Cost of Living Payment - is it worth appealing?

moosticks

I am autistic and it is quite possible I am being overly black and white/not understanding. Please can someone help?

I submitted a mandatory reconsideration for the cost of living payment because a summer work bonus pushed me over the threshold to be eligible for one day of the assessment period. From the MRN:

"The qualifying assessment period is an assessment period ending on or between 18 August 2023 - 17 September 2023. Assessment period 20 July 2023 - 19 August 2023 [my employer reported earnings over the threshold]."

The bonus was unusual, and ordinarily my pay is low enough that I qualify for a UC top-up every month. To boot, this seems really questionable because I was eligible on all of the days apart from one. I seem to recall reading the opposite; that you could be eligible on just one day in the assessment period in order to qualify. That's why I appealed in the first place!

I am thinking I will appeal this but I'm now questioning whether I have misunderstood. Please can someone offer some clarity? TIA!

HillStreetBlues

moosticks said:

"The qualifying assessment period is an assessment period ending on or between 18 August 2023 - 17 September 2023. Assessment period 20 July 2023 - 19 August 2023 [my employer reported earnings over the threshold]."

The CoL payment is solely based on your AP that ended on 19th Aug, If  you has a nil award you don't qualify.

Spoonie_Turtle

moosticks said:

I am autistic and it is quite possible I am being overly black and white/not understanding. Please can someone help?

I submitted a mandatory reconsideration for the cost of living payment because a summer work bonus pushed me over the threshold to be eligible for one day of the assessment period. From the MRN:

"The qualifying assessment period is an assessment period ending on or between 18 August 2023 - 17 September 2023. Assessment period 20 July 2023 - 19 August 2023 [my employer reported earnings over the threshold]."

The bonus was unusual, and ordinarily my pay is low enough that I qualify for a UC top-up every month. To boot, this seems really questionable because I was eligible on all of the days apart from one. I seem to recall reading the opposite; that you could be eligible on just one day in the assessment period in order to qualify. That's why I appealed in the first place!

I am thinking I will appeal this but I'm now questioning whether I have misunderstood. Please can someone offer some clarity? TIA!

Yes, you have misunderstood.

UC works on a rolling monthly basis, as you know, determining eligibility based on the circumstances on the last day of each assessment period.  It's paid for the whole month or not at all, there are no partial payments for only being eligible for a proportion of the time. 
So the date range for qualifying for the CoL payment has to make sure to include a potential assessment period end date for absolutely everybody, they couldn't set one date because UC doesn't work like that, hence the date range.

Eligibility is based on each claimant's assessment period that ended within the qualifying date range, in your case the one that ended on the 19th August.  It's unfortunate that it just so happened that in this AP you had unusually high earnings, but many people have missed out on one or more of the various Cost of Living payments due to one-off/unusual extra income in their qualifying AP.  So while frustrating, you're certainly not alone in only just missing out.

[The only way to have made it truly fair and make sure nobody slipped through the cracks would have been to increase the benefit levels over the past few years rather than paying separate payments, but the government chose not to do that and this forum isn't for discussing the rights and wrongs of benefit policy.]


The only possible reason to appeal would be if your employer reported the bonus in the wrong assessment period, but otherwise no - you simply weren't eligible for this one and there is nothing to appeal.

moosticks

That makes far more sense than what the mandatory reconsideration letter said. 😅 Thank you for taking the time to explain this so thoroughly!