How Disabled people are all going to lose out when we switch to Universal Credit

despondent

Hi I've just been checking the government website, which shows you how much you get now, and how much you will get when universal credit starts. The difference for me will be £410.66 per month. I will get a transitional payment each month for this. When the universal credit goes up the following year say for example it rises by £20 per month, this amount will be taken off my transitional payment. What has started to worry me is that basically everyones money will be frozen for over 15 years.

This means each year your rent goes up, you have to pay the difference. each year the council tax goes up you will have to pay the difference. Your PIP will rise, it is separate, but it will in no way cover the constant rises we will all be facing. Basically the care component worth £95 per week has been taken away.  I am worried that i will struggle to pay my rent, and be made homeless.

Here is a link to the government calculator I used. it shows you what you get now, and what you will get on universal credit.

https://www.betteroffcalculator.co.uk/#/calculator/new/step1

The government are slipping this in, and people dont realise how worse off they are going to be. We can't get a pay rise until the £410.66 has been absorbed by the universal credit. We really need to do something about this, before we are even more stressed than we already are.

whistles

@BenefitsTrainingCo
Please can you help advise on this. 

https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/benefit-freeze-real-problem-not-universal-credit 

The benefits calculator is a guide and was actually inaccurate for me. I have since done some sums, of sorts and it's going to effect people in different ways.  
I have no idea where the above poster gets 15 years from, but I'm not saying that's wrong because everyone is in a slightly different boat. 

My calm side says that the incapacity for work element of the UC won't freeze as it's exempt. The migrated premiums won't free either and neither will pip.
But it isn't clear if the sdp or edp will be absorbed by those migrating over as in the transitional payment or is this something totally different.
We could do with people on UC posting what's happened. The freeze has been in place since 2015 if that article is to be believed.


Migration over is making me feel like I am flying south for the winter. 

despondent

Hi, I'm confused by your answer. When I looked at myself on the Universal credit the incapacity element for work element was no longer there. Instead it is given as a transitional payment. Also I do not understand what sdp or edp is, please explain.

despondent

I found this article which explains that the enhanced disability of ESA and the severe disability is not given on Universal Credit. This means that we will be £95 worse off. Yes we will be given transitional payment to cover this, but as previously stated it will keep getting lowered each year by whatever rise in Universal Credit gets. Our rent will keep going up, our council tax will go up, our water, electricity, food, we will become poor very quickly.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/31/universal-credit-pushing-disabled-people-into-poverty

whistles

Sdp is the severe disability premium and edp is the enhanced. It's not there for new claimants and it gets removed if you experience a change before your area migrates. 

The reasoning behind removing the premiums is that pip supplies the support. Well we know that's not the case because people are not eligible anymore. I am already £130 less this year.

https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/what-youll-get

^^
This shows you the standard amount and if you scroll down the limited capacity for work amount.

But I must be working it out wrong because nobody else on this forum seems to be worried about next year. 

despondent

Thank you Whistles, you have been so helpful to me, and I really appreciate it. Looking at the website link now. I think people on the forum dont realilse what is about to happen, and all hell will break lose once the penny drops.

Nystagmite

I'm not sure where the 15 years that was mentioned in the original post comes from?

I've heard the same thing about PIP supposedly providing the support that SDP did. But how does that work? You're still £51 a week worse off under universal credit compared to the person on ESA support with SDP. (as of April 2018)

despondent

Hi I will explain the 15 years.  The transition payment for losing enhanced disability and severe disability will be approximately £410 per month. I reckon that the universal credit will only go up by 1 percent a year if that. So say the universal credit goes up by £50 per month. Then the transition payment of £410 per month goes down by £50. This will happen every year until the transition payment is 0. so based on that, and if we dont have another freeze on benfefit rises it will take 8 years, my mistake saying 15 years. but this effectively means that we will be living on the same amount of money for those 8 years and will be getting poorer each year as all our bills go up ad especially the rent. Hopefully this has made it clearer

Nystagmite

Ah, I see now.

despondent

I'm glad Nystagmite.

whistles

Sunday brain cells, please excuse me. 

Right, I think I be worse off with UC. But because these people are so kind they don't want me to be out of pocket so they top me up. Migrated transitional dooda. So it's no change in my money.
That nice top up, goes down as the UC comes up- but you don't get anymore money until it goes to 0.
Another way of looking at it, the benefits are not freezing because we have migrated over with more money and been allowed to keep over the UC amount?  
That sounded plausible until I wrote the government allowed us to keep it-I just saw a flying pig!

Surely the premiums are exempt and are not the transitional payments else why have the two groups? The transitional payment is to make your money up to what you previously had. I would expect those receiving the premiums to carry on until such time they lose pip care.
I have lost my sdp and I naively thought, that if I qualified again for pip care that I get it back because I am migrating. 

whistles

Ps now thinking I will be ok with the change. The reason is because they have already taken money off me.

The long and short of it, nobody had the answer because nobody has migrated?

Nystagmite

You only migrate now if you report any changes. Regardless of what the change is (such as if you change bank accounts or change your name - just thinking of changes that don't affect the amount of you'd get) you'd be transferred.

As I understand it, when you report the change, you lose the protection. Rubbish really.

I think we all start to migrate next year. That seems to be the plan anyway from what I've heard.

whistles

Yes for some that's a problem. If you had the money in the beginning.
I have seen advisors saying some could get more on UC and this freeze doesn't apply to everyone.

I swear to god on everyone's file though it says have you taken money off this person yet. Green tick for Yes.

There is also a bedroom tax so I hope all the single people are already renting one room/ flat because if you move to solve it they move you to UC - for better or worse and if you don't, well I can't put what word came to mind then!.
If you need a sleep in carer that's fine, but with the pip changes you need to be in receipt of the standard care.

Waylay

*growls*