Covid-19: UK jobs, loans, universal credit, etc experience

If you want to share your experience.

I noticed @Raul your status says “Furlough in progress”.

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My girlfriend has been placed on furlough. She will hopefully get the Boris money but no guidance has been given from her company yet.

She applied for UC, finished the application but the online verification failed. She had to call and book an appointment.

For more than a week she tried calling and calls always failed as lines were busy. Yesterday she managed to get through and after a 3hr wait, she managed to get herself an appointment for 15th April.

Quite hard times for everyone

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I was talking to a builder yesterday and he said he simply has no idea what will happen with payments etc. He cant even find out how or who to apply to?

Hey @SpyrosL Thanks for sharing this. How do you make an appointment if you’re supposed to stay at home (or are their offices open?)

You call to ask for an appointment, and they give you a slot for a telephone appointment, where they will call you. You are correct offices are closed.

I think that through the online portal you would be able to upload copies of the documents needed for I’d verification, but not sure.

Booking the first telephone appointment has been the hardest part so far

My (now former) employer made 15% of its workforce redundant last week (53 of us in total) and i was one of the unlucky ones… They are based in Belgium with offices in UK and USA with redundancies made across all the offices… I asked them if they considered using the UK furlough scheme and the HR director brazenly said yes, and they did qualify to use it… But they just decided not to…

Sounds like very bad management. I hope you got a good amount of redundancy pay out of them.

If people can’t get access to UC or got laid off and not furloughed (sorry to hear that @afreeb) , how is job seeker’s allowance supposed to work when people can’t attend interviews in person :thinking:

How much will benefits go up by?

From April, some claimants will see their income rise increase by 1.7 per cent, in line with inflation.
Universal Credit

From ÂŁ317.82 to ÂŁ323.22 a month, for claimants aged 25 or over in receipt of the standard allowance.

From ÂŁ498.89 to ÂŁ507.37 a month, for couples with a joint claim and where one (or both) partner is aged 25 or over.

Coronavirus increase

However, for the next 12 months, there will be a further increase on top of the annual uprating, which is equivalent to ÂŁ1,040 a year, or ÂŁ20 a week.

So the increase will be:

From ÂŁ317.82 to ÂŁ409.89 a month, for claimants aged 25 or over in receipt of the standard allowance.

The Working Tax Credit basic element will also increase by ÂŁ1,040 for 12 months.
Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseeker’s Allowance (income-based)

From ÂŁ73.10 to ÂŁ74.35 a week, for a single person aged 25 or over, or a lone parent aged 18 or over.

Disability and carer benefits are also set to increase by 1.7 per cent this year, however they were not subject to the benefits freeze.

The higher rate of Attendance Allowance is increasing from ÂŁ87.65 a week to ÂŁ89.15.

Carer’s Allowance will move from £66.15 a week to £67.25.

The weekly rate of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) will also go up by 1.7 per cent. The enhanced PIP daily living rate and the highest rate for DLA will increase from ÂŁ87.65 a week to ÂŁ89.15.

I got a week’s salary… Lol…

Instead of interviews in person they call you, verify your identity and collect other information and then send it for verification/processing. Thats the process now.