Universal Credit taking carers off us

HI and welcome,

Your thoughts on the carers allowance on UC as apposed to Income support are not exactly correct here. Carers allowance was always deducted £1 for £1 from Income support in exactly the same way it's deducted from UC.

With Income support you had the carers premium included in your Income support. With UC there's also a carers element of £160 per month providing the person that's caring isn't receiving the LCWRA element because the same person can't receive both elements together. If it's a joint claim then the person that isn't receiving the LCWRA element should claim the carers element, this way both elements will be included in the claim.

As you have dependent children then you'll also need to make sure they are adding the child element to your claim. For the 1sr child this should be £277.08 and for any other children  it's £231.67

If you have 2 or more children and they were born after April 2017 then you won't receive any extra money for those, this is the same rules that were in place for tax credits.

If you have disabled children and they are claiming DLA/PIP then you'll also receive the disabled child element, whether it's the higher or lower limit will depend what award they are receiving.

Other than that without knowing all of your details and what elements you are receiving it's impossible to advise you. You can of course put all your details into a benefits calculator to see if you're receiving the correct amount. Please be aware that it's only as accurate as the information you put into it.