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

Well if you reduce payments to the point where families can't live on them or they have a breakdown they will be forced to put their relatives into care and the OP is right the costs are eye-watering. My 18 yr old would cost between 300 to 500, 000 a year in a residential.placement.
One thing I would do for sure is to stop private care providers charging such astronomical fees. Some providers are making huge profits . In fact all the services that are outsourced ( wheelchairs, orthotics etc ) are a rip.off and the government should never have handed over contracts to private companies who are basically in it for the money. A huge amount of money could be saved there along with cutting the large amount of wastage in terms of equipment etc. There needs to be a major overhaul of all aspects of social care to cut bureaucracy and provide a much easier system so that people can access the help.they need without the endless assessments and involvement of professionals and decision makers all.of which costs a small fortune.
I know some people think.families with disabled kids are living the life of riley ( I also have 2 with extremely complex needs) but most of the time it is like being engaged in guerilla warfare with the very services that are supposed to be there to support you . It is truly exhausting on top of non stop caring and it is made harder still when you realise that many people resent you for getting any support at all.

You wouldn’t be better off not working. Workers with DC get the work allowance on UC. And the earnings deduction is 55p in the £, not £ for £. It may be that you are eligible for some UC now, many workers with disabled DC are.

People saying having a disabled child costs more - but that much more?

Yes, that much more. It is lovely if that doesn’t apply to you, but research shows for the average disabled house they need £975 on top of disability benefits to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households.

Rent isn’t unique to carers. Plenty of people who work rent. The housing allowance doesn’t change because someone works or not. Those without housing costs get a higher work allowance on UC.

Reducing disability benefit payments would increase the overall cost to the state. It would also plunge even more families of disabled children into poverty when nearly half are already in poverty.

That sounds beyond horrendous. I can empathise to an extent with the one I have...

Which begs the genuine question, why did you have a second child? Was there not a genetic risk in this case? Or were they twins? Did you know at the 20week scan?

As unpleasant as it sounds, one was enough for me...Much as I love him. The future of where he's going to be without me when I die, that on it's own, for one child, is beyond comprehension.

@brightyellowflower No, they are both profoundly autistic and non verbal with 24/7 care needs. Both diagnosed at age 2. I knew my eldest was autistic but didn’t think it would be ‘that’ bad, loads of people saying how amazing a sibling is for autistic children. Etc etc. nobody warned me either that they could end up really triggering each other

No 20 week scan for that sadly

If I knew what I knew now, no, I wouldn’t have had another child. Despite loving the very bones of them both.

We all roll the dice when we have children and risk having disabled children that need lifelong care

I think this is quite harsh - literally a roll of a dice can either give you healthy children or ones who need 24/7 care. Some of us are just lucky. That's not fair is it?

Now OP has explained how severe the needs are I think it's a fair payment. There's no way she can work. The rest of us can guarantee that once our teens finish exams & 6th form they will either work or go to uni. This isn't the case for OP.

My neighbour has a DD who sounds like your DC & as an adult she is in residential care. Going forward you should look into this.

I'm sorry you have to deal with this. I'm forever grateful that my DC don't have these needs & will happily work full time to support you.

We refer to "the autism spectrum". It is a spectrum. ASD is Autism Spectrum Disorders. There are 'mild' cases. Lots of people only getting diagnosed in middle age. I work in this field. Disability benefits in the UK are not given on the diagnosis but on how much your functioning is affected.

If you worked in this field you would know the autism spectrum isn’t a linear spectrum from mild to severe or not autistic to very autistic. That is not what is meant by the autism spectrum.

I don’t think they should be slashed to the bone but I would suggest an upper limit of £30,000. In line with the average salary. I think that’s fair, and actually still very generous compared to virtually any country around the world.

Nobody ever says how we can afford to meet the growing demand if we do not do this.

UC and legacy spending is forecast to be £80.9 billion in 2023-24, up from £73.4 billion in 2022-23 and slightly above the cash-terms high of £80.4 billion in 2020-21. Due to the continuing rollout of UC, spending on UC alone is expected to be £51.2 billion in 2023-24, up from £42.6 billion in 2022-23, and is forecast to reach £88.1 billion in 2028-29.

