A change is coming to child benefit. This Saturday, more families will become eligible as the earnings threshold at which you start losing child benefit increases. The government has finally recognised that ‘the way we treat child benefit in the tax system is confusing and unfair’ and proposed two changes to try to simplify it. It’s ironic that this confusion and unfairness was introduced by the government in the first place.
What impact is the cost of living crisis having on families' abilities to keep warm this winter? Parents and carers on a low income who are part of Changing Realities have shared their experiences.
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.
The DWP has just confirmed that it's pressing ahead with managed migration (the process by which people on the old ‘legacy’ benefits will move to universal credit (UC)). Here are six reasons for alarm as the government forges ahead with its plans to move 1.7m people by the end of 2024.
I have found this whole cost of living subject a difficult one for us in particular. It is topical at the moment and is a constant weight on my mind. There's no escape, everywhere I turn, it’s all around me. The TV, the news and social media. I’m tired of it and the continuous daily struggle. I feel we’ve been experiencing and have been living this for some time.
Last month, chancellor Rishi Sunak stood before the dispatch box and delivered his third and most significant budgetary response to the current cost of living crisis. As he announced the measures, he pledged: 'We need to make sure that for those whom the struggle is too hard…and for whom the risks are too great…they are supported… We will make sure the most vulnerable and the least well off get the support they need at this time of difficulty.'
‘This government will not sit idly by whilst there is a risk that some in our country might be set so far back they might never recover’, said chancellor Rishi Sunak in the opening remarks to his statement this afternoon. But does this ring true? Did his announcements offer a sign of hope for families?
Is the benefit system financially adequate? The honest answer to that has to be no. Due to this fact my family along with millions of others are being plunged deeper into debt, desperation and an era of complete poverty.