Universal Credit top tips - how your earning patterns can affect your claim. HD

If you work, your Universal Credit payments could be affected depending on how often you get paid. This means that there may be some months during the year when you will receive no Universal Credit at all– so you need to be prepared. The first thing you need to know is that an assessment period for Universal Credit is a period of one month. At the end of each assessment period, your Universal Credit for that month is calculated. Getting paid calendar monthly (on the same day each month) means that you’ll receive one wage payment from your employer within that Universal Credit period. In this case, your payments shouldn’t be affected, unless your wages or personal circumstances change as your wage pattern and Universal Credit assessment periods match up. If you’re paid every 4 weeks, you’ll receive 2 wage payments from your employer within a month on average once a year. This could result in you not receiving a Universal Credit payment for that month. Getting paid every 2 weeks by your employer means that, at certain points throughout the year you’ll receive 3 wage payments within a month. This could mean that there are couple of months when you earn too much to receive a Universal Credit payment. If you receive a weekly wage, you’ll receive 4 or 5 wage payments during a month meaning that you may have up to 4 months throughout the year when your income is too high for you to receive Universal Credit. If any of these scenarios apply to you, you may not receive a Universal Credit payment during certain months and you’ll need to be prepared for this by budgeting throughout the rest of the year. It’s really important that you plan your finances, and budget so that if there is a change in your monthly income you are prepared for a gap in your Universal Credit payments.