Universal Credit , employed & self employed

Moki77

I currently receive Universal Credit for me ( divorced ) my 2 kids (age 7 & 8) and much of my private rent ( £450 p/m of £475). I am self employed and earn about £350 per month which is below my Minimum income floor. I have applied for a part time job 16 hours per week @ £10.50 . I would like to keep my self employed work too if I can manage it without impacting my kids .

What impact would this have on my universal credit ? 

NedS

The first impact on your UC is that you may potentially receive less UC (see below) as the extra earnings from the job will be taken into account. For every extra pound you earn (over your work allowance), 55p will be deduced from your UC. The overall effect is that you will be better off from working the part time job as your income will have increased more than your UC has fallen.

The other potential effect is on how UC treats your self employment. One of the tests for determining whether you are gainfully self employed, and thus whether the MIF applies to you, will be to determine if self employment is your main employment. If you are working 16h/week at £10.50/hour, you will be earning sufficient from PAYE employment that you cannot be considered to be gainfully self employed, and therefore UC cannot impose the MIF upon you. This alone could result in an increase in UC if you were previously subject to the MIF (or were likely to be in the future) and were not meeting your required level of income.

So, it's complicated, but overall you will be better off by working a part time job at 16h/week.