Part UC part CA question

stacey79

Am I being underpaid by carers allowance?
Currently carers allowance soon to change is £****.50 a week
£278 a month, if you times £****.50 by 52 weeks and divided by 12 it works out to 302 a month.
this is exactly what Universal deduct from my UC and they work it on 52 weeks so far as they are concerned that’s what I am getting every month from CA. but I only get £278 from CA therefore I am losing £24, when my understanding it should be equal to.
anybody have a clue what I’m talking about and if there is any advice ?

Thanks 

poppy123456

No, you're not being underpaid CA at all. You're not the first person to think this. Remember that CA is a weekly benefit, paid either weekly or 4 weekly (not monthly) but UC is a monthly benefit and there's 4.3 weeks in a month, not 4 weeks.

If you're paid CA 4 weekly then there will be 1 month in the year when you'll receive 2 payments, instead of one. If you receive your CA weekly then in 2023 there's 4 months which have 5 weeks in them (so 5 payments each month, not 4).. March, June, Sept and Dec.

For this reason when working out what deduction to make from UC they multiply the weekly amount by 52 .. so before the increase it was £****.70/week x 52 =£3,624.40 divided by 12 =£302/month.

For the new increase amount the deductions will be £76.75 x 52 divided by 12 = £332/month.

Does your UC include the carers element? (unless you're claiming the LCWRA then the same person can't receive carers element at the same time)

stacey79

Hi Poppy,
thank you for the information.
I suspected it was something like this.
on the forefront of the monthly payment it seems like your losing out and you only get it back as a Christmas present 😂
thank you for putting me right 🙏