As you can see UC payments are projected to double between 2022 and 2028. How on earth can we allow it to continue? Do we just let it carry on indefinitely while cutting everything else? Our councils are nearly all verging on bankruptcy due to the scary rise in spending on social care - it’s what they spent the majority of their money on, with virtually none left for environmental, social housing or public health issues.

It’s a shocker and if anyone has any suggestions other than capping payments I would be intrigued to hear it.

But again, where are you getting this ‘day 30,000?’ Figure from? Sounds like you’re plucking it from thin air. You aren’t given any sort of breakdown of what you’d expect that amount would cover

Just randomly saying figures that don’t add up

It’s in line with the average salary. Morally I don’t think anyone should be entitled to more in benefits than the average person takes home after working 40 hours a week. Especially given here we also have free healthcare, education etc and the money is purely for the day to day.

Also I will add disability UC isn’t calculated according to a breakdown of costs provided by the person claiming. There are thresholds and it is simply paid according to that. So there’s nothing to prove the money being given isn’t too much. I would be interested to see a breakdown of costs that means a person needs 50k plus on top of a partner’s salary.

Lack of support for homeowners is a long standing issue but nobody can come up with an answer.

The Housing Costs Element for rent does not, in reality, do anything for the claimant as it goes straight through their hands to the landlord. In many cases, since the Local Housing Allowance which caps what can be paid in rent is well below the market rate so people are topping it up from money that's meant for living expenses.

Not sure how you think somebody who kicks their husband out is going to be better off. It doesn't work like that.

Exactly.

We have a Benefit Cap (not the same thing as the two child limit) of £1835.00 month.

It does nothing but impoverish children.

Well of course it ‘does’ something for them - it pays their rent without them having to work to earn it. That is the benefit.

That cap doesn’t apply to OP though?

The comparison with average salary doesn't stand up to any sort of rational analysis. People with one earner on £30k and 2 kids will probably get Universal Credit. Most claimants are working.

No, because they've got kids on DLA and, IIRC, one of them works.

As I said already most UC claimants work.

I made suggestions in my last post. The bureaucracy and waste in the system is huge. People are forced to go to tribunals and undergo numerous assessments etc which involve multiple services . All this costs a small fortune that could be better spent on supporting those obviously in need. As we know most appeals for PIP etc are successful so what does that tell you and the system is geared up make it off-putting which deters people who feel shamed by it all. You only have to look at some of the posts on here to see why!
I know people who have given up.and fallen through the cracks myself and as I said previously anyone who thinks it is easy to claim and that they are handing out money willy nilly is deluded.
I have 2 with v complex needs and I have had 17 yrs experience of the system and it is getting harder and harder to access services. Even children's orthotics and wheelchair services as an example involves a wait of sometimes years. The local hospice have told me they have children who have been in bed for months with their scoliosis going out of control because they are waiting for moulded wheelchairs. They are prisoners because they have outgrown their old ones and one of my children ( thankfully still uses old chair) has been waiting over 12 months after his assessment to get his chair delivered.A year for a piece of essential equipment ! And no sign of it anytime soon btw
A hoist sling required to lift a child is essential for some families and I know of a family who didn't have one and had to.wait over a year for an OT to come out and assess them never mind get it delivered. Well over a year for someone to come out and do a 5 min job and order the correct one! Then it can take months for funding to agree to pay for it and actually deliver it !
We are finding that we are funding more and more of our own equipment to meet out kids needs because otherwise they go without and no one really cares. But equipment is eyewatereingly expenses ( I give you again private companies who are making a killing with these contracts )
This is the reality of the life of families like mine and the OP. It is not some easy free ride keeping people in clover .

Most UC claimants don't work Brompton. I'm not sure why this is always stated, as it's about 38-40%.

Apologies, my mistake.

Where the hell are people getting 50 k in benefits figures. Partner works he gets 1900 she then gets 2100 etc a month which is 25000 etc a year rough in actual benefits figures so where are people getting 50 k

Read the breakdown, which was posted further upthread.