Universal Credit vs Furlough - why not the same help...

zaronowicz

I lost my job during pandemic and because of pandemic so no fault of my own - applied for UC and will get I guess 96.00 a week. If the government will pay workers 2500 for not being able to work why doesn’t the government support ex-employers who lost their job equally and pay them the 2500 as long as the furlough is in place. It’s tax payer money and I have been one of those like many others for years - so why treat us as lower class.

sharpe106

Because the scheme was originally meant to be a job retention scheme, to try to protect job. However granted the scheme has since changed. The government can’t afford the current scheme so how could it possible afford to pay for everybody.

Mrsn

As Sharpe has said it was never to protect the employees but rather the job, regardless it was always the employers decision whether to use the scheme or not.

There won’t be a mass amount of people getting the full £2500 and those that are will still be getting less money than they were earning previously. same for those earning say £1500 a month they will still be losing 20% of that salary.... It’s not perfect or for some people even fair but it’s what we have.

PixelPound

People don't get paid £2500 - there is tax and NI to come off that. Also as you only get paid 80% of what you were on, for the vast majority of people it will be significantly less. The National Living wage is, from 1st April £8.71 ph, lets say someone is on £9 ph, then for a typical 37.5 hr week, whilst on furlough they would be getting £253 pw or probably less if they have pension deductions etc.

So whilst £250 is more than Universal Credit, don't think people are sitting there on £2500 pm (a typical shop worker on NLW and 30hr/week full time is on £205 pw on furlough).

The government does support ex-employees if their ex-employer is willing to take them back on for the length of furlough. There have been many cases of companies taking staff who have recently left or going to be made redundant back on to the pay roll purely to furlough - it is no cost to the company and they can still make the employee redundant or let them leave after furlough.

It is optional though, and depends if your ex-employer would be willing to do that.

mobilejo

Employees have a contract with their employer, under which they are entitled to be paid. The furlough scheme is to allow employers to keep up their end of the contract whilst there is no money coming in, so they don't have to let people go or pay out of their own pocket.

You currently have a contract with nobody, and are not contractually entitled to be paid anything unfortunately. Your employer decided to let you go rather than use the scheme. Paying you full whack now would not help reduce unemployment, and is of no help to businesses. It would ONLY benefit you - that just isn't worth as much to the tax payer.

calcotti

zaronowicz said:.. - applied for UC and will get I guess 96.00 a week. 

How much you get depends on your circumstances. You can assess entitlement by using a calculator https://www.gov.uk/benefits-calculators