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Category: Disability

  • Rishi Sunak just ignored disabled people literally knocking his door

    Rishi Sunak and the Treasury just refused to listen to sick and disabled people. Because a campaign group tried to deliver the stories of dozens of them to Sunak’s office. But it refused to take them; damning, really – given the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) did.

    Disabled People Against Cuts

    Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is a grassroots campaign group. It’s been vocal about the government and Sunak’s response to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. Notably, DPAC has been campaigning around the £20 a week Universal Credit uplift. It’s been calling for this rise to be applied to so-called legacy benefits. This is because the DWP didn’t give people on things like Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) any extra money.

    As The Canary reported, DPAC and two other groups held a day of action on 6 February. It was about the £20 uplift. But it also showed Sunak’s lack of support for people on legacy benefits. The groups then held a second day of action on Monday 1 March. But this time DPAC took its action one step further.

    Knocking doors

    As it tweeted, it paid a visit to Sunak and the Treasury:

    It wrote on its website that part of its action was collecting testimony from people affected by social security. These included comments from people on legacy benefits, about how the lack of extra financial support has hit them:

    We did two things with these: 1) compiled a document combining lived experience with key findings from recent reports evidencing the need to retain and extend the uplift… 2) Printed them all out (anonymously), placed them in individual envelopes in a postage sack and arranged for a courier (paid above London Living Wage) to deliver them to the Treasury for us.

    But DPAC again went further than this.

    Protesting the cuts

    As it noted:

    we weren’t sure that even 190 letters and testimonies would get the message through.

    So we created some very basic education tools in the form of wheelchairs to which we attached items and explanatory tags representing the essentials that disabled people are having to go without due to the financial pressures of the pandemic, including a blanket (heating); an incontinence pad (bathing, laundry and medicines); a face mask (PPE); an empty packet of cuppa soup (nutritious food) and an empty purse (enough money to live on).

    Part of DPAC protest against Rishi Sunak

    An image from DPAC protest against Rishi Sunak

    But it wasn’t just Sunak that got DPAC’s delivery. The group also sent the same things to Downing Street and the DWP’s office. But none of them would take the wheelchairs and their contents. Curiously, the DWP was the only place that took DPAC’s collection of testimonies.

    Sunak and Co: leaving disabled people “out in the cold”

    So, we shouldn’t hold out hope that Sunak et al will heed the message DPAC delivered. As it said:

    The resounding impression of the afternoon is that once again the Tories are leaving disabled people out in the cold and assuming they can get away with it.

    Early reports say Sunak will keep the Universal Credit uplift. But they don’t say if he’ll do anything for legacy benefits. So, many sick and disabled people will once more be left in dire straits.

    Featured image via DPAC and Sky News – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Here’s how you can support the campaign to stop the deportation of Osime Brown

    Osime Brown – a Black 21-year-old autistic man with learning disabilities – is facing deportation from his home in Britain to Jamaica. He was imprisoned in 2018 under the joint enterprise act for the theft of a mobile phone, and lost his leave to remain. The Home Office now intends to deport Brown from his home in Britain to Jamaica, a country he left when he was four years old.

    Throughout his tumultuous life, Brown has been systematically failed by the services that were supposed to protect him – the education, health and social care, and criminal justice systems. Brown has a learning disability, has high support needs, and now suffers from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his distress. Regarding the Home Office’s plan to deport her son to Jamaica, Brown’s mother said:

    He doesn’t have anybody there. He hasn’t been back to Jamaica, he doesn’t know Jamaica. When he found out the Home Office wanted to remove him he said: “Mum, is there a bus that I can come back on?” His removal would be a death sentence.

    She told the Independent:

    He wouldn’t cope. If he can’t even cope here, how is he going to cope in a environment and a culture he doesn’t know? He would be exploited because of his vulnerability.

    34 MPs have signed a letter calling on home secretary Priti Patel to halt the planned deportation of Brown, saying:

    If Osime is deported, it is our and his mother’s belief that he will die.

    #StopTheDeportation

    Brown’s family have taken to social media to call for a twitterstorm at 7pm on 25 February to raise awareness about his case and stop the planned deportation:

    They have shared a useful thread on how people can get involved in the online campaign:

    They encourage those taking part to tag the official @FreeOsimeBrown page and to use hashtags to ensure the campaign is impactful:

    Who will be joining?

