Man of Honour
- Joined
- 17 Nov 2003
- Posts
- 36,747
- Location
- Southampton, UK
You certainly don't need parental funding to go to uni. Between a part time job and a lot of debt, you can self fund quite easily.
Sanctions to hit part time workers
- Thread starter spankingtexan
- Start date
You certainly don't need parental funding to go to uni. Between a part time job and a lot of debt, you can self fund quite easily.
If you are on low/no income then you can get approx. £7k in loans and grants to cover living costs. Plus an additional £1k bursary to cover costs of books etc.
Certainly not a comfortable amount, but you can (and many students do) live on it. Generally you can supplement it with a part time job too.
Is that because they are unaware of the support available? A maintenance loan of £4,400 if they are living at home for example? Which can be topped up by a grant if the parents are on a low income.
Permabanned
- Joined
- 25 Oct 2004
- Posts
- 9,078
This is something that I have experienced recently myself.
I work full time at the moment, doing 33+ hours a week at £6.73/hour doing a job that warrant's much more because of its physical strength requirement (lots of heavy lifting).
My girlfriend recently moved in with me, she is unemployed and unable to work due to her health, she gets DLA and prior to moving in with me was getting £700 a month in benefits.
Now I take home around £200 a week, I also claimed working tax credits which topped that up to around £240 a week and housing benefit of £17 a week, putting me at just shy of £260 a week. My rent and bills come to approx £670/month more than half of my income, this is the cheapest I can get in the area living on my own, I could chose to go into a bedsit or rent a room, but at 34 the last thing I want to be clearing up after messy house mates specially after working a 10 hour shift and getting home at 11pm.
Anyway with my girlfriend now moving in she has lost her benefits due to my "income" which can barely sustain myself, she still gets her DLA but that is it. My working tax credits have gone up slightly as well as my housing benefit but it is still a fraction of what we were getting before living separately, but i wouldn't be coming home knackered every night either.
And the really amusing thing about this all, if I stopped working completely and just scrounged off the government my income would actually be only £30 a week worse off than I do working currently.
I work full time at the moment, doing 33+ hours a week at £6.73/hour doing a job that warrant's much more because of its physical strength requirement (lots of heavy lifting).
My girlfriend recently moved in with me, she is unemployed and unable to work due to her health, she gets DLA and prior to moving in with me was getting £700 a month in benefits.
Now I take home around £200 a week, I also claimed working tax credits which topped that up to around £240 a week and housing benefit of £17 a week, putting me at just shy of £260 a week. My rent and bills come to approx £670/month more than half of my income, this is the cheapest I can get in the area living on my own, I could chose to go into a bedsit or rent a room, but at 34 the last thing I want to be clearing up after messy house mates specially after working a 10 hour shift and getting home at 11pm.
Anyway with my girlfriend now moving in she has lost her benefits due to my "income" which can barely sustain myself, she still gets her DLA but that is it. My working tax credits have gone up slightly as well as my housing benefit but it is still a fraction of what we were getting before living separately, but i wouldn't be coming home knackered every night either.
And the really amusing thing about this all, if I stopped working completely and just scrounged off the government my income would actually be only £30 a week worse off than I do working currently.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Apr 2010
- Posts
- 5,298
- Location
- Ipswich
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
If you're in receipt of housing benefit, council tax benefit, working tax credits then you will as I understand it fall into the, get more work, or a better paid job or risk losing that extra you currently get help with. It just isn't right that working people who need help because of low pay is punished, we need a proper living wage.
Some courses you can't sustain part time work as they really are full time, medicine, nursing, social work, occupational therapy, paramedic science, etc. with placements you simply cannot work on top of the course
I guess a good side effect of this is it acts as a filter... If you're too stupid to figure out how to cover uni costs then you probably shouldn't be there.
Unless you're rich.
Permabanned
- Joined
- 25 Oct 2004
- Posts
- 9,078
If it were that easy I wouldn't be doing what I am doing now. I am constantly on the look out for something better, I ask almost weekly for more hours at work and other than the few pence increases a year from NMW increases that's about it.
I even spent a grand last year trying to better my prospects by paying for a Class 2 truck license, but as it turned out pay is no better and the hours are worse. Thank's to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants entering the country and willing to work for NMW. Which as it so happens is significantly more than they can earn in their own country.
