you are entitled to. Everyone gets a standard element, then if you rent you get a rent element, if you pay childcare you get a childcare element and if you have kids you get elements for them. All these added together make your total UC award. Then wages reduce it depending how much you have earned in your monthly assessment period. The work allowance is an amount which is disregarded form your earnings before deduction takes place. If you rent it is £292 that is disregarded and if you have a mortgage or no housing costs it is £512. Then after that disregard each pound you earn reduces your total Uc by 63p. You only get the work allowance if you have kids or have limited capability for work due to illness or disability.

@DrCoconut

UC is extremely harsh if you have a mortgage or a disabled child. The old system was far better in these cases. I'm not looking forward to having to swap.

The child disability element is less on UC for DLA middle care I think but better for higher rate care. Also if you have a disabled child on the claim, one of the parents could still claim carers element even if they both worked and earned too much to claim carers allowance, there is no such equivalent on Tax credits.

@dontbelieveboris my recent change will be new childcare costs of £520 per month, plus I will need to pay my full rent and council tax. So viewing it like this because of childcare my wage will soon go. I think I may have to change to UC.

Also to top it off I plan to change jobs! Which will mean my wage is a lot lower but I won’t be paying £520 in childcare per month.

Another benefit to Uc is that if you claim help with rent and have a young adult under 21living with you there is no non dependent deduction on your rent element like there would be if you were claiming housing benefit under the old system.

[quote Holiday21plea]@dontbelieveboris my recent change will be new childcare costs of £520 per month, plus I will need to pay my full rent and council tax. So viewing it like this because of childcare my wage will soon go. I think I may have to change to UC.

Also to top it off I plan to change jobs! Which will mean my wage is a lot lower but I won’t be paying £520 in childcare per month.[/quote]
Then you need to be careful if changing jobs as, depending on the age of your children they may be expecting you to earn a certain amount. The number of hours you are expected to work on UC are stricter.

Sorry I sound like I am defending UC but it really does depend on individual circumstances whether you are better off. It is pretty bad in normal times for self employed and terrible for unemployed. It's much more favorable for working people. Students fare terribly on UC compared to Tax credits and if you are a disabled person then likely to be worse off. Always get an accurate calculation done.

I’m waiting for a call so I can have my calculation double checked. I checked about what you said about the number of hours I would need to work... UC says there’s no minimum but a child over 5 35hours a week!! Yet the cap on childcare costs is £646 a month for one child so really it’s no better than WTC as they allow £175 per week.

I may reconsider after all and stay as I am as I have a few interviews lined up already for jobs.

@Holiday21plea

I’m waiting for a call so I can have my calculation double checked. I checked about what you said about the number of hours I would need to work... UC says there’s no minimum but a child over 5 35hours a week!! Yet the cap on childcare costs is £646 a month for one child so really it’s no better than WTC as they allow £175 per week.

I may reconsider after all and stay as I am as I have a few interviews lined up already for jobs.

They expect you to be earning 25 x nmw per week once youngest child over 5, but to be honest I don't think they enforce it that much, especially at the moment when there is little work around. IT's 35 x nmw once child is 12.

Now I work 23 hours a week. So is it more to do with salary? Not just how many hours you would work?

@Holiday21plea

Now I work 23 hours a week. So is it more to do with salary? Not just how many hours you would work?

Yes if your 23 hours is paid at more than Nmw then they will likely be lenient about you not doing 25.

@Babyroobs thanks for the info.

The biggest issue with UC currently is the administration. It's not a great system in the first place in that it's quite harsh abs unforgiving. Then there are loads of new and poorly trained staff making the decisions. Loads of mistakes are made abs claimant being given incorrect info and incorrect awards.

Personally I would stay off it as long as possible until it beds in a LOT more and the administration improves. Unless you are desperate for the extra money it's really not worth the potential problems.

As Babyroobs said it’s not actually a number of hours that they expect you to work once your child is over 5, but an amount of income monthly. If you earn a good wage but over fewer hours then that is deemed ‘fine’. As I said it is a bit of a nightmare to work all this out!

Can someone explain this to me. Sorry for being slack. If I change over to UC it says I would be better off by £47 approx per week. I can’t understand how by their calculation

Based on the admin hassles with UC, I'm not sure I would switch voluntarily.

@Holiday21plea

Can someone explain this to me. Sorry for being slack. If I change over to UC it says I would be better off by £47 approx per week. I can’t understand how by their calculation

You would get £950.37 Universal credit and then your wages on top. How does that compare with what you would get on tax credits? Also there is no childcare element added into that calculation. So that would be added on before the deduction for wages comes off.

Omg I think I have just realised the £47 difference is not really what they would give me per week. It’s because the two system are different!! sorry about that!

I definitely won’t be switching.