    Emma Taylor shared some information about Brown’s case and how to get involved in the twitterstorm:

    One Twitter user has shared a reminder for those taking part in the twitterstorm to tag their MPs to make sure the word gets out:

    Another user has shared graphics that people can use to draw attention to the cause:

    Bill Ward shared a helpful reminder that users can schedule tweets using sites such as Tweetdeck:

    How else can I help?

    As Aimee-Nicole has highlighted, people can sign the petition to halt the deportation:

    Another Twitter user has shared the template people can use to write to the Home Office and their MP, calling on them to end the injustice:

    Supporters can also donate to the campaign fundraiser.

    However we choose to support the campaign, we must use our collective voice to demand justice for Brown and send a loud, clear message that we do not accept the Home Office’s plans to put a vulnerable young man into an extremely dangerous situation.

    Featured image via @FreeOsimeBrown/Twitter

    By Sophia Purdy-Moore

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • COVID Vaccine Websites Violate Disability Laws, Create Inequity for Blind People

    Will Butler walks home from the grocery store from his home in Silverlake on January 21, 2021, in Los Angeles, California. The pandemic has brought increased challenges to navigating himself around the city.

    Many covid vaccination registration and information websites at the federal, state and local levels violate disability rights laws, hindering the ability of blind people to sign up for a potentially lifesaving vaccine, a KHN investigation has found.

    Across the country, people who use special software to make the web accessible have been unable to sign up for the vaccines or obtain vital information about covid-19 because many government websites lack required accessibility features. At least 7.6 million people in the U.S. over age 16 have a visual disability.

    WebAIM, a nonprofit web accessibility organization, checked covid vaccine websites gathered by KHN from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. On Jan. 27, it found accessibility issues on nearly all of 94 webpages, which included general vaccine information, lists of vaccine providers and registration forms.

    In at least seven states, blind residents said they were unable to register for the vaccine through their state or local governments without help. Phone alternatives, when available, have been beset with their own issues, such as long hold times and not being available at all hours like websites.

    Even the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Administration Management System, which a small number of states and counties opted to use after its rocky rollout, has been inaccessible for blind users.

    Those problems violate the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which established the right to communications in an accessible format, multiple legal experts and disability advocates said. The federal Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law that prohibits governments and private businesses from discriminating based on disability, further enshrined this protection in 1990.

    Doris Ray, 72, who is blind and has a significant hearing impairment, ran into such issues when she tried to sign up for a vaccine last month with the CDC’s system, used by Arlington County in Virginia. As the outreach director for the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, an advocacy center run by and for people with disabilities, she had qualified for the vaccine because of her in-person work with clients.

    When she used screen-reading technology, which reads a website’s text aloud, the drop-down field to identify her county did not work. She was unable to register for over two weeks, until a colleague helped her.

    “This is outrageous in the time of a public health emergency, that blind people aren’t able to access something to get vaccinated,” Ray said.

    Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind, wrote to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in early December, laying out his concerns on vaccine accessibility.

    “A national emergency does not exempt federal, state, and local governments from providing equal access,” he wrote.

    Dr. Robert Redfield, who was then leading the CDC, responded that the interim vaccine playbook for health departments included a reminder of the legal requirements for accessible information.

    CDC spokesperson Jasmine Reed said in an email that VAMS is compliant with federal accessibility laws and that the agency requires testing of its services.

    But more than two months into a national vaccine campaign, those on the ground report problems at all levels.

    Some local officials who use VAMS are aware of the ongoing problems and blame the federal government. Arlington Assistant County Manager Bryna Helfer said that because VAMS is run by the federal government the county cannot access the internal workings to troubleshoot the system for blind residents.

    Connecticut Department of Public Health spokesperson Maura Fitzgerald said the state was aware of “many accessibility issues” with VAMS. She said it had staffed up its call center to handle the problems and was working with the federal government “to improve VAMS and enable the functionality that was promised.”

    Deanna O’Brien, president of the National Federation of the Blind of New Hampshire, said she had heard from blind people unable to use the system. New Hampshire’s health department did not answer KHN questions about the problems.

