Universal Credit and Support of Entrepreneurs

Claiming UC and being self employed you have to show that your self employment is your only work this shows you are gainfully self employed and don’t need to look for other work

https://www.gov.uk/self-employment-and-universal-credit

It's a humbling situation to be in no doubt, and one that enables you to see things from a completely different position.

Welfare benefits can indeed become a perpetuating trap.

biased in favour of generating more retail and hospitality workers?

I think the goal is to get people into whatever is available ASAP, and for those people then to try and find 'better jobs' in the future.

Best of luck.

Am I wrong to think that the whole UC thing is disadvantageous to people trying to get up and running on their own

What bikepawl said

I know some folk who were in a similar position and they were pleased and surprised how smoothly it went even with variable amounts coming in each week from their small business.  NO pressure to get another job

Thanks for this, TJ. It is encouraging to read. I hope you're right!

Fortunately never been in the position where I have had to claim it ( almost did when I first started off my company and several things fell through in the first couple of weeks though). How do they actually monitor you though ? There are a lot on it , surely they don’t actively pursue each and every person do they ?

I am trying to sustain myself and my family by monetising some of the work I do, but I anticipate that this will take the next number of months to successfully achieve.

do you mean it will take several months to generate any income or several months for you to reach a sustainable level of income?  The former sounds like you are asking the state to subsidise your business experiment.  The latter might fall into the self employment rules.    If my business plan would not result in any income for several months I’d be looking for some business coaching not an employment coach.   If you genuinely fall into the entrepreneur category you may find there are some grants or at least soft loans around to help (will depend what you are doing, where and usually how looking to see future jobs projected etc).

I mean, I can’t even imagine how employable I’ll actually be in such a situation! I’m middle-aged, over-educated, and other than in writing, reading, and thinking, pretty unskilled.

if those are your skills, that’s presumably where they would be expecting you to start if they are asking you to apply for work.  Those seem like three skills which lots of people aren’t particularly good at - so you might be surprised!  If you’ve been looking for a long time (or telling them you have) that’s when you’d expect the “employment coach” to start telling you to broaden your horizons, suggesting retraining, directing you to lower skilled driving / hospitality type jobs etc.

Check out becoming a carer.

Whenever I’ve signed on (JSA, rather the UC), there was very little checking what work you were doing, other than asking you.

‘Ive been looking thought job sites, submitted lots of applications, just waiting to hear back/got an interview next week etc.’ They never asked for proof, although I think the longest I was signed on was about 4 months, but really wasn’t trying that hard to find a job for most of that.

as for the jobs they recommended, I’ve worked in IT sales for most of my career, so obvs they recommended basic office admin/data entry jobs or warehouse work. I assume because all the recruiters for good jobs tend not to see the job centre as a vast, deep, talent pool, so they simply don’t hear about anything better

I have a few friends who have set up small businesses and UC has worked ok as a complement to a low income (as it should). There are some scenarios that it's not great for - if you make things all the year round but sell most of them in a particular season it can be tricky but overall it's not too bad. I had one friend who was given a target amount to earn (after a while) to prove that it was a viable business. There used to be small business coaching available - I would definitely check that out.

@poly - There are plenty of low paid jobs around which are supported by UC - if you'd rather be low paid working for yourself than working for another business I'd suggest 'subsidising your business experiment' is not a particularly helpful characterisation.

You will have a gateway appointment where the work coach will find you with gainfully or not gainfully self employed - Gainful is along the lines of its what you are committed to and you have no other income, not gainful is more like a sideline or a hobby.  If you are classed as gainful you will not be required to look for work and have a years start up period, not gainful and yes you will be expected to look for work.

It can get quite complicated, if you go to your UC home page, then click on 'help with your UC claim' and scroll down to 'self employed' there is a huge section there with links that explain what s/e on UC means.

I'm a s/e work coach at the JC, so feel free to ask away if you need any help/advice on the claim...