I’m absolutely devastated. Crushed. And I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next couple of months. My benefits have been withdrawn with no warning. I’ve lost £1,165 a month in employment and support allowance (Esa), housing benefit and council tax reduction. Why? Because I tried to be honest and because sadists at the Department for Work and Pensions decided it would be fun to destroy someone like me.
So what happened? My employer, a lovely woman and close friend, changed the way she paid me. She went from giving me a pay packet to pay as you earn. The difference, as you probably know, is that instead of getting an envelope in my hand, the money goes straight into my bank.
For those of us on Esa, which I receive because my health is too poor for me to be able to work full time, there is a limit to how long we can work a week – 16 hours a week. Anything over that, and I lose most of my benefits. When my friend changed the way she paid me, I had to fill in a form. It asked how many hours I worked a week so I wrote 16 hours a week – ie, the maximum.
Only it turns out I got it wrong. Sixteen hours is over the limit. The actual limit is 15 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Now, in a functional, humane country, the DWP would look at my form and say, “Poor/daft Liz didn’t know that the extra second takes her beyond her legal limits, but obviously we’re not going to remove her Esa her for that – we’ll carry on as normal, and write to explain to her”. But oh no. Not in Britain, where the qualification for working in the DWP appears to be a degree in cruelty, a masters in pedantry and a PhD in bastardology.
I found out when I was in Lidl with my son, the week after my benefits were due to be paid. My card was refused. There wasn’t enough money in the bank. It was humiliating.
The following day I got the letter telling me I was going to have my Esa cut off for the previous week because I had worked too many hours – or rather one second too much. All in all, they’ve stopped my Esa, which is £320 a fortnight, suspended my housing benefit of £495 a month and cancelled my council tax reduction, which is worth about £30 a month.
I’d been doing OK until this – just about surviving, looking after my two teenage children with a mix of work and benefits, and being a reasonable role model for the kids. Despite my poor health, I’ve always worked. Despite being ill, I still like to feel I’m contributing to society and to show my children it’s good to get off your backside rather than stick your feet up and live off the state. Then they penalise me for something like this. They don’t realise the shock waves it brings to people’s lives. Or they do – and they don’t care. Or, worst of all, they do and positively relish it.
Now they’re saying I have to reapply for my benefits and they’re trying to get me on universal credit, but my mix of benefits has worked perfectly well for 12 years – I know what I’m entitled to and for what. If I go on universal credit it will take me five weeks after being accepted to get my first payment. How am I supposed to survive in the meantime? I’ve got 30 quid left in my bank account.
When I tallied up my hours again after my Esa was cut off, I realised I wasn’t even working 16 bloody hours. It was 15 and a half – 9am to 4pm on Saturday, and 9am to 5.30pm on Monday. Now, I know you might think I’m an idiot, but if I’ve made this mistake, there must be tens of thousands out there just like me, and the DWP has just been waiting to pounce on our ignorance, on a technical error, to break us. And I’m lucky. Other people can’t tell their story through the Guardian like I can. It’s pure vindictiveness.
If the penny-pinchers at the DWP are determined to break me, they’ve done a pretty good job of it. I’m back at the food bank for the first time in two years. I’m proud of food banks and the work they do, but at the same time it is making me feel I’ve failed again. I’ve had the rug pulled from beneath my feet. I’ve got this hunched look about me, and my mental health has taken a hammering. I just want to pull the quilt over my head and not come out, but of course I can’t, because of the kids. I’ve gone from relatively cheery to feeling lower than pond scum.
As told to Simon Hattenstone. Liz is in her 40s and lives in the south-west of England; names have been changed
