Benefits

goldie213

Hello All

I am a 61 year old woman and have never claimed benefits before. I was struggling with anxiety and I have a facial and dysfunctional left side of face which cannot be rectified . I got UC and an been off sick since 30/05/24 I’ve applied for esa and receive 90.50 a week I’ve also filled in the UC50 form for LCWA and have an assessment next week. I have been told any esa I receive reduces my UC pound for pound. If I get LCWRA awarded at 419 a month do I get that on top of my 90.50 a week

poppy123456

Yes when claiming New Style ESA and UC at the same time the ESA is always deducted in full from any UC entitlement.

If found to have LCWRA then you will also be placed into the Support Group for ESA. Your ESA payments will increase to £138.20/week from the 14th week of your claim.

For UC you'll receive an extra £419.16/month from the 4th month after you provided your first fit note.

The deduction for ESA in your UC will be £392.16/month at the moment. If found to have LCWRA and placed into the Support Group then the deduction for ESA in UC will also increase to £598.86/month.

Please note, to work out the deduction in your UC you times the weekly amount by 52 and then divide by 12. This is because ESA is a weekly benefit (paid fortnightly) and UC is a monthly benefit and there's 4.3 weeks in a month, not 4 weeks. There will be 1 month a year where you will receive 3 ESA payments, instead of 2.

This means that you will receive the ESA payment £276.40/fortnight from the 14th week. Then you will receive your UC minus the deductions on top of that.

Jimm_Scope

Welcome to the community @goldie213, I hope Poppy has answered your questions!

The benefits system is fairly complicated, you can use calculators to see if there is anything else you may be eligible for such as the one at Turn2Us:

Turn2us Benefits Calculator