?Universal Credit claims have soared, and the benefit system is failing to meet the basic cost of living according to the charity Action for Children The number of people making new Universal Credit claims each week has surged by 13 per cent in the last three months according to official data. On average, 33,000 claims were opened between January and April 2022, compared with 29,000 the previous quarter, demonstrating just how much the cost of living crisis is hitting families across the UK.
Overall, 5.6 million people were on Universal Credit in mid-April, of whom 3.8 million were children.
Campaigners warn that these children will be suffering because the government has failed to increase benefits in line with the rate at which prices are rising. Universal Credit is simply failing to meet the basic cost of living.
An analysis by Action for Children of their Crisis Fund has revealed that in the six months since the reduction in UC payments by £20 per week, more than half (54%) of the grants the charity issued were for families on Universal Credit.
The charity’s Crisis Fund was created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and is raised through public donations and support from partners. It provides families with crisis support grants of up to £250.
Action for Children analysed just over 9,000 records from the fund (over 2,300 since the UC cut) and found that nearly four in 10 (39%) grants in recent months have pointed to a rise in household spending, such as energy bills or food, as a top trigger for families’ financial struggles.
The Crisis Fund applications also showed that nearly a third (31%) of families would have struggled to feed their children without the fund, a figure that rose to over a third (37%) among families on Universal Credit.
Whilst Universal Credit was uprated by just 3.1 per cent last month, inflation is currently running at 7 per cent and is projected to hit 10 per cent in the autumn.
New research meanwhile shows that an estimated 1.8 million families on the benefit are having to live on significantly less than they are entitled to because the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is deducting debt repayments from their benefits at an unaffordable rate.
Sherrelle Collman, managing director of Caridon Landlord Solutions a service which provides specialist advice on Universal Credit and Housing Benefit to private landlords, letting agencies, housing associations and local authorities, says:
“The cost of living crisis is being felt by families across the country and particularly children in low income families, and yet the government has still failed to rethink its £20 cut to Universal Credit.
“Part of our role is to help sustain tenancies by supporting landlords and their tenants with Universal Credit claims and help them to navigate the system. But right now, the biggest issue is that many families simply do not have enough money to cover their basic costs such as food. Unless something is done to help, more and more families will be at risk of eviction and the local authorities do not have the resources to house more people. The government must step in now to prevent an epidemic of homelessness”