{"id":3370,"date":"2018-10-18T07:27:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T07:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/universal-credit-should-the-benefit-be-paid-monthly-or-weekly\/"},"modified":"2018-10-18T07:27:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T07:27:17","slug":"universal-credit-should-the-benefit-be-paid-monthly-or-weekly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/universal-credit-should-the-benefit-be-paid-monthly-or-weekly\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal credit: Should the benefit be paid monthly or weekly?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Picture of people entering a job centre\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/16736\/production\/_103885919_gettyimages-527654468.jpg\" width=\"4000\" height=\"2667\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Former government adviser Philippa Stroud has told the BBC universal credit was designed around monthly payments because the &#8220;majority of people in work are paid monthly&#8221; and its creators wanted the &#8220;out-of-work experience mimic the in-work experience&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p>Across the UK, 85% of all employee jobs had monthly or four weekly pay cycles in April 2017, when this data was last released.   <\/p>\n<p>But shorter pay cycles are more commonly found in lower-paid sectors such as retail and hospitality. <\/p>\n<p>And research suggests most of the one in three universal credit claimants who is working receive their pay cheques on a weekly or fortnightly basis instead. <\/p>\n<p>Lloyds Banking Group, in a piece of research for think tank the Resolution Foundation, looked at seven million of its bank accounts and found that of those belonging to new universal credit claimants, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.resolutionfoundation.org\/app\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Universal-Credit.pdf\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">58% had been paid weekly or fortnightly in their last job<\/a>, in 2016-17.<\/p>\n<p>So monthly benefits payments don&#8217;t mimic the in-work experience of most people on universal credit.<\/p>\n<p>But why could that be a problem? <\/p>\n<p>The amount of universal credit claimants receive is worked out by looking at their net pay over the previous month. <\/p>\n<p>But people who are paid more than once a month will receive different numbers of pay cheques in different months. <\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s say your income is being assessed from the first of the month and you&#8217;re paid \u00a360 every Friday:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">In November (a month with five Fridays), you&#8217;ll be paid \u00a3300<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">In December (a month with four Fridays), you&#8217;ll be paid \u00a3240<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But your benefits for December- the month when you have less money coming in anyway &#8211; are based on your earnings in November. So, that month you&#8217;ll have less income from working and less money in benefits. <\/p>\n<p>In an extreme case, according to the Resolution Foundation, you might even move out of universal credit eligibility and have to re-apply. <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Why does this matter? <\/h2>\n<p>An assumption underlying universal credit is that claimants will have to get better at budgeting. <\/p>\n<p>Unlike older benefits, universal credit claimants receive all the money they&#8217;re entitled to straight into their bank account once a month. <\/p>\n<p>This includes, if you are eligible, money to help cover rent. It is then up to the claimant to ensure that this money reaches their landlord. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Universal credit is designed to improve budgeting<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under the old system, housing benefits were paid directly to landlords and other benefits paid to claimants twice monthly. <\/p>\n<p>And according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/statistics\/universal-credit-statistics-on-alternative-payment-arrangements\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">Department of Work and Pensions research<\/a>, roughly 20% of universal credit claimants with some housing support also have their payment given directly to their landlord &#8211; because they have proven difficulties with budgeting. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/england.shelter.org.uk\/__data\/assets\/pdf_file\/0019\/706501\/Universal_Credit_and_APAs.pdf\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">Housing charity Shelter points out that<\/a> people on lower incomes are less likely to have the financial reserves to deal with unexpected costs such as having to replace a damaged school uniform or losing hours at work.<\/p>\n<p>And for families without savings to rely on, these unplanned-for circumstances can make them reprioritise money intended for rent, leading to them getting into arrears. <\/p>\n<p>The fact that benefit money is coming in three or four weeks won&#8217;t help those urgent financial pressures.  <\/p>\n<p>And if you are getting some of your income on a weekly basis from work and the rest of it through monthly universal credit top-ups, it can become difficult to budget.<\/p>\n<p>The Resolution Foundation does, however, acknowledge that universal credit is a lot more responsive to fluctuations in people&#8217;s income than the old system. <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Are there alternatives? <\/h2>\n<p>The Department of Work and Pensions says that a number of support mechanisms are in place, including budgeting support when claimants first receive universal credit. <\/p>\n<p>Claimants can get an advance on the payment of their first claim, rather than waiting five weeks from claim to payment. <\/p>\n<p>This is then treated as a loan that is taken off future benefits payments for the following year. <\/p>\n<p>There are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/universal-credit\/other-financial-support\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">also mechanisms in place<\/a> for those who &#8220;genuinely can&#8217;t manage their monthly payment&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Claimants can request for the frequency of payments to change in some circumstances (but not for the assessment period to change) and request budgeting advances. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption body-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/realitycheck\" class=\"story-body__link\">Read more from Reality Check<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-41928747\" class=\"story-body__link\">Send us your questions<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bbcrealitycheck\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">Follow us on Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption body-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-45878014\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Getty Images Former government adviser Philippa Stroud has told the BBC universal credit was designed around monthly payments because the &#8220;majority of people in work are paid monthly&#8221; and its creators wanted the &#8220;out-of-work experience mimic the in-work experience&#8221;. Across the UK, 85% of all employee jobs had monthly or four weekly pay &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}