    Blind people are particularly vulnerable to contracting the covid virus because they often cannot physically distance themselves from others.

    “When I go to the grocery store, I do not have the option of walking around and not being near a person,” said Albert Elia, a blind attorney who works with the San Francisco-based TRE Legal Practice on accessibility cases. “I need a person at the store to assist me in shopping.”

    There is no standardized way to register for a covid vaccine nationwide — or fix the online accessibility problems. Some states use VAMS; some states have centralized online vaccination registration sites; others have a mix of state-run and locally run websites, or leave it all to local health departments or hospitals. Ultimately, state and local governments are responsible for making their vaccination systems accessible, whether they use the VAMS system or not.

    “Once those portals open, it’s a race to see who can click the fastest,” Riccobono said. “We don’t have time to do things like file a lawsuit, because, at the end of the day, we need to fix it today.”

    Common programming failures that make sites hard to use for the visually impaired included text without enough contrast to distinguish words from the page’s background and images without alternative text explaining what they showed, the WebAIM survey showed. Even worse, portions of the forms on 19 states’ pages were built so that screen readers couldn’t decipher what information a user should enter on search bars or vaccine registration forms.

    The new vaccine pages had more errors than states’ main coronavirus pages but slightly fewer than state government websites in general, said WebAIM Associate Director Jared Smith.

    In Alameda County, California, when Bryan Bashin, 65, who is blind and CEO of the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco, tried to sign up on Feb. 9 for his vaccine appointment, he encountered multiple hurdles. The appointments slipped away. That night he received an email from the city of Berkeley offering vaccinations. But after two hours struggling with its inaccessible website, all the slots were again taken, he said in an email.

    He was only able to get an appointment after his sighted sister signed him up and has since received his first shot.

    “It’s an awful bit of discrimination, one as stinging as anything I’ve experienced,” Bashin said.

    Susan Jones, a blind 69-year-old in Indianapolis, had to rely on the Aira app, which allows a sighted person to operate her computer remotely, when she tried to register for her vaccine appointment.

    “I resent that the assumption is that a sighted fairy godmother ought to be there at all times,” said Sheela Gunn-Cushman, a 49-year-old also in Alameda County, who also had to rely on Aira to complete preregistration for a vaccine.

    Emily Creasy, 23, a visually impaired woman in Polk County, Oregon, said she tried unsuccessfully for a month to make the scheduling apparatus work with her screen reader. She finally received her first shot after her mother and roommate helped her.

    Even Sachin Dev Pavithran, 43, who is blind and executive director of the U.S. Access Board, an independent agency of the federal government that works to increase accessibility, said he struggled to access vaccine registration information in Logan, Utah.

    The Indiana Health Department, Public Health Division of Berkeley and Oregon’s Polk County Public Health did not respond to requests for comment. Utah’s Bear River Health Department did not answer questions on the issue.

    After Alameda County received complaints from users that its site was not compatible with screen readers, officials decided to move away from its preregistration technology, Health Department spokesperson Neetu Balram said in mid-February. The county has since switched to a new form.

    If vaccine accessibility issues are not fixed across the country, though, lawsuits could come next, Elia said. Members of the blind community recently won landmark lawsuits against Domino’s Pizza and the Winn-Dixie grocery chain after being unable to order online.

    And, Elia said, “this is not ordering a pizza — this is being able to get a potentially lifesaving vaccine.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Exposed: Devastating DWP cuts have led to more people dying during the pandemic

    Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) welfare cuts have had a “direct” and “negative” impact on people’s mental and physical health. That’s the view of a new report into the UK’s social security system. Moreover, the research also highlights how DWP’s changes over the past five years led to a perfect storm of deprivation and ill health when the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic hit. Taken as a whole, the report’s findings suggest a greater number of people have died and suffered during the pandemic because of the cuts.

    DWP: back to 2016

    In 2016, the Conservative government put in place the Welfare Reform and Work Act. It made sweeping changes to the social security system. The then work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith said at the time it would form part of:

    the Government’s aim to move from a high tax, high welfare and low wage society to a low tax, lower welfare and higher wage society. This Bill lays the ground for that commitment and helps us to continue the job of reversing the Labour’s Government’s failure that led us into the difficulties we inherited.

