Does this Universal Credit amount sound wrong?

[FryingPanWithJam]

Total amount in UC is £2421.40 a month

Income is £1950 a month, Partner. I’m unemployed as a carer, I get carers allowance

Two kids on higher rates of DLA

Rent is £930

I really, really worry about being overpaid! I wasn’t even aware I could claim it until someone mentioned it at a support group. I am really shocked

It’s all very well being horrified at the idea of capping or reducing benefits but what’s your alternative?

Reform. Particularly the utterly broken system for getting people with health conditions back to work.

Ok… what and how? How would it be funded? I assume root and branch change of the NHS isn’t cheap? Or quick?

I'm not writing a policy paper for you but while the NHS logjam for non urgent surgery etc is part of the problem it's not the whole story.

Somebody, don't think it was in this thread, suggested we look at how the Dutch do it. While benefits remain under central control the system to encourage people back to work should be delivered locally by multidisciplinary teams.

yes there is v much an undercurrent of that but if you challenge it the poster claims this was not at all.what they meant !
This is the second thread recently that has totally followed the same pattern. Talk of allowing premature babies to die because of the long term costs of disabled children etc and advocating euthanasia for the elderly and sick to save on care costs ( though of course they never meant that at all although their thread title alone said it openly).
I would rather they actually owned their opinions instead of making veiled remarks and passive aggressive digs. Sadly in these financially challenging times I think.we are only going to get more of this. V depressing !

yes there is v much an undercurrent of that but if you challenge it the poster claims this was not at all.what they meant !
This is the second thread recently that has totally followed the same pattern. Talk of allowing premature babies to die because of the long term costs of disabled children etc and advocating euthanasia for the elderly and sick to save on care costs ( though of course they never meant that at all although their thread title alone said it openly).
I would rather they actually owned their opinions instead of making veiled remarks and passive aggressive digs. Sadly in these financially challenging times I think.we are only going to get more of this. V depressing !

You should also be getting the carers element too. Mine is around £182 a month on top of that. That's separate to carers allowance. Have UC deducted your carers allowance from the monthly amount?

Spot on, take care.

@Blueybanditbingochilli I'm capable of being a carer for my daughter, which I am because her carers never show up but I'm not capable of working because I can't leave the house by myself due to severe agoraphobia. I don't think an employer would appreciate me taking my husband to work with me. Also, how can someone who is a carer actually go to work because there would be no one there to care for the disabled person, essentially leaving them to starve and sit in urine and faeces all day?

I would also like to note that being a carer is a full time job and harder than any other job I've ever had to do. You don't get to handover to another member of staff, you don't get to have holidays, you're on shift from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed.

Spot on.

@Blueybanditbingochilli has a hazy grasp of how benefits work and how people tick .

People are saying the benefits bill isn't sustainable but what about cutting other areas first? Plenty of money is wasted in other areas.

Which other areas?

How do you take her to hospital appointments, collect prescriptions, attends therapies etc? I’m not being facetious I’m genuinely asking.

@Blueybanditbingochilli I don't because she won't leave the house herself. She won't even come downstairs due to her mental health issues. My husband collects her prescriptions.

And any health professionals have to do home visits for her.

Gosh.

I take my disabled child with me. These aren't usually long. Doctors are ok with her being in the treatment room. I couldn't take her to the office for a job though. This question is so stupid on so many levels, I don't really know where to begin 🤷

I am not the poster you quoted and I don’t have agoraphobia, but DSs’ prescriptions are delivered and the therapies they require are delivered via their EOTAS packages. I do take them to their many medical appointments. However, not all disabled DC have lots of hospital appointments, so if that applied to someone like the pp (or even if they had a lot of F2F hospital appointments) her DH may go with them.

You’ve massively got the wrong end of the stick. PP was talking about her circumstances of being an agoraphobic carer and I asked how she takes her DC to appointments.

Realisation that life isn't as simple as you think?

No, I just feel that the whole issue is reaching a point of no return as certain scenarios just seem to be becoming so common now.

@Blueybanditbingochilli What do you mean by no return?

The benefits system is being misused by several people. I am not referring to OP and her family. I know people who claim UC as single parents whilst living with a partner. Their rent is paid and a significant discount on council tax. Those people are significantly better off than the majority of people who work full time.
Those people will never work more than 16 hours pw as it impacts on their benefits. Completely unfair and they are being supported by the taxes of those working full time!

Why does 16hours matter in Universal Credit?

If people are living together and not telling UC they need 'dobbing in'.

The policies and rhetoric of the last 15 years have really done a number on the basic decency and humanity of people in this country. There but for the grace of whatever deity you believe in.

Nobody wants to engage their critical thinking and punch up. So much easier to attack women caring for profoundly disabled kids, or immigrants, or whoever the latest punching bag is.

Bet everyone railing against this thinks it was better in the old days, when these children wouldn’t have been brought home from hospital and the OP would have been encouraged to pretend they’d never been born.