TAPERS : The Scourge Of Universal Credit : Coming To YOUR Manor , Eventually : Ignore At Your Peril

[Chris From The Gulag]

APOLOGIES TO ALL READERS FOR NOT GETTING THIS ONE UP ON THE FORUM UNTIL NOW !!!

Given their impact , worth a separate thread ... AND A STICKY ... as a warning to those juggling work with caring :


TAPERS ... and ... how much you could lose for every extra £ 1 earned :

Bonus blow for Greggs staff prompts call for benefit and tax rethink.

Some workers who are on universal credit could keep just £75 of the £300 payout.

Morgan calculated that under current tax and benefit rules, a worker earning less than the tax and NI thresholds of £8,632 a year would typically be left with £111 of the £300 bonus. One earning more than that but less than the upper threshold of £12,500 a year would get just £97.68 while a worker on more than £12,500 a year would end up with £75.48.

Universal credit originally aimed to incentivise claimants to earn more by introducing a work allowance allowing them to keep hold of more of their benefits as their income rose. However, this was cut in 2015, and only partly restored. Claimants’ earnings over and above this allowance are in effect reclaimed at a 63% taper rate.

Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said: “While workers on universal credit could lose up to £225 of their £300 cash bonus, that is an argument for the government to lower the taper rate in universal credit, rather than for employers to stop paying their staff more.”

The rise of in-work poverty has become a salient feature of the UK economy in recent years. JRF estimates that stagnant wages and welfare cuts mean about 4 million people are living below the breadline despite being in a job, meaning about one in eight people in the economy were now classified as working poor.

Fine for CUK to follow the DWP's lead for eveyone to find work as a way out of " Poverty " but ...

The odds are heavily stacked up against you doing so ... even a few more hours ... with effective rates of loss of other benefits entered into the equation.

For carers ... even more ... that £ 123 weekly limit and still claim Carers Allowance ... being the most notorious.

Time for CUK to spell out the REAL reality of " Juggling caring with work " ... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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How much can you earn before losing Universal Credit ?

The amount you get depends on the amount you earn.

If you earn money - for every £1 you earn your Universal Credit will be reduced by 63p - until you're entitled to no payment at all.

If your wages later drop and you think you can get UC again, you'll need to start a new claim online by signing in to your Universal Credit account.

But if, before you stopped getting Universal Credit, you earned more than £2,500 over the amount allowed - this is called surplus earnings.

When you start your claim again this amount will be taken into account and used to reduce the amount of credit you get until the surplus is gone.

Yep ... juggling work with caring ...one has to be in the Guinness book of records to juggle all that's thrown at them to do so ???


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Charity demands fundamental overhaul to Universal Credit.

The work allowance means an eligible person can earn up to a certain amount of money a month without any financial impact on the amount they receive through Universal Credit.

This amount is £287 for people if they also receive housing support or £503 if they do not.

Currently only people who have children or have a limited capability to work because of a health condition or disability are eligible for a work allowance.

Single people or couples without dependents who do not have a limited capability to work are not eligible and currently lose 63 pence of their Universal Credit for every £1 they earn, from the very first pound.

This means a single person only has to earn around £505 after tax and National Insurance a month to be earning too much to be entitled to the Universal Credit standard allowance of £317.82.

[Chris From The Gulag]

Following on ... that taper ... in action ... again :

How might a Greggs worker's bonus be cut to £75 ?

To work out how a Greggs £300 bonus could be cut to £75, consider somebody earning enough to pay income tax (more than £12,500 a year).

On the £300 bonus they would pay £60 income tax and £36 of national insurance, so £204 would go in their bank account.

If they were receiving universal credit, that would be reduced in line with the taper rate, which means they lose 63p in benefits for each £1 they earn. So they would lose £128.52 of their benefits.

That means that the £300 bonus would only have left them £75.48 better off.

We spoke to the Department for Work and Pensions about these figures. They told us there were Greggs employees who would be in that situation, but not all of them.

Others may already be earning enough to have stopped receiving universal credit or they may be earning little enough to have leftover work allowances (that's the amount you're allowed to earn before you start losing benefits).

Ever since the prelude to the last Carers Strategy , starting in 2007 , CUK have always towed the Government line ... the route out of poverty is by working.

( Completely silent on a few million of us who CANNOT work through the burden of caring ! )

Then came 2008 , and the beginnings of what we now call AUSTERITY.

Time for a MAJOR rethink , CUK ... especially the section on your part of the site dealing with juggling caring with work.

As many readers already know , add that earning limit onto Carers Allowance ... £ 189 odd per week and ... you'll still be WAY BELOW the Official Poverty Line.

Work longer hours with the intention of removing Carers Allowance from the equation ?

TAPERS !

Do the calculations yourselves ... or ask me , nicely.

That trusty old benefits calculator will do the business ... great for " What if " scenarios :

https://www.entitledto.co.uk/

The results will be the same.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !