Universal Credit and 4 weekly pay

Forestgump

I think they mean 13 wages per year if paid 4 weekly

annandale

They mentioned it catching up on the 13th payment. Both for wages and uc. You don't get 13 payments of universal credit in a year. The 13th payment of uc will be the first of the following years and not the last of the previous ones.

It doesn't catch up as far as universal credit is concerned

seven-day-weekend

annandale wrote: »

They mentioned it catching up on the 13th payment. Both for wages and uc. You don't get 13 payments of universal credit in a year. The 13th payment of uc will be the first of the following years and not the last of the previous ones.

It doesn't catch up as far as universal credit is concerned

But because your wages are less per four-weekly than they would be pcm, you get more UC. per month for eleven months.
So what I said at the end is correct, money will still have to be budgeted from the UC to make up for the shortfall on the twelvth month. It still works out the same amount..

iammumtoone

I am not sure I understand

lets say the OP earns 13,000 per year or £250 per week
on 4 weekly pay
They will be claiming UC on 1,000 for 11 months and on 2,000 for 1 month.
For 11 months they will get the amount for earning 1,000 and 1 month the amount for earning 2,000

For monthly payment
They would claim on earning 1083 every month so would receive less in UC than they currently claim with a 4 weekly wage.

So why doesn't it even out during the year? they get 'extra' UC during the 11 months and less on the 12 month? Why are they worse off?

annandale

Which is very hard to do in the months where two wages have fallen into one assessment period and your universal credit payment has been reduced. Sometimes to zero.

This is affecting people who work part time. You have the same bills to meet but no top up of uc.

If you had made your claim a few days earlier or later it wouldn't happen to you at all. You'd get your wages and the universal credit top up.

There shouldn't be a shortfall. It's unfair. It's not a double wage. It's just that two payments have fallen into the same months assessment period

seven-day-weekend

But the amount of UC you receive is surely correct, because you would have more on the other eleven months than if your wage was paid pcm? You still earn the same annual income so your Universal credit will surely reflect that, just that you get them over eleven months and will have to budget out of that for the twelfth.

iammumtoone

annandale wrote: »

Which is very hard to do in the months where two wages have fallen into one assessment period and your universal credit payment has been reduced. Sometimes to zero.

This is affecting people who work part time. You have the same bills to meet but no top up of uc.

If you had made your claim a few days earlier or later it wouldn't happen to you at all. You'd get your wages and the universal credit top up.

There shouldn't be a shortfall. It's unfair. It's not a double wage. It's just that two payments have fallen into the same months assessment period

but you get more UC in the other 11 months, appreciate it is harder to budget this way but what people need to do is work out what UC they would get if paid over 12 months (it will be less than they currently get) and put the extra aside to cover the month they receive less.

annandale

Two people could earn the same wages over the course of a year and one could end up 500 pounds a year worse off financially depending on their assessment period and when it falls.

annandale

Someone explained it here. There is nothing fair about this system and its penalising people depending on the date they get paid their wages.


s you may know, Universal Credits (UC) is paid on the same date each month.


My payment date for UC is the 6th of the month.


However my payment amount depends on how much money I earned on a monthly basis during what is called an Assessment Period (AP).


My monthly AP runs from the 31st of the month (that’s if there is a 31st) to the 30th (that’s if there is a 30th)


The reason my particular AP runs from those dates is because this happened to be the date that I made my claim online; unfortunately for me this is where the issue arises…


The amount of Universal Credit that I am entitled to each month is £855. The way that UC is calculated is as follows:


Standard UC allowance: £317.82
Rent amount per month: £750
2 children: £508
Total amount before adjustments: £1351.57
Pay from employment: £978 (per month)
Deductions due to pay -£495.78


(The first £192.00 of take-home pay doesn't affect monthly Universal Credit payments. Every £1.00 earned in take-home pay over this amount reduces Universal Credit by 63 pence)


Therefore my total UC payment each month is: £855


I am paid from my employment on the last day of every month (unless it falls on a weekend in that instance I would be paid on the Friday before). My wages are exactly the same each month.


I received my first every UC payment on the 6th September for £855 which was great as this was as expected. However on the 6th October I only received £239. Which is significantly less than £855 and has put me into a £300 deficit in terms of paying my monthly living expenses.


I rang the UC call centre to query why my payment was so low this time and the lady I spoke with made me an appointment to go into the jobcentre to speak to someone about this.


At the appointment upon looking at my latest UC Statement we discovered that during my Assessment Period (which ran from the 31st August to the 30th September) it picked up 2 of my monthly wages. Therefore my take-home pay during that period was £1957.70.


This also means that the following month the system will not pick up any monthly wages at all.


Looking at a calendar for the whole year it is apparent that this will be an on-going scenario; 1 month I will be paid the correct entitlement of £855, then another month only £239 (due to the system picking up 2 monthly wages), then another month I will be paid £1351 due to the system not picking up any wages at all.


As we know rent, utilities, food etc. are paid for on a monthly basis so it is no use that one month I will receive less in UC and then another month more. It is impossible to budget when my payments are so erratic and inconsistent.


Because of this I am now in a deficit this month and have no other option but to see a lender to borrow money. Surely Universal Credits were not designed force people into debt?


I am very unfortunate that my particular Assessment Period runs from the 31st to the 30th of every calendar month. There would not be an issue if I had made my online claim just 2 days later. This is also problematic due to the fact that some months do not necessarily have a 31st or 30th.


The work coach at the job centre appointment agreed that this was not acceptable so he escalated my case to the RTI dispute team to look into.


This issue can be easily corrected by simply adjusting my AP by a couple of days so that it runs from the 2nd to the 1st of every month. This way it will only ever pick up 1 month’s wages in each AP.


These are my predicted UC payments for the year, starting from my first payment in September...


1. (AP 31/07/17 - 30/08/17) £855


2. (AP 31/08/17 - 29/09/17) £239


3. (AP 30/09/17 - 30/10/17) £1351


4. (AP 31/10/17 - 30/11/17) £239


5. (AP 01/12/17 - 30/12/17) £855


6. (AP 31/12/17 - 30/01/18) £1351


7. (AP 31/01/18 - 28/02/18) £239


8. (AP 01/03/18 - 30/03/18) £855


9. (AP 31/03/18 - 30/04/18) £855


10. (AP 01/05/18 - 30/05/18) £1351


11. (AP 31/05/18 - 30/06/18) £239


12. (AP 01/07/18 - 30/07/18) £1351





Over the space of a year this makes a grand total of £9779 in UC payments, however, if I were to be paid £855 every month which is what I am entitled to, that would make a grand total of £10,260 over the year. As you can see I am going to be £481 worse off.

Forestgump

Yes you only get 12 payments of UC per year as they are paid on the same day each calender month