UNIVERSAL Credit is a single monthly payment that rolls six benefits into one.

The payments are calculated depending on your individual circumstances so yours won’t necessarily be the same as someone else’s.

It’s designed to help people on lower incomes, but the government says it should also help people get back into work.

But the more you work the more your benefits will be affected.

This is because Universal Credit is subject to the taper rate, which means that for every £1 you earn over a certain allowance, 63p is deducted from your payments.

We believe you should be able to keep hold of more of your cash.

The Sun wants the taper rate to be slashed to 50p to help at least four million struggling families.

But until then, we talk you through how your Universal Credit payment is worked out and how getting a job will affect your payments.

How much Universal Credit can I get?

How much Universal Credit you are entitled to depends on your individual circumstances, such as how many children you have, how much money you earn and how many people you live with.

But it’s also affected by the benefit cap, which limits the amount of welfare you can get.

The limits are:

• £1,916.67 a month for couples and single parents in London
• £1,666.67 a month for couples and single parents outside London
• £1,284.17 a month for single person with no children in London
• £1,116.67 a month for a single person with no children outside London.

How is my Universal Credit calculated?

First the Department for Work and Pensions works out how much your household is entitled to, but then it may be affected by deductions or sanctions.

Your partner’s circumstances will be taken into account if you live together, even if you’re not married.

Everyone who is accepted on Universal Credit will be entitled to a Standard Allowance – how much you get depends on whether you’re single or not.

• Single and aged under 25: £251.77 per month
• Single and aged 25 or over: £317.82 per month
• Joint claimants both aged under 25: £395.20 per month
• Joint claimants where one is aged 25 or over: £498.89 per month

Once the DWP has worked out your household allowance it will take into account any claims for additional elements, such as money for children, housing or disabilities.

Here’s all the elements you may be entitled to:

Child element

If your child is under the age of 16 then you can may be entitled to:

• £277.08 per month for first or only child born before 6 April 2017
• £231.67 per month per child in all other circumstances

You can only claim this element for a maximum of two children unless you have twins or you’ve adopted.

If your child has a disability you may also be entitled to:

• £126.11 per month per child receiving DLA or PIP
• £392.08 per month per child if they qualify for the the highest rate of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) care component, enhanced rate of PIP for daily living or are registered blind.

Childcare costs element

Working parents can claim up to 85 per cent of childcare costs , up to a maximum of £646.35 a month for one child, or £1108.04 a month for two or more children.

Unfortunately, parents have to front the upfront costs of sending their child to nursery or with a childminder.

This is stopping thousands of parents from getting back into work, which is why we’re calling on the government to change this.

Housing costs element

Universal Credit can help you pay your rent , or part of it, as well as some service charges.

How much you get depends on whether you’re a private or social tenant.

Private tenants

The amount is based on Local Housing Allowance where you live, which determines rental prices in the area for the number of rooms you need.

For example, a single person without children will be able to claim the average cost of renting a one bedroom flat in the area.

Social housing tenants

You benefit is calculated based on your eligible rent, which takes into account the number of rooms you actually need.

You’re allowed one bedroom for each adult couple, each person over 16, two children of the same sex under 16, two children under 10 regardless of gender, any other child, overnight carer who doesn’t live with you full time.

If you have more bedrooms than you need then your eligible rent is reduced by 14 per cent for one spare, or 15 percent for two or more spares.

If your household has no other income or savings then you’ll receive the full amount that you’re entitled to.

Carer element

Those caring for a severely disabled person for at least 35 hours a week will get £1260.20 a month.

If you’re making a joint claim you can both receive the carers element but not if you’re caring for the same person.

Limited capability for work element

You will need to undergo a Work Capability Assessment before you’re able to claim this element.

If you satisfy the tests you will either get the limited capability for work element (LCW) at £126.11 per month or the limited capability for work related activity element (LCWRA) at £336.20 per month

You won’t be entitled if you earn more than the equivalent of 16 hours a week at the National Minimum Wage.

It’s worth noting that this element has been abolished for most new claimants from April 3 2017.

Can I work while on Universal Credit?

The government says that the flagship welfare system has been designed to help people get back into work.