    Now, five years on, the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Health in All Policies has looked at the Act. It has analysed the effect it has had on social security claimants. And the APPG has also looked at how the 2016 changes have affected society overall. Its findings and conclusion are damning.

    Sweeping changes

    The act made numerous changes to social security. As the APPG’s report laid out, it:

    • “Reduced the benefit cap (the total income from social security support)”.
    • Put in place the “benefits freeze“.
    • “Limited the amount of support provided by child tax credit for families who become responsible to a third or subsequent child born on or after 6 April 2017”.
    • “Limited the child element of universal credit to a maximum of two children”.
    • “Removed the Work-Related Activity [WRAG] component in Employment and Support Allowance [ESA] and the Limited Capability for Work element in Universal Credit”.

    In short, all these were effectively cuts or restrictions on the amount of money the DWP gave to claimants. Now, by combining lots of research, the APPG has reported on the vast impact the act has had.

    Five key areas

    The APPG looked at the act in the context of five areas. These were:

    • Benefit cap: £1.62bn cut.
    • Benefit freeze: £10.2bn cut; 30% of households saw a reduction in money.
    • Two child limit: £5.35bn cut, affecting 3.8 million families.
    • “Abolition of £30 a week support for disabled people who were unfit for work (ESA WRAG)”: £1.365bn cut, affecting half a million disabled and sick people.
    • “Extension of sanctions to ‘responsible carers’ (parents of pre-nursery age children)”.

    Then, its report compiled lots of evidence. This showed that the 2016 act has not done what the Tories claimed it would do. In fact, when you look at what has happened, it has really done the opposite.

    Overarching negative effects

    After the Tories put the 2016 Act, and one from 2013, in place, The APPG report notes the following effects. Child poverty went up:

    APPG Report Child Poverty

    The number of homeless children in March 2019 was 51% higher than in 2014:

    APPG Child Homelessness

    Trussell Trust foodbank use went up:

    APPG Foodbanks

    There was a rise in children on Free School Meals:

    APPG Free School Meals

    But it was the APPG’s analysis on welfare reform’s effects on people’s physical and mental health which made for the starkest reading.

    DWP reforms: literally making people sick

    Its research noted that:

    • Infant mortality rose from 3.6 per 1,000 live births in 2017 to 3.9. The report said this was “unprecedented in modern history”. The report also said that from 2016-18 there was a “16.4% increase in the number of women with 2 or more children terminating their pregnancies compared to increases of 7% and 10.3% for women with no children and one child, respectively“.
    • Disabled people’s anxiety increased:

    APPG anxiety

    APPG Loneliness

    It also noted that:

    more than half of the 14 million people living in poverty have a disabled person in their household. Approximately 6.5 million disabled adults and children are living in poverty, with disabled working age adults having the highest rate (40%). Although physical disability rates have stayed the same over the last 5 years, mental health conditions have increased. Since 2012, there are an additional 1.6 million people with a severe mental health condition or mental disability.

    Then, it cited 2017 research which said that negative health behaviours like smoking and not eating fresh fruit and vegetables were associated with increased poverty. More research showed that poor children:

    were more likely to have socioemotional behavioural problems, cognitive disability and to be overweight or obese

    Shortening claimant’s lives?

    The report also noted that:

    • There was a 9% increase in claimants with “depressive-like symptoms” due to the benefit cap.
    • Another study found a “causal relationship between the psychological distress that claimants experienced and moving onto” Universal Credit.

    Abrahams summed up by saying:

    The impacts of this social security-driven poverty on the health and wellbeing on the population is profound. The United Kingdom is one of a few advanced economies where our life expectancy has flatlined since 2018, with poor areas seeing a decline. But the impact of this poverty on our children on their life chances but also on their longevity is shocking for the 5th richest country in the world. The evidence that for every 1% increase in child poverty there’s an extra 5.8 infant deaths per 100 000 live births shame us.

    But then the pandemic hit. And as the report highlights, all of the problems the DWP created made this worse.

