Talk:Universal Credit

Clearly Not Working - 1 in 5 UK Families Forced to Borrow Money for Groceries

There should be some mention of the hardship the 'Universal Benefits' scheme has already caused in the UK: this reliable Daily Mail article of 17th April 2012 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131010/Staggering-rise-British-food-bank-One-opens-week-families-pay-packet-away-having-money.html> shows that new paupers FoodBanks are being opened up across the UK at a rate of 1 every week, and that 1 in 5 families are being forced to borrow money to purchase groceries - even those who are in paid employment! There should be some 'controversies' or 'criticisms' section added to the main article, to avoid it becoming a biased homage to Ian Duncan Smith, rather than an encyclopedic article.212.139.99.83 (talk) 17:42, 17 April 2012 (UTC)twl212.139.99.83 (talk) 17:42, 17 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.139.99.83 (talk)

The above comment is irrelevant and nonsensical. It is impossible for the Universal Credit to have caused any hardship in the UK whatsoever as of this time, as it does not yet exist. Wikipedia policy prohibits the removal of talk page entries, but this comment stands to warn other users to pay no attention to this comment. Lordrosemount (talk) 14:26, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Contrary to the above claim Wikiepidia Policy allows for the removal of wholly irrelevant and political talk page comments which have no relevance to the discussion of the content of the article. The above should have simply been deleted and if re-added reported to the Admin Notice-board. Sport and politics (talk) 23:54, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

The paragraph in question should not be deleted because it is an extremely relevant point. According to the main wiki article, vast swathes of the population who are working part-time or self-employed will be worse off, exacerbating the hardship conditions which have been highlighted. UC should have designed to improve this, not make it worse. If the object of the exercise is to purely save money then there a lot of easier ways of doing this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.29.207.6 (talk) 08:22, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Disregard

This word is used in (for this reader) an uncommon usage, which should surely be explained? 80.69.30.249 (talk) 15:48, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Criticism

Curious as to why there isn't any real mention of the widespread opposition to Universal Credit from, in particular, those already on benefits and the organisations that represent them? Walker Slake (talk) 23:59, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Different User same Question I had the same feeling furthermore are almost all sources based on the UK Governments Opinion. It is hard to imagine that such a reform had gone by without any contra arguments! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.87.224.98 (talk) 11:53, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

There isn't any point writing criticism of Universal Credit here. It'll just get deleted on some spurious ground or another. Try it and see! This article is pretty tightly censored, presumably by people working for the DWP or the coalition. Funny that: they can't manage to implement UC, but they do have time to censor wikipedia! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.208.202.204 (talk) 19:59, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

The above claims are without foundation (presented here). Please do not make assumptions of bad faith against any editors without strong evidence. Sport and politics (talk) 23:55, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Issues with article

Leading Paragraph does not explain

it is not clear at all what the UC is and how does it work

could anyone try to explain the US there?

General

This article has many issues and they need cleaning up. The language i the article is very technical and dense, such as what is a "tax loss"? There is also potential undue weight by the use of some sources such as who is Gareth Morgan? the article says he is a "writer on welfare benefits and social inclusion" but why is he a notable individual on this subject? Also some of the statements in the article have questionable relevance such as the current Tax Credits thresholds. There are also numerous claims and statistics with no citations to back them up. These are all taken from the Background section but the issues run through the whole article. This needs a significant oerhaul and clean up to be compliant with even some of the most basic standards of Wikipeida such as a Neutral POV and avoidance of undue weight and providing Sources for all statements and claims where relevant. Sport and politics (talk) 00:04, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you say, Sport and politics. I've recently tried to make minor improvements to this article, but have not had time to give it the attention it needs. Please do not hesitate to help if you can! One of the main problems, as I see it, is that nearly all that is written about Universal Credit is critical, in one way or another. There may be very good reasons for that, but it does not help achieve a balance in the article, which should stick to the Wikipedia policy of neutrality. Some of the language and tone of the article has been inappropriately critical and I have begun to address that, as well as to provide at least some idea of who the various quoted authors (such as Gareth Morgan) actually are, but there is much more to do. Thanks for pointing out the shortcomings here, and your assistance will be welcome. Cheers, Agendum (talk) 00:28, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree I have set up a sandbox and lets get stared with the improvements. The sandbox can be found here. Sport and politics (talk) 10:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

This sandbox was apparently moved to new location: User:Sport and politics/Universal Credit (reason: sandboxes should not be in the article main space). 66.97.209.215 (talk) 07:14, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

