4 weekly pay v UC - problems with budgeting

We give advice and information to tenants and housing associations with regard to benefits.  I know this topic has been mentioned some time in the past, but I’m trying to find a solution to a practical financial problem.

UC is paid calendar monthly.  Client is working and is paid 4 weekly.  This means that there are times when he will have 2 wage payments in one AP and therefore no UC.  Apart from the first 6-7 week period where he has no money to budget with (yes, I know there are STAs, etc) but how can he budget when his income varies so much and he literally does not know how much he will receive when?

What I’m wondering is whether it is possible to calculate how much UC an employee in these circumstances will receive in a 12 month period to work out a calendar month budget.  After all UC is a “simplified benefit”!  I used to do benefit checks and work out how much people would receive to the penny under the legacy benefits and even tax credits at one time with just a calculator.  With UC I’m stumped. 

Can anyone point me to a method or calculator that will enable me to perform this task to work out the budget needed?

And secondly, for those whose wages vary each 4 week or month period - can we use the same method?

Thanks in anticipation

Ruth A Rees - 17 December 2015 02:23 PM

What I’m wondering is whether it is possible to calculate how much UC an employee in these circumstances will receive in a 12 month period to work out a calendar month budget.  After all UC is a “simplified benefit”!  I used to do benefit checks and work out how much people would receive to the penny under the legacy benefits and even tax credits at one time with just a calculator.  With UC I’m stumped. 

Can anyone point me to a method or calculator that will enable me to perform this task to work out the budget needed?

I can see why you’d want to look at the full twelve months but it’s going to be tricky. Even if the claimants circumstances remained the same there would be changes to income tax and/or minimum wage (and more importantly right now there’s the work allowance cuts from April 2016).

It gets more complicated if the there are joint claimants with different non-monthly earnings periods (or the same non-monthly period but with different pay dates).

For four-weekly earners you’ll usually get just one 2-pay-day AP per year. If 2 payments in an AP reduces UC to nil and earnings are constant(ish)  then a rough rule of thumb from April would be to calc UC with one four-weekly payment in the AP and then multiply by 11 for an estimate of annual entitlement.