    Entrenching the issues

    In early 2020, professor Michael Marmot released a report. It looked at the 10 years after The Marmot Review and looked at the health of society. Marmot found that:

    • people can expect to spend more of their lives in poor health.
    • improvements to life expectancy have stalled, and declined for the poorest 10% of women.
    • the health gap has grown between wealthy and deprived areas.

    In December last year, he added to his “call” on the government. This was because coronavirus had hit poorest communities the hardest. Marmot said that the causes of this were the:

    • “governance and political culture which has damaged social cohesion and inclusivity”.
    • “widening inequalities in power, money and resources”.
    • “regressive austerity policies over the last decade”.
    • “declining life expectancy and healthy life expectancy of the poorest, particularly women, which is amongst the worst of all comparable economies”.

    In other words, things like the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 had directly led to people dying during the pandemic.

    The ‘dehumanisation’ of claimants

    Abrahams said in a statement that:

    There is a growing evidence base of the direct and negative impacts of different aspects of the social security system on the mental and physical health of claimants and their families, in addition to the indirect impacts mediated by poverty as a result of having inadequate income from work and/or social security support.

    In addition to quantitative evidence we looked at qualitative studies which pointed to a process of ‘dehumanising’ claimants that eroded their self-esteem and confidence, making them feel worthless. In some cases, the whole experience had proved too much for some claimants and they have taken their own lives.

    It’s important to note the knock-on impact that this ill health will have on health services and for social protection to be recognised as mitigating against socio-economic health risk factors.

    So, what can be done?

    Overarching changes needed

    The APPG said it wanted the government to make 16 changes. These included:

    • “making permanent” the £20 a week Universal Credit uplift.
    • “Removing sanctions”.
    • “Eradicating benefit caps and lifting the two-child limit”.
    • “Ending the five-week wait for Universal Credit and providing cash grants for low-income households”.

    But will the DWP and the Tories listen?

    The DWP says…

    The Canary asked the DWP for comment. It said in response to the APPG report:

    This Government has always been committed to supporting the most vulnerable and targeting support to those in greatest need, including boosting welfare support by billions and investing at least £2.3 billion of extra funding a year in mental health services by 2023/24.

    The DWP also pointed The Canary to additional measures it has put in place. These included the £20 Universal Credit uplift which runs until the end of March, and additional investment in mental health services.

    But Abrahams disagrees.

    Money-saving at the expense of people’s lives

    She said the 2016 act has literally done little else except save money:

    Although the Government achieved their aim of cutting welfare spending by introducing these measures – working age spending on social security has shrunk by £34bn since 2010 – there has been minimal impact on helping to get people into work who wouldn’t have got into work without these measures.

    In the short term, Abrahams said:

    This is a clear warning to the Chancellor that, as a bare minimum, he must maintain the £20 Universal Credit uplift in his Budget this week to help alleviate some of the devastating damage caused by this act, and the ongoing effects Covid, on low income families who are already struggling to survive.

    But it remains to be seen how UK social security will pan out in the long term. The number of Universal Credit claimants has doubled since the pandemic started. With around six million people now claiming, it’s likely the problems that the APPG highlighted will now affect even more people. And given its track record, it’s unlikely the Tory government will act to stop this.

    Featured image via The Canary and Wikimedia 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Confirmed: the Tories have caused destitution to explode

    The number of households living in destitution has more than doubled in 2020. That’s according to new research. It shows nearly half a million two-adult families survive on less than £100 a week. But given what we know about the Tories’ coronavirus (Covid-19) response and pre-existing poverty, it’s hardly surprising.

    Destitution: out of control?

    The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has looked into UK destitution. It has done this for an episode of Channel 4 Dispatches. The NIESR hasn’t published its research yet. But the Guardian reported on the headline figures. It said that:

    Destitution is defined as a two-adult household living on less than £100 a week and a single-adult household on less than £70 a week after housing costs.

    It noted that the NIESR found:

    there were 220,000 more households living in destitution by the end of last year, potentially more than half a million people.

    This is an increase in the number of destitute families from 197,400 to 421,500. The NIESR also found that the amount of destitution was different across the UK. For example, in the North West of England rates were three times higher than the UK figure. But the NIESR research is against a backdrop of increasing social decay.

