Reblogged from Michael Meacher MP:
Universal credit was supposed to be introduced by IDS/DWP in September, but
the roll-out date continually gets postponed. The aim is to replace several
in- and out-of-work benefits – job seeker’s allowance, income support,
employment and support allowance, tax credits, plus housing benefit and support
for childcare costs – with one single payment. However there are snags, big
ones:
* The vast majority of claims are meant to be initiated and managed online,
but benefit claimants are the people most likely not to have a computer or are
not trained to use it,
* Payments will be made monthly rather than weekly or fortnight, which will
increase the risk of rent arrears especially when support for housing costs will
be paid direct to the tenant, not to the landlord as normally at present,
* A new conditionality will be imposed: recipients will be expected to look
for work as soon as their youngest child reaches 5 as well as further away from
home, a 90-minute commute being considered reasonable compared to 60 minutes as
now.
* Claimants will also be expected to look for more or better work till a
certain level of income is reached, and non-working partners will also have to
look for work until the couple cross the income threshold.
* Those who fail to comply with the new conditionality regime can have their
benefits withdrawn for up to 3 years, and sanctions can be carried forward into
new claims. Even if hardship payments are made in cases of sanction, they will
be recovered by DWP,
* The rate of support for many children with disabilities will be
substantially less than at present,
* Adults with disability will be badly penalised: the severe disability
premium currently paid to disabled people who don’t have another adult caring
for them will be ended, resulting in a loss of £54 a week. Similarly, disabled
claimants who work and get the disabled workers element of Working Tax Credit
will lose £54 a week.
* In-work claimants on the lowest incomes who are deemed not to be looking
for more hours or better-paid work could face a sanction with a punitive loss of
benefit,
* Awards to self-employed claimants will be made on the basis that they are
already earning a ‘reasonable’ minimum income whether they’re getting that level
of income or not,
* The government have not yet decided how free school meals or free
prescriptions will be managed under Universal Credit, but if eligibility is set
at lower income levels than now, many will suffer a substantial cut in
income,
* Nor is it true, as IDS likes to claim, that most claimants will gain from
Universal Credit: middle-income claimants will come off worst, but even those on
the lowest incomes who IDS likes to claim will gain will find those gains will
largely disappear once the impact of benefit and tax credit cuts since 2010 are
taken into account.
