A torrid tale about Universal Credit.
The lady in question, Portuguese by nationality, is here in the UK. She worked on the streets – yes, that’s a euphemism – and was sending money back to her son and family at home.
She manages to get out of the game and on to benefits. And then? Well, given Brexit she needs to apply for settled status. Which involves forms, bureaucracy, lost documents and so on. The result?
It’s a disaster.
Everywhere I go I’m begging for food or a little money just to stay alive.
No one can live like this. So of course I started selling sex again.
Where I live now, sometimes you only get a fiver. Girls are so desperate they’re taking it out on each other.
I think we’d all agree that’s a bad result.
But where’s the fault here, the problem?
It’s not particularly Universal Credit after all. That settled status thing will apply to any welfare system given Brexit. It also not really Brexit at fault – sure, things will change as a result but the lady – yea, ladies of the night too – is eligible for welfare once the paperwork is sorted out.
So, it’s the paperwork, isn’t it? The drudge and inefficiency of having to relate and account to the British state.
Hmm. Which is something of a lesson, isn’t it? That the British state is incompetent to give out free money.
There’s a corollary to this too. The very same people who decry Universal Credit for these sorts of problems are the very ones who insist that the same British state must run ever more of the British economy. It’s not enough that it does healthcare, most education, it must also do all utilities, all transport, all education and so on.
How’s that going to work out when they’re not competent at handing out free money?
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I'm convinced that the people who designed UC (not the principle, the nuts and bolts of how to implement the principle) purposely set out to do so in ways that would create trouble. My aged father has carers 24/7. They work for an agency, and sometimes because of the vagaries of the calendar, the banking system and the employers wages payment system they end up with 2 monthly wage payments in their bank account in a single calendar. One on the 1st say, and another on the 30th, that sort of thing. This of course sets the UC system alarms off, because suddenly the person has 'doubled' their income in a given month and thus is no longer eligible for UC and gets chucked out, and then has to make a new application, and wait the 6 weeks (or whatever period it is) for the payment to start. Which is incredibly difficult for people struggling to make ends meet at the best of times.
What sort of moron designs a system that doesn't take into account how people actually get paid in the real world?
Sadly the sort of moron who is becoming increasingly uncivil and providing increasingly poor service.