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.
A year like no other charts the ups and downs of family life on a low income during the unprecedented times of Covid 19. We (participants and researchers from the Covid Realities research project) wrote the book to show how hard life was and the change we need to see.
At the start of the pandemic, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) relaxed some evidence checks for people making a universal credit (UC) claim to provide quicker access to benefits. In January 2021, the DWP began reverifying the details of claims made while evidence checks were eased. This has resulted in some claimants being asked to pay back the entirety of their UC award. More than a year after the exercise started, we continue to hear from people who have had their UC payments stopped, who have received demands to repay all the UC they received, and who are unable to understand or challenge the DWPs decision.
This report pulls together the views and experiences shared by parents and young people in the capital during the first year of the London Calling project. It looks at the key barriers to a good quality of life for children and families living on a low income in London in 2021, examines the effect of the pandemic on these barriers, and sets out what CPAG’s panel of low-income parents in London want the future to look like for themselves and their families.
Free school meal (FSM) provision has been thrust into the media spotlight during the pandemic. But how widespread is FSM coverage? How do parents feel about FSM provision? And what do they think could be done to improve it?
An update to the report we published at the beginning of 2021 highlighting that delays carrying out assessments for disability benefits meant that many disabled people were not receiving or were losing support intended to help them meet the additional costs of their disability.
This joint report from CPAG, the Church of England and the Welfare Reform and Larger Families research project presents the latest estimates of the number of families affected by the two-child limit, and provides an insight into the impact of the policy using survey data from families directly affected by it. It is a continuation of a series of annual reports tracking the impact of this policy over time.
This report highlights that delays carrying out assessments for benefits mean that many disabled people are not receiving, or are losing support, intended to help them meet the additional costs of ill health or disability.
In August, Child Poverty Action Group and the Church of England published a report, Poverty in the Pandemic, which offered a glimpse into the lives of low-income families trying to survive the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. This report provides an update on how families with children are managing financially, based on an additional 393 online survey responses received in the period since the last report was published, up to the end of November 2020.
Coronavirus has turned the lives of families with children upside down. Many parents have lost jobs or been furloughed and many schools and childcare facilities have largely been closed, leaving those still in work facing the impossible task of balancing work with childcare and home schooling. These challenges are particularly acute for low-income families. This new report from CPAG and the Church of England offers an important insight into the day-to-day struggles that families have been dealing with, as well as their strength and resilience in managing such an array of challenges on a limited income.