    Poverty: already entrenched in foodbank Britain

    The Canary previously reported on growing poverty. So far, there are no official figures for how much it has grown during the pandemic. But one study found that at least 700,000 more people were in poverty than before. The figure included 120,000 more children. This would mean more than 15 million people live in poverty in the UK. Foodbank figures also bear this out.

    The Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) said that it saw an 88% increase between February and October 2020. The Trussell Trust said it saw a 47% increase in “need” between 1 April and 30 September 2020. It gave out 1.2m food parcels. The Trussell Trust said this was its busiest ever half-year. This was despite the previous year being a record one for it. As the Trussell Trust wrote:

    2,600 emergency food parcels were provided for children every day on average… during the first six months of the pandemic.

    And on top of this, there’s been chaos with the social security system.

    Social security chaos

    The Canary has been covering Universal Credit during the pandemic. A lot of debate has been about the £20 a week uplift. In April 2020, the DWP increased the rate of Universal Credit by this amount. But ever since, uncertainty has existed over what will happen this April. If the Tories end the increase, people will see the DWP cut £20 per week from their money. Then, on Friday 19 February, ITV News reported that the Tories would keep the uplift. But this would only be for another six months.

    This won’t solve several basic issues; not least destitution. For example, for around 1.5 million claimants of things like Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), the government hasn’t given any extra support at all during the pandemic. Also, a survey of Universal Credit claimants found the £20 uplift to be “inadequate” anyway. For example, over 50% of new claimants said they either:

    • Struggled with affording food.
    • Couldn’t afford fresh fruit and veg.
    • Fell behind on their housing costs.
    • Couldn’t keep up with bills/debts.

    The pandemic has seen a perfect storm of factors entrenching severe hardship and destitution. But what’s the answer?

    We don’t need a new “Beveridge report”

    The Guardian reported that Louise Casey, Boris Johnson’s “adviser on homelessness last year”, said the UK needs:

    A new Beveridge report. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. Government can, if it wants to, do something on a different scale now. The nation has been torn apart, and there’s no point being defensive about that. We’ve got to gift each other some proper space to think. We’ve got to work out how not to leave the badly wounded behind.

    The Beveridge Report was a 1942 “blueprint” for social policy, designed to reduce poverty. But Casey saying we need one naively assumes that the Tories want to tackle it. Given that in over ten years, right up until this January, they haven’t bothered, what’s changed? Very little. So, we don’t need another report telling us that Tory-led capitalism causes poverty. We need radical change from the bottom, up. And the sooner that happens, the better.

    Featured image via Garry Knight – Flickr and the Telegraph – YouTube 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A report just slammed the Universal Credit £20 uplift as ‘inadequate’

    The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Universal Credit is under the microscope again. This time, a survey of claimants found the benefit left them in chaos. It called the £20 uplift “inadequate”. But the problem is that this isn’t exactly news to the countless people who’ve been struggling on it for years.

    The DWP: here we go again

    The Canary has been covering Universal Credit during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. A lot of debate has been about the £20 a week uplift. In April 2020, the DWP increased the rate of Universal Credit by this amount. But ever since, uncertainty has existed over what will happen this April. If the Tories end the increase, people will see the DWP cut £20 per week from their money. So far, the Tories have not budged on the issue.

    But now, a survey of claimants has found many have been struggling. Most notably, it showed that the £20 a week increase hasn’t made much difference.

    Welfare at a (Social) Distance is a research project that’s looked into social security during the pandemic. The Guardian reported the project:

    surveyed 6,431 new and existing benefit claimants between May and June, and carried out 74 in-depth interviews between June and September.

    The survey’s results were unsurprising.

    No surprises here

    It found the problems with Universal Credit for new claimants were numerous. The research noted that when they applied for it:

    • 37% had problems with the website.
    • 28% had problems with the phone process:

    UC survey one

    Then, while people waited for their first payment, many didn’t apply for the built in advance:

    • 28% said it was because they didn’t want to get into debt.
    • 9.3% said it was because they hadn’t heard of it:

    UC Survey Two

    If people did apply for an advance, the DWP still didn’t leave them with enough money:

    • 28% had to borrow from a bank, credit card or other financial institution.
    • 28% borrowed money friends:

    UC Survey Three

    Also for people who didn’t claim an advance, 42% of them said they either:

    • Skipped meals.
    • Fell behind on housing costs.
    • Didn’t keep up with bills/other debt:

    UC Survey Four

    Overall, the DWP hit 41% of new claimants with a deduction, cap, or charge related to their claim:

    UC Survey Five

    Where’s the £20 a week gone?

