Universal credit help

Mfox2012

Hi wondering if anyone can help me please i cannot find a straight answer online at all with reagrds to this universal credit. And with the calculator i cannot get onto it it keep saying page error 404 so i am really worrying now.
I currently have 3 children 7, 2 and 9 months and i work 25 hours per week. My husband who was in construction industry cannot get work so stays at home and looks after kids. So with all the different info its saying we wont get any money as i need to work 35 hours a week and i need to hand in mo notice and get a job with full time hours is this true?
Am i going to be really worse off and any idea how i can prevent this i like my job but i dont want to miss out on my kids either by working any more hours ?
Any help would be appreciated, im not looking for people ot abuse me either just looking for advice. Thanks

Horseunderwater

No one knows for sure what is definitely happening with UC at present - a lot of it is conjecture and rumourmongering. The pilot does not start until April 2013 and is in 3 area up north - I believe Manchester and Oldham area. Are you living there? If not - then the earliest will be 2013 and so far as I know it for new claimants only, not those currently getting things like Tax Credits or ESA or JSA etc for the moment. Those will be phased in area by area and benefit by benefit I should think. That is the normal way. All takes time to get up and running, so for now relax and enjoy Christmas and new year with your family. If you are worrying about tax credits, the earliest I believe will be renewal in April 2014 onwards. Hope that helps.

zagfles

Mfox2012 wrote: »

Hi wondering if anyone can help me please i cannot find a straight answer online at all with reagrds to this universal credit. And with the calculator i cannot get onto it it keep saying page error 404 so i am really worrying now.
I currently have 3 children 7, 2 and 9 months and i work 25 hours per week. My husband who was in construction industry cannot get work so stays at home and looks after kids. So with all the different info its saying we wont get any money as i need to work 35 hours a week and i need to hand in mo notice and get a job with full time hours is this true?

No, don't worry. There's a lot of rubbish talked about UC. For a start, it's not like WTC where you have to be working a certain amount of hours to get it. You can get UC whatever hours you work, it's just if you earn under a certain amount you are expected to seek work/more work. This is based on what you earn rather than how many hours.

In your case, with children under 5, between you and your husband your threshold would be 35xNMW, ie £217pw. So if you earn more than that, you wouldn't need to seek more work. If you earn under that, you would need to seek more work (so either you'd need to seek to up your hours or your husband would have to look for work - but it sounds like he's already looking anyway?).