You can be in receipt of those things and not be subject to sanctions. The rule kicks in if you earn less than full time min wage, which is roughly 11 to 11.5k per year.
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
Yes part time workers under 35 hours on min wage, this is what the DWP have announced for now under Universal credits.
So working tax credits, in the worst case scenario, no children, over 25, working 30 hours a week has a cut off point of 17900 per annum in income, so being entitled to this doesn't mean you are likely to be subject to work requirements.
The other benefits you cited are similar, this was why we had a discussion about scaremongering in the other thread, providing inaccurate information isn't helpful to anyone.
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
I haven't provided inaccurate information, I linked what the DWP announced in my first post. As for in the other thread I warned that part time workers were going to be effected under Universal credits, a part time working forum member then got a little upset with me for saying this to which you replied "that's just his way" or something along those lines, I couldn't link to evidence of this at the time because no official announcements had been made but I 've now been proven correct. WE KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.
You posted in this very thread:
.
This is wrong and misleading. Only those who earn less than if the household income from working is less than if a single worker earnt 35 hours worth of minimum wage.
All the benefits you quote have higher maximum earnings than that, so it is entirely possible to be in receipt of these benefits and not subject to the expectation to increase your earnings.
It is important to be clear and accurate when discussing these things.
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
Corrected..
If you're in receipt of housing benefit, council tax benefit, working tax credits and earn less than the full time min wage then you will as I understand it fall into the, get more work, or a better paid job or risk losing that extra you currently get help with. It just isn't right that working people who need help because of low pay is punished, we need a proper living wage.
I apologise to the member if he felt my post was misleading. here's the link from my first post.
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/dwp-housing-benefit-will-be-sanctioned/7002330.article
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/part-time-workers-to-face-housing-benefit-sanctions/
Hope this satisfies Mr Dolph
If you're in receipt of housing benefit, council tax benefit, working tax credits and earn less than the full time min wage then you will as I understand it fall into the, get more work, or a better paid job or risk losing that extra you currently get help with. It just isn't right that working people who need help because of low pay is punished, we need a proper living wage.
I apologise to the member if he felt my post was misleading. here's the link from my first post.
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/dwp-housing-benefit-will-be-sanctioned/7002330.article
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/part-time-workers-to-face-housing-benefit-sanctions/
Hope this satisfies Mr Dolph
What needs to happen is that work needs to pay from the moment you start. Every hour that you work needs to leave you better off than the last, rather than the current on/off switch of benefits versus taxation.
The other issue is the high housing costs of the UK. We *still* have a bubble and it's not helped by all of these help to schemes to get people on to the housing ladder with massive mortgages and artificially low interest rates. It's not sustainable. People are being squeezed at both ends with renting costs increasing at the same time as house prices shooting up, the problem is a massive lack of supply of affordable housing in the south eats.
The other issue is the high housing costs of the UK. We *still* have a bubble and it's not helped by all of these help to schemes to get people on to the housing ladder with massive mortgages and artificially low interest rates. It's not sustainable. People are being squeezed at both ends with renting costs increasing at the same time as house prices shooting up, the problem is a massive lack of supply of affordable housing in the south eats.
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
Agreed, the NMW is a joke, even the proposed increase just isn't enough. Rents have soared to dizzying heights with the greedy rich landlords cashing in on housing benefit. I fear for our future and those who will be punished if they can't find full time work or secure enough hours to stop the vile Government from punishing them, disgraceful.
Rent increases, largely fuelled by greed, are by far the biggest issue, where I live at the moment is one of the cheaper parts if the country for housing and anything thats better than a pokey 1 bedroom flat in a bad part of town has gone up over 50% in the last 5-6 years alone to the point no one gets permission for new builds unless there is a percentage of "affordable" housing.
It is much better. However, the argument for a living wage when discussing part time work is surely flawed as the living wage is calculated on a full time basis...
The real cause of the issue is the way the current benefits system distorts employment, income and housing. That is why I have long argued for fundamental reform of the tax and benefit system.
Moving away from a conditional to a universal system of benefits, offsetting income against tax and benefits to create a fair, flat system will remove those distortions and make it much easier to ensure that everyone is being treated fairly.