The harms of the cost of living crisis are multiplied by the benefit cap and two-child limit, flagship policies of the welfare reform agenda which sharply sever the relationship between need and support provided by our social security system.
Ten years since the benefit cap was introduced across Britain, new research shows families affected by the policy have as little as £44 a week to live on after they’ve paid housing costs.
Over 70 charities, unions, faith groups, health professionals and social policy experts have joined forces today to call on the SNP leadership contenders to keep child poverty a top government priority if they become First Minister.
Just over a third (34%) of people on universal credit who are subject to the benefit cap – which the Government claims incentivises work – are assessed by the DWP as not required to look for a job because they are caring for very young children, new FOI data for Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) shows. A further 18% are already in work but don’t earn enough to reach the threshold for the cap to be lifted.
The Scottish Government’s announcement this week of increased funding for discretionary housing payments (DHPs) to mitigate the benefit cap as fully as possible is hugely welcome. It is vital now that people affected by the benefit cap apply to their local authority as soon as possible and ask for a backdate to the beginning of this year.
A family’s ability to get universal credit is often based not on their actual circumstances, but on a fictional version of their circumstances. Welfare rights worker Carri Swann explains.
New DWP figures out today show 107,000 families are facing escalating costs as winter bites with their benefits capped. 56,000 have kids aged under five. And more than 32,000 of these capped families (over 110,000 children) are also subject to the two-child limit policy.