As a result, you can work as many hours as you want while claiming benefits but it may reduce the amount you get.

That’s because your wages will be subject to the taper rate : for every £1 you earn, your Universal Credit payment will go down 63p.

If you’ve got a job and a child who depends on you or you can’t work as much because of an illness then you may be qualify for a work allowance.

This is the amount you can earn every month before the taper rate kicks in.

If you get help with your housing costs then this will be set at £287, or £503 if you don’t.

For example, if you earn £350 a month and you don’t get help with your rent then your benefits will go down by £39.69.

If you don’t get a work allowance then all of your salary is subject to the taper rate.

So if you’re on the same £350 earnings, your Universal Credit payment will be reduced by £220.50.

What else can lower my payments?

Any other income that you have that isn’t work or benefit related, such as a pension, will see £1 taken from your Universal Credit payment for every £1 of income.

If you have savings when you apply for Universal Credit then they may also lower your payments.

You may also receive less than what you’re entitled to because your payment is subject to deductions.

This could be because you need to repay an advance or budgeting loan or you’ve previously been overpaid Tax Credits.

You may also see money come off your payment because you’ve fallen behind on your rent, council tax or energy bills.

These deductions are payments that go directly to your landlord or housing association, the council or your energy provider to help pay off your debt.

We round up 11 Universal Credit loopholes – including how to apply for extra cash help.

Extra £20 Universal Credit payment explained – who gets it and how is it claimed?

Thousands of people claiming Universal Credit will be worse off this month because coronavirus exemptions from the benefit cap start to end .

Google’s data centers are famous for their efficient use of power, and now they’re (literally) getting even smarter about how they consume electricity. Google today explained how it uses neural networks, a form of machine learning, to drive energy usage in its data centers to new lows.

Google measures data center electricity usage by PUE (power usage effectiveness). A PUE of 2.0 would mean that “for every watt of IT power, an additional watt is consumed to cool and distribute power to the IT equipment,” Google explains . Google’s PUE across all of its data centers is an average of 1.12, meaning nearly all of its energy is used for computing rather than overhead.

One Google employee figured out how to get the number even lower, Google’s blog explained .

“It all started as a 20 percent project, a Google tradition of carving out time for work that falls outside of one’s official job description,” Google data center VP Joe Kava wrote. “Jim Gao, an engineer on our data center team, is well-acquainted with the operational data we gather daily in the course of running our data centers. We calculate PUE, a measure of energy efficiency, every 30 seconds, and we’re constantly tracking things like total IT load (the amount of energy our servers and networking equipment are using at any time), outside air temperature (which affects how our cooling towers work) and the levels at which we set our mechanical and cooling equipment. Being a smart guy—our affectionate nickname for him is ‘Boy Genius’—Jim realized that we could be doing more with this data. He studied up on machine learning and started building models to predict—and improve—data center performance.”

Gao’s models are 99.6 percent accurate in predicting PUE. “This means he can use the models to come up with new ways to squeeze more efficiency out of our operations,” Kava wrote. “For example, a couple months ago we had to take some servers offline for a few days—which would normally make that data center less energy efficient. But we were able to use Jim’s models to change our cooling setup temporarily—reducing the impact of the change on our PUE for that time period.”

In that case, an upgrade to electrical infrastructure required Google to re-route 40 percent of server traffic at a facility, but “through a combination of PUE simulations and local expertise, the team selected a new set of operational parameters that reduced the PUE by ~0.02 compared to the previous configuration,” Gao wrote in a white paper published today.

Gao explained that “neural networks are a class of machine learning algorithms that mimic cognitive behavior via interactions between artificial neurons. They are advantageous for modeling intricate systems because neural networks do not require the user to predefine the feature interactions in the model, which assumes relationships within the data. Instead, the neural network searches for patterns and interactions between features to automatically generate a best­fit model.”

The neural network studies a variety of factors including total server load in kilowatts; the numbers of water pumps, cooling towers, chillers, dry coolers, and chilled water injection pumps in operation; cooling tower water temperature; bulb temperatures; and outdoor humidity, wind speed, and wind direction. In one case, Google saved electricity by increasing the water supply temperature by 3 degrees fahrenheit. In another, the system detected erroneous readings from natural gas meters.