Do all 18 years old go on UC if they cannot find a job

[Crystalovertherainbow]

Do the family needs to show their income or the new adult is considered their own financial unit now , even if they live with the parents and their UC is given them

All those people saying their dc would never be allowed to claim it are likely well off. Some people don't have much choice. On MN popular opinion is you can walk into a job, any job. Depends where you live. Even getting a supermarket job is far far harder than people think nowadays.

There is no chance I would ever allow my 18 year old child to do this. I don’t even want them to think that taking money from the state is an option, in the same way I had no idea benefits were an option.

As someone who has never received much in the way of benefits not even child benefit I would encourage my 18 yr old to do so if they were struggling for a job. They get nothing today except a load of debt!

Jesus fucking wept. You have no idea that other people's circumstances can be very challenging.

I graduated from being a mature student into the middle of the sub-prime crash and it took me 18 months of living with my mum whilst claiming JSA to get a job. My mum had moved whilst I was at uni to a rural northern ex-colliery village where the buses started at 7am, stopped at 9pm, and didn't run at all on Sundays.

My degree alone wasn't enough to get me a job in my field, because I had no experience. I applied for graduate jobs two hours away by bus, never heard back. I had no office experience to get admin or reception jobs. My cleaning, factory, and retail experience didn't help me get jobs in the nearby towns because I couldn't do Sundays, or stay late enough, or start early enough. It was the kind of village where if your family hadn't been there for at least three generations, the local shops and firms wouldn't hire you, and I hadn't been there long enough. Of course, being autistic, and undiagnosed at that time, really didn't help with interviewing.

My JSA went on board, bus fares to interviews, and weekly driving lessons. I just didn't seem to get anywhere with weekly driving lessons.

The breakthrough came when I interviewed as a cleaner in a nearby town only to be told that it needed me to work Sunday mornings, and I came home and cried because the interviewer had said to me "my advice to you is, get your licence, it will change your life". My mum, in desperation, took a huge risk and put the cost of an intensive driving course on her credit card. It paid off, I passed, and Mum offered to take the bus to her office-hours job so that I could drive her car to get to work. This let me take a job that started at 5am, which allowed me to save for my first car and repay her for the driving course.

A lot of families in that village don't have anyone who has a credit card. Some don't have cars that an adult child can borrow. They get jobs in the village or nearby because they or their parents went to school with the owner of the convenience store or the office supervisor or similar connections. Unemployment is high because that's what happens when you build a village to house pit workers and then close the pit.

It's all very well saying "my child will not claim dole under my roof" when you live in a big town or city with lots of work available and great public transport, but plenty of people live in the arse end of nowhere and have no choice but to claim benefits whilst living with their parents.

No they don't but it is quite sensible whilst they seek work as it helps protect their national insurance contributions and also they will get help/guidance with their job seeking.

Could she start up self employed and go to peoples houses to do nails etc? That’s quite popular in our area

I'm stunned the high earners on this thread are encouraging their young adults to claim benefits. If you can support your children, still living at home, why wouldn't you? How very selfish. If they were at uni you would be stumping up £500 a month! Also why don't these young people of wealthy families have savings?? Very unusual.

For low income families, absolutely understandable.

DD is only working p/t, she is 22, but we are still supporting her. And she has way too much in the bank to claim anyway.

Good post above too.

This is a really good point. By not claiming UC, your child is throwing away State pension credits.

By not claiming UC, your child is throwing away State pension credits. She might not get cash, but she still gets NI credits towards her pension.

So what would you do if you couldn’t afford to pay out for them? Let them starve?

I would be surprised if state pension still existed in its current form when that poster’s DD is set to retire.

Why shouldn’t though they as long as they are actively looking for work. It’s diabolical for youngsters at the moment. My 17 year old has been looking for an apprentice for a year. Nothing. When he finishes his course he will still need an apprenticeship and looks like he won’t be able to get one. So yes he may go down this route, but he will be an adult by then and will need to pay for his own things.

It helps to stop them entering the benefits system where they can become stuck. In parts of Glasgow there are generations of families who have never worked. Hopefully this will help to break they cycle. Only time will tell.

Ah yes. Then they could spout absolute ignorant, entitled, empty-headed privileged crap about benefits on Mumsnet threads.

My DD claimed UC whilst living at home after she lost her job due to covid shutdowns everywhere. The household income wasn’t taken into account. There was no shame in it, she left school with good GCSEs and A levels, funded herself to go travelling, got a full time job then lost it during Covid. She struggled to fine jobs with enough hours, there were lots of zero hours or 8 hour a week jobs with no set days so she couldn’t even get 2 or 3 jobs. Young people shouldn’t be shut down and assumed to be after a lifetime of laziness because of applying for UC. Her national insurance record was kept up to date and now she has a very good full time job that she has been in for 4 years now and is progressing

Do you have recent experience of an 18 year old trying to get a job? It's absolutely dire out there, and we live in a fairly affluent area.

It won’t

It might, it might not. Successive Govts have been unwilling to end Triple Lock, let alone scrap State pensions. You can only make decisions based on how things are now, and you are frankly a muppet and betraying your kids if you don't let them claim UC to get the NI credits whilst living under your roof.

🙄

At 18, they are not children. They are independent adults trying to find a way to make a living.
Saying ' I wouldn't let my child do that' etc - it's not up to you. They are entitled to it. When they work, the taxes they pay will help pay it back.

Lucky you and them if you can support them. Debt is rising, gambling is rising, people have no spare money. They've spent 18 years paying. They want and their offspring want to work. Finally some light.

But there are no jobs. Taxes are too high for business, they can't hire. There are no first jobs. Public tra sport is fucked, it's cheaper to get a flight with Ryan air than it is to get a train anywhere.

Successive Govts have been unwilling to end Triple Lock

They will absolutely end this just not for today’s pensioners.

Privilege? Get over yourself. I got a job at 14 because my mum had buggered off and married someone else, as had my dad. So I was home by myself, most of the time. If I wanted anything other than a roof and the lights on, and basic food, I had to earn it. Privilege my arse. But, actually, it taught me a lot about resilience and self sufficiency and independence. I’ve passed those lessons (minus the parental neglect!) on to my DD and she’s passed them on to DGD. It’s amazing what you can do when you’ve literally no choice.

Yeah I signed on during my gap year in the 90s, I got a job within about three weeks though.

Similar here. Paper rounds don't exist, and when we were looking at 6th form they strongly discouraged working as well as studying. Saturday jobs don't seem to be a thing either, all shops ask for shift work and if you don't take the shifts offered they stop offering them.
Then you can't get a full time job as you've no experience.

It's not a case of letting them. They are adults looking for work, they are entitled to financial support whilst doing that. They'll also get help finding work (though the quality of that help is variable) and have to show they're spending a certain amount of time currently 35 hours a week job seeking.

I have current experience of a well qualified, highly competent young person looking for work. It's soul destroying.