Universal Credit/JSA

Lol999 said:
pretty much it. i got into a row with a bloke who said we need immigrants because they do the jobs we don;t want to. fine, but do we really NEED car washes? wouldn't machinery be more adept at harvesting vegetables than humans? do we need Poles at Sports Direct?
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I don’t get your point. Jobs are being created that you say British people don’t want to do so employers employ foreign workers. What’s the issue?
 
Rofflay said:
How long is the wait with no cash now then? I am wondering if you have monthly bills for creditcards which being low income is a thing or payday loans, How do you swap over and buy food and pay the monthly bill?

Do they give you help now or do they basically watch as you go bankrupt and beg for 6weeks?
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18 working days in Scotland at the moment.
It's meant to be 10 days but it appears they can simply up this when they are "busy" and not tell anyone.

The solution is that they can give you money up front straight away if you phone them and wait 2 hours on hold.... but you need to pay that money back in dribs and drabs when you start getting the actual JSA payments eventually. So the little loan up front will see you avoid going completely bankrupt until some button pusher in a central office somewhere spends 7 seconds approving your JSA payments.
 
Saw this today on the BBC:

tl;dr (or I guess dw: "didn't watch"):

woman is unemployed
she's not disabled
she could get a job but is worried she might do something wrong and lose it or something???
woman moves in with boyfriend
claims universal credit
gets offered a cash advance/loan by the job centre
loan is flexible, doesn't have to take full amount
loan is there to cover the 5 weeks before UC kicks in
loan is to be paid back out of future benefits
opts to take full amount, treats herself - gets new phone etc...
...
"Oh no, have no money now"
needs to use food bank
has to ask to have the repayments extended
apparently plenty of case


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stori...-went-wild-and-it-hit-me-like-a-ton-of-bricks

Granted the issue with the lump sum payments is a temporary/short term one related to the transfer but I do wonder how much "nanny state" intervention might be needed here.

While I don't like the idea of the state micro managing people's lives some of these people are just complete and utter **** ups. When you've got long term unemployed people like that then maybe it would be better to just pay the rent directly to their landlord and/or even go as far as food "stamps"/cards etc... then you're forced to allocate a portion of benefits to paying for food rather than blowing it on everything else knowing the food bank safety net is there for that.
 
It's causing some people to become homeless. Usually they are the ones already in trouble for non payment of rents etc prior to switching and then they blame it solely on UB.

Some are homeless because they don't pay their rent to their landlords even when they have the money because they have other things they need to cover before giving it to them greedy landlords (you know, those people that have a mortgage to pay regardless whether they get rent from their tenants or not).

Some people fall through the cracks, some people are useless with money, some have drug problems, some people are vulnerable to manipulation from partners/family into giving up what money they have etc, etc, etc... It's just not as clear as UB is bad and the cause of all the mayhem, it's just a factor.
 
It's not massively surprising (and never should have been) that a delay of five weeks could result in massive problems for a lot of people who are often already at the very low end of the financial scale :(
I can't remember the stats but a vast number of people basically have no savings, so if their income drops or gets delayed even for a few weeks they can be in real trouble.

Monthly (or rather 4 weekly) payments are also a lot harder to budget for if you're not good with money, as it means over the space of a year the day you get your money into your account will slip compared to the day when your bills go out.

IIRC the system used for universal credit has some real issues with basic calendar events as well, unlike the older systems.
 
what hits me is how people who genuinely need help get zero help ,i was made redundant last July ,took 3 months off (afew in spain yeh i know poor old me}
when i did sign on they were no help at all {although i did manage to persuade them to print me some cvs off to drop in local towns ,show my face) they were more interested in telling me i must spend every day looking for work or i would lose my 10 quid a day dole money ,not providing help.
I think jsa should be based on how much NI youve paid in to the system ,starting at a decent percentage of your wage and gradually reducing .
IN the end they messed up and didnt pay me a penny in the 3 Weeks i was job hunting ,i joined an agency instead an option open to anyone without work . i get a text ,are you available say yes or no (go surfing) ,on my third day this week today 10 am to 4 with 4 polish girls. Probably no good for you high earning guys but im happy to potter around and do a little brain dead work to support my lifestyle
 
My mate was let go from a job, got his final pay + 2 weeks holiday pay he was owed. When he claimed for UC they wouldn't pay him for 3 months as they said he had "surplus income" what utter ********. Do they not realise you still have mortgage/rent/bills to pay? Do they think when you lose your job that your outgoings also stop at the same time?!
 
LeeUK said:
My mate was let go from a job, got his final pay + 2 weeks holiday pay he was owed. When he claimed for UC they wouldn't pay him for 3 months as they said he had "surplus income" what utter ********. Do they not realise you still have mortgage/rent/bills to pay? Do they think when you lose your job that your outgoings also stop at the same time?!
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I lost my house because of this. I had 1 month pay then 3 months without, UC said I wasn’t entitled to anything because I got paid for that one month and said I had to apply again on a later date.

I wasn't entitled for them to help with Interest only payments at the time and the Mortgage company wouldn't take interest only payments or let me change my agreement to rent out the house.

Mortgage company started chasing me, house had to go up on the market couldn’t find a job. Sold it just in time before they could take it off me. Ended up selling all my assets to pay bills then moved back with family and now I’m left with nothing.

It’s all about money at the end of the day and banks will never lose even if they take it off you they WILL sell it for how much you have left on a mortgage.
 
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Then there's all the silly sanctions they can dish out to you,stopping a percentage of money off you

Jsa was much easier to understand imo
 
mrbell1984 said:
I lost my house because of this. I had 1 month pay then 3 months without, UC said I wasn’t entitled to anything because I got paid for that one month and said I had to apply again on a later date.

I wasn't entitled for them to help with Interest only payments at the time and the Mortgage company wouldn't take interest only payments or let me change my agreement to rent out the house.

Mortgage company started chasing me, house had to go up on the market couldn’t find a job. Sold it just in time before they could take it off me. Ended up selling all my assets to pay bills then moved back with family and now I’m left with nothing.

It’s all about money at the end of the day and banks will never lose even if they take it off you they WILL sell it for how much you have left on a mortgage.
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Turned out he could have still claimed JSA but he was given the wrong advise and ended up on UC. While £72 is not a huge amount, it would have actually helped him into work much quicker if he was getting that from week 1 of losing his job.
 
mrbell1984 said:
I lost my house because of this. I had 1 month pay then 3 months without, UC said I wasn’t entitled to anything because I got paid for that one month and said I had to apply again on a later date.

I wasn't entitled for them to help with Interest only payments at the time and the Mortgage company wouldn't take interest only payments or let me change my agreement to rent out the house.

Mortgage company started chasing me, house had to go up on the market couldn’t find a job. Sold it just in time before they could take it off me. Ended up selling all my assets to pay bills then moved back with family and now I’m left with nothing.

It’s all about money at the end of the day and banks will never lose even if they take it off you they WILL sell it for how much you have left on a mortgage.
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How many months arrears were you in before your mortgage company at the time began chasing for funds?

The big problem with UC is that the 6 week period is just too long so i can totally see this sort of thing happening in the worst case. The only stop gap they have for people are emergency loans which you can take out before your first payment however even then thats no guarantee.

The other thing is that if you are under 34 you get paid less based on where you live than people over 34. For example in Ipswich I as a 29 year old am entitled to nearly £100 less just because of my age (housing related).
This is a new change too.

I have seen people become homeless simply due to how long it takes to get that first payment.
 
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