universal credit again

HappyMJ

Vejovis wrote: »

did you read my last sentence?

oh and since UC conditionality was introduced. because there will not be any ctc or wtc

The conditionality is only on the Income Support or JSA component i.e the £67.50 per week bit. If someone wishes to stay at home and only claim the child tax credit portion of UC there will be no conditionality on claiming UC. I know of some people who claim full CTC's but do not claim any IS or JSA as they are not looking for work. They have enough child support payments due to them which enables them to be a stay at home mum which they are and always be entitled to do.

zagfles

HappyMJ wrote: »

The conditionality is only on the Income Support or JSA component i.e the £67.50 per week bit. If someone wishes to stay at home and only claim the child tax credit portion of UC there will be no conditionality on claiming UC. I know of some people who claim full CTC's but do not claim any IS or JSA as they are not looking for work. They have enough child support payments due to them which enables them to be a stay at home mum which they are and always be entitled to do.

Where did you get that from? That's not what it says in the white paper or the briefing notes. Conditionality will be for the whole of UC as I understand it.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/ucpbn-11-conditionality-threshold.pdf

Under Universal Credit, we will remove the separation between in work and out of work benefits, and we believe we should also extend conditionality so as to encourage or push Universal Credit claimants who are earning over £70 a week to work more and reduce their dependency on benefits.

HappyMJ

zagfles wrote: »

Where did you get that from? That's not what it says in the white paper or the briefing notes. Conditionality will be for the whole of UC as I understand it.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/ucpbn-11-conditionality-threshold.pdf

I don't translate it the same way as you. Point number 23 in http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/universal-credit-chapter3.pdf. My friend would be sanctioned the amount she isn't currently claiming anyway i.e the £67.50. She would be entitled to £67.50 more if she looked for work but if she refused to look for work then she would get £67.50 less i.e exactly the same amount she is currently getting.

zagfles

HappyMJ wrote: »

I don't translate it the same way as you. Point number 23 in http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/universal-credit-chapter3.pdf. My friend would be sanctioned the amount she isn't currently claiming anyway i.e the £67.50. She would be entitled to £67.50 more if she looked for work but if she refused to look for work then she would get £67.50 less i.e exactly the same amount she is currently getting.

Ah yes I see what you mean.

But I think things may have moved on from that... point 21 states the conditionality threshold will be set at "broadly the same point at which people lose entitlement to the current out-of-work benefits", but now they're saying it's full time NMW - which is considerably higher (ie about £212pw rather than £67pw for a single person).

As they have considerably increased the threshold mentioned in point 21, I'd have thought they'd match this by increasing the sanction in 23 to be about the same.

Also the point here is about a couple where one already works, rather than an out of work family. Here there is no sanction under the current system as there is no JSA/IS claimed. CTC is not sanctioned if that's all they get.

But under UC, if the earnings threshold isn't met, then a potential sanction of at least £67pw could apply to the UC claimed - ie the replacement for CTC, effectively the "child element" of UC.

Vejovis

HappyMJ wrote: »

I don't translate it the same way as you. Point number 23 in http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/universal-credit-chapter3.pdf. My friend would be sanctioned the amount she isn't currently claiming anyway i.e the £67.50. She would be entitled to £67.50 more if she looked for work but if she refused to look for work then she would get £67.50 less i.e exactly the same amount she is currently getting.

i read it the same was zagfles does. and he has explained it far better than i could

HappyMJ

zagfles wrote: »

Ah yes I see what you mean.

But I think things may have moved on from that... point 21 states the conditionality threshold will be set at "broadly the same point at which people lose entitlement to the current out-of-work benefits", but now they're saying it's full time NMW - which is considerably higher (ie about £212pw rather than £67pw for a single person).

As they have considerably increased the threshold mentioned in point 21, I'd have thought they'd match this by increasing the sanction in 23 to be about the same.

Also the point here is about a couple where one already works, rather than an out of work family. Here there is no sanction under the current system as there is no JSA/IS claimed. CTC is not sanctioned if that's all they get.

But under UC, if the earnings threshold isn't met, then a potential sanction of at least £67pw could apply to the UC claimed - ie the replacement for CTC, effectively the "child element" of UC.

It's very confusing isn't it. The child element will not be affected by not seeking work it will only be the JSA element and/or the working tax credit elements. How I read and translate it if a couple has one person working and they earn £200 a week slightly under the £212 a week conditionality element then they are required to increase their hours or be sanctioned. They wouldn't lose the full amount for not seeking to increase earnings. They would only lose 65% of £12 so about £7.80 per week.

It's similar to the current system if a member of a couple with kids works 15 hours at £8 an hour and earns £120 a week they could still claim £6 JSA if they so wished and if they didn't seek an extra hour of work they would only lose £6.

zagfles

HappyMJ wrote: »

It's very confusing isn't it. The child element will not be affected by not seeking work it will only be the JSA element and/or the working tax credit elements. How I read and translate it if a couple has one person working and they earn £200 a week slightly under the £212 a week conditionality element then they are required to increase their hours or be sanctioned. They wouldn't lose the full amount for not seeking to increase earnings. They would only lose 65% of £12 so about £7.80 per week.

It's similar to the current system if a member of a couple with kids works 15 hours at £8 an hour and earns £120 a week they could still claim £6 JSA if they so wished and if they didn't seek an extra hour of work they would only lose £6.

If they earned £120pw they wouldn't be able to claim any JSA.

But anyway in UC the conditionality threshold will be much higher, for a couple with children over 5 it would be perhaps about £350pw (35h NMW plus school hours maybe 25h NMW)

So if, say, just one parent works earning £300pw, they'd probably be sanctioned on £50pw ie £32.50 off their UC.

kingfisherblue

Morlock wrote: »

Surely from IS to JSA.

Oops, you are right of course. I typed the two benefits in the wrong way round. Apologies for my error and any confusion caused

quintwins

wow i thought i understood this all til i read this thread

so if my youngest is 3 when uc come in and my hubby works 40hrs, but i don't claim jsa element of uc and only claim child element we won't have to go to work interviews.

it's all well and good saying mothers should work, but even when my youngest is 5 i'll have a schoolrun at 9, a school collection at 1 (we're in n.i) a school collection at 3 then 2 speech therapy appointments a physio appointment and 2 ocupation therapy appointments a week aswell as a hubby who regularly works til midnight or starts at 6/7 when exackly am i suppose to work? surely they should look at each familsy own situations rather than blanketing us all together

HappyMJ

zagfles wrote: »

If they earned £120pw they wouldn't be able to claim any JSA.

But anyway in UC the conditionality threshold will be much higher, for a couple with children over 5 it would be perhaps about £350pw (35h NMW plus school hours maybe 25h NMW)

So if, say, just one parent works earning £300pw, they'd probably be sanctioned on £50pw ie £32.50 off their UC.

There is no requirement for a second member of a couple to take any job at all. The requirement is that the primary earner earns at least as much as someone on minimum wage would earn by working for 35 hours at minimum wage and in shared care situations the amount earnt by both parents must be equal to 35 hours at minimum wage there is no requirement that both parents to work or that both husband and wife work where no children are involved.

The earnings requirement could be satisfied by working for 20 hours at £11 an hour. There will no longer be any minimum number of hours required to be worked. It's trying to get rid of the self employed declaring earnings of £12 a week for 30 hours of work to get WTC's. The new system will assume that is 2 hours at minimum wages and will require them to increase earnings or take a job at minimum wage or more.

Besides existing claimants of tax credits have until October 2017 to change their working patterns due to transitional protection. That's almost 6 years away.