Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department plans to take to support Universal Credit claimants who are in work with varying paydays each month affecting the benefit assessment period.

There are no plans to change the way universal credit treats earnings received in a claimant’s assessment period.

As Universal Credit is paid monthly, those who are also paid their earnings monthly will normally get one payment in each assessment period. For those who are paid differently such as weekly, fortnightly, or four-weekly, the frequency of their pay will have an effect on how much Universal Credit they will receive in some assessment periods and means that for some months these claimants will receive two or more sets of earnings during one Universal Credit assessment period. This may reduce, or in some cases, end the Universal Credit award the claimant receives that month.

The issue of receiving two sets of monthly earnings affects a small minority of claimants in very specific circumstances, we know that this can occur when a claimant’s monthly pay date and the last day of their assessment period are close together.

In recognition of the impact that having double calendar monthly earnings in an assessment period can have on this small number of individual households, we have introduced legislation to address the issue. This legislation came into force on the 16th November 2020 and means that for cases affected by this issue monthly earnings can be reallocated to another assessment period, which means that only one set of earnings should be taken into account rather than two.

I hope you find this answer helpful.