One section that is ripe for cleanup is Conditionality. Saying "There will be four types of conditionality for claimants..." should logically be followed by four paragraphs (or four subsections if needed). Whoever put this article together appears just plain sloppy (even if done in good faith) when the remainder of the sentence syntax is "ranging from ... to ..." and does not even list all four of the condition types. 66.97.209.215 (talk) 07:44, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I feel the policy is almost not explained (e.g. amount that will be disbursed per type of household, reduction of payment in proportion to rising income, conditions for additional payments - e.g. related to rents being paid. The critizism seems to know more about details than the explanation.Meerwind7 (talk) 20:27, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree, but I have not seen many good sources to use for this article. If you see any, feel free to add content from them directly or post them here on the talk page and we can discuss. Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 09:39, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

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What a mess

What a mess this article is in. I've had a go at giving it a bit of structure but lots still missing including for instance Personal Budgeting Support under UC. DanielJCooper (talk) 01:14, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Is the picture of IDS necessary?

I don't see the point of the picture of Iain Duncan Smith in the first paragraph. Is there one?

Darcourse (talk) 06:17, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Very unclear

There is no way to find quickly what the policy *does*, and how things are calculated, and what tests are applied. I was looking to find "what is the policy" and all I could find is the speech in which it was proposed, three times.

We need more substantial clear information, and less political history.

Is this a means-tested UBI?

Or can unemployed voters still become penniless due to not jumping through enough hoops?

211.26.237.155 (talk) 01:08, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Criticism

Might want to mention the deaths and suicides that have happened since the UC's introduction. See for example:

https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/universal-credit-the-state-and-the-bbc-secretly-collude-in-propaganda-campaign/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.54.94 (talk) 01:34, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

BBC News item on 'Misleading' UC advertisements

"Universal credit adverts banned as 'misleading'"

The ASA has banned adverts for UC as 'misleading', BBC News item here: [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.30.162.216 (talk) 08:46, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Article by The Guardian "Now we have proof: the government used your money to lie about poor people " here: [2]

The cost to the UK taxpayer of the banned adverts that had been placed in Metro is £225,000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.30.162.216 (talk) 14:07, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Tagged for neutrality

This article has been tagged for neutrality because 64% of the text is criticism and the 'Criticism' section alone makes up 53% of the entire text. This is not acceptable, even for an article on a policy that has indeed caused problems (some by design, many more because of the implementation stage). In fact, I would go as far as to say that from an English Literature perspective, the text is not actually an encyclopedia article. Anywikiuser (talk) 13:10, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

You're right, this article is ridiculously biased. A dogged attempt is made to catalog every single criticism of and problem with the program, including a problem that has only affected one person, a problem that's entirely internal, and a vast body of speculative and potential problems that are often backed by little more than a single person's 'concern'. At the very least, this article needs a section outlining the rationale behind the program, and the benefits the program's proponents claim it has over the previous system, something that will help clear up confusion over what UC actually is. Ardyr Ioris (talk) 16:35, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

The rationale and potential improvements from UC are outlined in the intro, while "what UC actually is" is plainly spelt out in the same section at the top of the article. Otherwise, I agree the whole piece is a bit lopsided; perhaps fans of UC could expand some of the sections or add new ones? Dr Greg Wood (talk) 10:18, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree that more could be said on the original positive rationale for UC. However I would point out that WP:NPOV says in the "Due and undue weight" section that content should be "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". At least as far as the MSM goes, the sources are overwhelmingly critical of UC (much more than 64% I should think), so it is per WP policy that this is simply reflected in the article. Perhaps we somehow need to find more non-MSM sources. Rwendland (talk) 15:04, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

I propose to remove the NPOV tag on the basis explained above that WP policy is "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources", and it has not been demonstrated that <64% of reliable sources are non-critical; indeed it seems like much more that 64% MSM RS are critical. Views? Rwendland (talk) 10:50, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

It would have been nice to have seen some edits by the people who feel the article is skewed. In their absence, it seems logical to remove the tag Dr Greg Wood (talk) 10:49, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Uplift

Is it worth someone’s effort to cover the £20 Covid-19 uplift? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cuddy2977 (talk • contribs) 08:32, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

What I meant to say is “Would it be worth someone’s effort to cover the uplift as a separate article?” I personally, wouldn’t know where to start, but feel it could be a good move.

Cuddy2977 (talk) 07:12, 4 October 2021 (UTC)