UC and Cost of living Payment- paid fortnighlty

Fairwinds

Hi there looking for some advice.

My daughter is on minimum wage as a 20 year old and receives UC. She got the first cost of living payment but looks like she won't get the 2nd.

She gets paid every two weeks and it looks like this is making her miss out as the way the dates fall meant she got 3 sets of wages within the UC qualifying period,. It would appear if she was paid differently she would have got it.

Is this just a case of tough! - or is there anything she can do about it

Many thanks 

poppy12345

Unfortunately, this is the way UC works. The more earnings you receive the less UC you're entitled to. When paid fortnightly there will be twice a year where she will receive 3 lots of earnings for an assessment period. Sadly, with the CoL payments they can't please everyone and some do miss out, it was the same for all of the past payments.

It's just infortunate for her that the qualifying period fell in a month where she received 3 lots of earnings.

Spoonie_Turtle

Fairwinds said:

Hi there looking for some advice.

My daughter is on minimum wage as a 20 year old and receives UC. She got the first cost of living payment but looks like she won't get the 2nd.

She gets paid every two weeks and it looks like this is making her miss out as the way the dates fall meant she got 3 sets of wages within the UC qualifying period,. It would appear if she was paid differently she would have got it.

Is this just a case of tough! - or is there anything she can do about it

Many thanks 

Unfortunately yes, the rules are set and every time there's been a cost of living qualifying period, there have been people missing out due to their payment cycle or having holiday pay or overtime or … etc. etc.

tacpot12

I think that this is a case when it is just tough. The regulations were changed for claimants who were paid monthly so that they could ask the DWP to fix a situation where their employer paid their salary early, perhaps because the normal payment date fell on a non-banking day.

But the situation for claimants who are paid fortnightly remain the same. (There situation is that they have 10 assessment periods per year where they receive two fortnightly payments of wages, and 2 assessment periods when they receive three fortnightly payments. In the periods when they receive two payments they are actually getting more UC than they would on average, and less in the periods when when they receive three payments of wages.) 

Given that the Cost of Living payments depends on receiving a UC payment within certain dates, she could lose the CoL payment is she isn't paid any UC within those dates.  

This webpage confirms that this outcome is possible: Cost of Living Payments 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

It does mention two exceptions. You might ask your daugher if either of these apply to her, and then check her UC payment calculation for the relevant period. 

• money was taken off your benefit for other reasons, such as payments of rent to your landlord or for money that you owe
• you had a hardship payment because you could not pay for rent, heating, food or hygiene needs