UNIVERSALITY

Denbighshire council advertising alcohol on Rhyl Town Hall

Pensioners in the UK, such as Yours Truly, have an income higher than most of the world’s working population. That doesn’t stop the greedy ones grumbling or pushing for more.

We have been in this exalted state ever since statistics showed that pensioners are the most likely people to vote in elections. Oh yes, successive governments have been keen to shovel money into the pockets of pensioners.

Unemployment benefit in the form of Jobseeker’s Allowance is only about half the amount of a state pension – it is virtually impossible to live on. Some unemployed people receive additional benefits for dependents and/or for trying to cope with disability.

There are also benefits for working people who do not earn much. [The main beneficiaries of these subsidies seem to be employers who pitch their pay rates downwards accordingly.]

Universal Credit is a welfare benefit to replace Jobseeker’s Allowance, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Employment and Support Allowance and Income Support. Universal Credit is coming to Rhyl soon.

The new payments will be made once a month into a claimant’s bank or building society account, and then he or she has the responsibility of paying the rent out of it. My landlord Clwyd Alyn Housing Association is clearly worried about this.

For decades the company, in addition to providing accommodation for pensioners, has been acquiring younger, poverty-stricken tenants – many of whom are addicted to alcohol and/or other drugs and/or have criminal records serious enough to render them unemployable.

Clwyd Alyn seems to have been bending over backwards to find such people and riding on a pig’s back getting their rents from the council. But raking in rents from tenants who receive Universal Credit may not be so easy. Perhaps that will slam the brakes on the company’s activities.

Rhyl could be about to witness Clwyd Alyn’s chickens coming home to roost.

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WED 25th OCT 2017 UPDATE: Universal Credit full service should start in Rhyl in February 2018 according to this chart designed by researchers working for Welsh Assembly and published today on the Wales Online website:

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