Author Topic: Universal Credit.  (Read 2292 times)

brian54

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Universal Credit.
« on: Nov 12, 2018, 09:13:04 PM »
Instead of moaning about Universal Credit amounts surely the people who gets this benefit should be thanking people like me for paying tax so this benefit can be paid.

Raven

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #1 on: Nov 12, 2018, 10:10:31 PM »
That's the problem, it's not being paid for weeks leaving families with nothing.

brian54

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #2 on: Nov 13, 2018, 05:53:56 AM »
The people should be glad to get anything. Every family should be like mine and work for a living and pay in to a pension scheme.

Traveller

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #3 on: Nov 13, 2018, 07:55:50 AM »
As I get ancient, and cynical, I actually  agree with Brian at times..

Too many people seem reluctant to take responsibility for their finances.  Live day to day, don't worry, why save for a 'rainy day'  the government will give us everything we want.

As for the rest of you who have modest savings and can get along with the odd economy - you can sod off - oh and we'll tax everything you earn and give you nothing in return.

Ah, I needed that.  Right, coffee is ready...
You'll have had your tea.

brian54

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #4 on: Nov 13, 2018, 08:32:23 AM »
I spoke to one of those people again who thinks that money in pension funds should be shared amongst all Pensioners and not just the ones who paid in.
Does he not realise if that happens nobody would save for a pension in future and we would all rely on universal credit.
A couple of people I worked with think they are hard done by because they get no company pension because they did not pay in.

GrannyMac

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #5 on: Nov 13, 2018, 08:47:15 AM »
Some Traveller, some.  Its a specific mindset that thinks entitlements outweigh responsibilities.  I met quite a few who behaved like that in my job, but on the other hand I met the people with chronic health conditions trying to get by; the young mothers who (perhaps foolishly) believed their child's father wouldn't disappear and leave them struggling; the sixty year olds who'd had to give up a long term manual occupation, often low paid with no occ pension to fall back on and little chance of other work.

I'd hope, if I were as well off as Brian appears to be, I'd be a bit more generous of spirit and try to remember no matter hard some people have tried, life hasn't worked out as they hoped.
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sparky

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #6 on: Nov 13, 2018, 09:14:05 AM »

Why save for a rainy day?. well what's  the point, when come the day you need to go into care, the state will screw you of   every asset you have ,thereby stealing what you should be able to pass on to family, in order to help pay for the layabouts care,,,,,,, No what you need to do, is organise your savings and various assets long before you retire in order that the state cannot get their sticky hands on them.




BazzerPontefract

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #7 on: Nov 13, 2018, 09:29:33 AM »
Instead of moaning about Universal Credit amounts surely the people who gets this benefit should be thanking people like me for paying tax so this benefit can be paid.
That's the problem, it's not being paid for weeks leaving families with nothing.
[/size]Some Traveller, some.  Its a specific mindset that thinks entitlements outweigh responsibilities.  I met quite a few who behaved like that in my job, but on the other hand I met the people with chronic health conditions trying to get by; the young mothers who (perhaps foolishly) believed their child's father wouldn't disappear; the sixty year olds who'd had to give up a long term manual occupation.

I'd hope, if I were as well off as Brian appears to be, I'd be a bit more generous of spirit and try to remember no matter hard some people have tried, life hasn't worked out as they hoped.
But surely, it is not Brian's fault that some people expect welfare without responsibility, nor for that matter that some people have been dealt a bad hand in life.
The problem occurs when the feckless present with the same set of problems as those who've been dealt a bad hand in life - how do you distinquish?  Health professionals have difficulty enough identifying a genuine bad back from a bad back that isn't genuine.  The only sensible approach is to be more thorough assessing conditions.

The issue that appears to have been deliberately overlooked is that Universal Credit is an attempt by the government to identify the malingerer from the genuine (through rigorous health assessment) and to force through changes of habit in claimants so they are more fitted to getting back into the workforce.

So three things are necessary:
1) make welfare less generous so that there are advantages to going out to work;
2) change behavours so that once in work, people budget rationally around a monthly pay packet and monthly welfare;
3) more rigourous health and wellbeing assessment, so that the genuine claimant are identified whilst the feckless are thrown off welfare.

If you don't try and achieve these things, all you get is spiralling dependency and higher welfare costs that Brian has to fund out of his savings.

What Brian's wealth has got to do with the price of fish, I've no idea.  But if Brian's aim is to put the idle and feckless to work, there'll be less dependency on Brian and more to go around for the Genuine Claimant.  Brian is a Saint, if you look at it from that perspective.

It is Tough Love that gets change, not limp-wristed whinging and envy against those that made provision for themselves.

Diasi

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #8 on: Nov 13, 2018, 10:05:07 AM »
Why save for a rainy day?. well what's  the point, when come the day you need to go into care, the state will screw you of   every asset you have ,thereby stealing what you should be able to pass on to family, in order to help pay for the layabouts care,,,,,,, No what you need to do, is organise your savings and various assets long before you retire in order that the state cannot get their sticky hands on them.

Well said sparky as I can't think of anything worse than paying £hundeds per week to sit in a care home next to someone who doesn't have to pay.

For years the advice to private landlords with multiple rental properties is to form a limited company, preferably registered overseas.

If done correctly, the landlord doesn't have any assets that can be taken into consideration.

