Waiting for the first Universal Credit payment

A major change ushered in with UC is that it is paid monthly (in arrears), and all benefit payments are made directly to individuals. There is a requirement for claimants to have a bank account or equivalent. There is a standard five-week wait for the first payment under UC comprising a one-month assessment period and up to seven days for the payment to reach your account.

The waiting period was even longer before the government reacted to a sustained campaign of pressure from unions and others. From February 2018 it removed the seven-day waiting period for UC so that at least the claim now starts from the date of application. Although this shortened the wait for the first payment from six to five weeks – if it is paid on time – unions and other organisations are campaigning to scrap the five-week wait.

The anti-poverty campaign Trussell Trust, which runs a national network of food banks, is running a #5WeeksTooLong campaign to end the five-week wait, which it says is forcing people to use food banks. More information about the campaign can be found on the Trussell Trust website. (See also page 25 on general union Unite’s campaign against UC.)

https://www.trusselltrust.org/five-weeks-too-long