If you look at the various landlord forums it seems that many are now catching on as the tax rules have been tightened.
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GrannyMac

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #9 on: Nov 13, 2018, 12:04:59 PM »
But surely, it is not Brian's fault that some people expect welfare without responsibility, nor for that matter that some people have been dealt a bad hand in life.
The problem occurs when the feckless present with the same set of problems as those who've been dealt a bad hand in life - how do you distinquish?  Health professionals have difficulty enough identifying a genuine bad back from a bad back that isn't genuine.  The only sensible approach is to be more thorough assessing conditions.

The issue that appears to have been deliberately overlooked is that Universal Credit is an attempt by the government to identify the malingerer from the genuine (through rigorous health assessment) and to force through changes of habit in claimants so they are more fitted to getting back into the workforce.

So three things are necessary:
1) make welfare less generous so that there are advantages to going out to work;
2) change behavours so that once in work, people budget rationally around a monthly pay packet and monthly welfare;
3) more rigourous health and wellbeing assessment, so that the genuine claimant are identified whilst the feckless are thrown off welfare.

If you don't try and achieve these things, all you get is spiralling dependency and higher welfare costs that Brian has to fund out of his savings.

What Brian's wealth has got to do with the price of fish, I've no idea.  But if Brian's aim is to put the idle and feckless to work, there'll be less dependency on Brian and more to go around for the Genuine Claimant.  Brian is a Saint, if you look at it from that perspective.

It is Tough Love that gets change, not limp-wristed whinging and envy against those that made provision for themselves.

I certainly haven't suggested there are no feckless or lazy people. It's quite disgraceful that some put as much effort into avoiding work as they do finding a job.

I also support the tenets of universal credit - in theory it encourages working.   It hasn't been rolled out well though, some of the older recipients have never used a computer and struggle with the technology.  Panorama showed just a case last night. When the man was in work, he paid his way, and his rent.  It all fell to pieces when he had to try and claim benefits. Its obvious that people who post here are reasonably bright, even though some of us haven't got degrees.  But in the real world there are people with low IQs/moderate learning difficulties who are struggling to cope.

Some of the comments I've read on here suggest that everyone who doesn't have a goldplated pension hasn't tried.  All I do is try to bring some understanding to anyone who has lived and worked all their lives in a bubble of financial well-being that life isn't like that for most of us. 
Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.

R. Gervais

fortyone

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #10 on: Nov 13, 2018, 12:15:25 PM »
I don't understand it properly because I have no need to know but the complaint I've seen is that when moving to Universal Credit apart from it probably being less the existing benefits stop and people have to wait 5 or 6 weeks til they get the UC payments. How can that be right? I and doubtless others here could go for months or even years with no payments coming in by living on savings but nobody on benefits is likely to have savings. If they had then doubtless there would be folks here saying that obviously the benefits must be too high.

Ashy

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #11 on: Nov 13, 2018, 12:35:28 PM »
If people who take benefits have adequate savings then the benefits must be too high. Not really, we have come a long way since the national assistance man told us to sell our furniture.

brian54

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #12 on: Nov 13, 2018, 01:05:34 PM »
Why save for a rainy day?. well what's  the point, when come the day you need to go into care, the state will screw you of   every asset you have ,thereby stealing what you should be able to pass on to family, in order to help pay for the layabouts care,,,,,,, No what you need to do, is organise your savings and various assets long before you retire in order that the state cannot get their sticky hands on them.


Councils try anything on. They are desperate for money.
They try to get the offspring's money to pay for the parents care.
One case I helped somebody with recently Bcc said the offspring would have to pay a top up of £185 a week because there were no homes which would take the father at the usual rate.
The facts were the offspring was not obliged to pay. He had saved for a pension and if he had paid that amount he would have been left with less than the state pension.

fortyone

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #13 on: Nov 13, 2018, 01:40:59 PM »

BazzerPontefract

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Re: Universal Credit.
« Reply #14 on: Nov 13, 2018, 02:50:43 PM »
I don't understand it properly because I have no need to know but the complaint I've seen is that when moving to Universal Credit apart from it probably being less the existing benefits stop and people have to wait 5 or 6 weeks til they get the UC payments. How can that be right? I and doubtless others here could go for months or even years with no payments coming in by living on savings but nobody on benefits is likely to have savings. If they had then doubtless there would be folks here saying that obviously the benefits must be too high.
People don't have to wait 5 or 6 weeks for welfare to start coming in under Universal Credit - there have always been bridging loans.  Part of the argument about UC, is that Geo Osborne removed a few billion from the PoT that was put there by Ian Duncan-Smith to cover bridging loans, hence the criteria for getting a bridging loan was tightened, hence we had a larger number of claimants calling foul.  This was relaxed a bit at the last budget.
It is the principal that is important.
We, like many other couples, always worked on the uncertainty principle even though we never had to bite on it.  So we stuck to building up a pot to see us over six months assuming the worst might happen.  I see that a sound principal which even intermittant claimants (in work/out of work) should try.  If they are paid off today, they should take on board they'll have to wait four weeks before UC kicks in, so they should not spend their severence on the day they leave work.  This is the real world for almost everybody in employment and closing ones eyes to it helps no-one.
I see the point that there are some folks who can't cope with life and will always get into problems, but that is not a rational argument for not instilling financial discipline into those that can cope.


For the benefit of GrannyMac - very few of us live in a hermetically sealed financial bubble where we don't have to worry about money.  Just because some of us get through a working life without the bubble being popped does not mean the worry wasn't there from time to time.  It was, it is life.