    When people did start getting Universal Credit payments, over 50% of new claimants said their income had fallen by more than 25%:

    UC Survey Six

    This is while over 50% said their outgoings either stayed the same or increased:

    UC Survey Seven

    UC Survey Eight

    When people were properly on Universal Credit, they said the DWP still didn’t give them enough to live on. For example, almost 5% had to use a foodbank:

    UC Survey Nine

    Around 62% of people couldn’t even save £10 a month. And roughly the same number wouldn’t have been able to buy something like a fridge if theirs broke:

    UC Survey Ten

    But these were the “less severe” impacts of the DWP’s level of payments. Over 50% of new claimants said they either:

    • Struggled with affording food.
    • Couldn’t afford fresh fruit and veg.
    • Fell behind on their housing costs.
    • Couldn’t keep up with bills/debts:

    UC Survey Twelve

    The hardest hit group? Disabled people:

    UC Survey Fourteen

    Dr Kate Summers led the report. She said:

    We should think more ambitiously about what ‘success’ means within our social security benefits system. Yes, the benefits system held up through the first wave of the pandemic, but fundamental issues remain in terms of the adequacy of payment levels, and people’s ability to access and understand the system.

    Indeed. Because the report paints a damning snapshot of the current situation. But the problems with Universal Credit have been there since the start.

    Systemic issues

    Survey after survey has found Universal Credit doesn’t work. Nearly four years ago, the DWP did its own survey. The Canary reported the findings. For example, they showed that:

    • 25% of people couldn’t complete their claim online.
    • 72% of claimants either financially struggled from “time to time” or constantly, fell behind, or were having “real financial difficulties”.
    • Around 35% of claimants were in arrears with housing costs.
    • About 22% of claimants were struggling with both bills/financial commitments and housing costs.

    So, it seems little has changed since then. All the Welfare at a (Social) Distance project’s findings for new claimants include the £20 a week uplift. It’s report said that:

    our evidence suggests that even with the £20 uplift, benefit levels are inadequate for many claimants

    Campaigning to keep the £20 extra isn’t sufficient. Because it’s barely helping many people at the minute anyway. But moreover, it’s because the UK’s social security system is broken beyond repair. We need a fresh start for the welfare state. £20 a week empty gestures are simply not good enough.

    Featured image via EliasSch2 – pixabay and Wikimedia 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A staggering fact in the Universal Credit chaos just emerged

    New research has plunged Universal Credit into further chaos. It involves the debate around the £20 a week uplift. A charity has claimed that without this, Universal Credit will be worth less than in 2013.

    But The Canary has done its own research. And we’ve found that the problems with the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) flagship benefit and the uplift are actually worse than even this new research thought. Because some people could be nearly £440 a month worse off than before.

    DWP and the Treasury: at war

    In April 2020, the DWP increased the rate of Universal Credit by around £20 a week. But ever since then, uncertainty has existed over what will happen this April. Now we know the Tories are ending this increase in April, and people will see a £20 per week cut to their payments.

    Chaos has ensued in government. At first, chancellor Rishi Sunak talked about giving Universal Credit claimants a one-off £500 payment. Then, he was allegedly thinking about making this £1,000. But the DWP boss Thérèse Coffey ‘slapped down‘ Sunak’s idea. She said it was not her department’s “preferred approach”, but did not say what the DWP’s answer would be.

    On 9 February, the Work and Pensions Select Committee warned of a rise in poverty not seen since the 1980s if the government did not keep the uplift. And now, research has further strengthened the argument for keeping the extra £20 a week.

    Universal Credit: worth less than in 2013

    Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) has done some calculations. It has looked at the standard allowance rates. These are fixed amounts the DWP pays people depending on their circumstances. It was this part that the government increased by £20 a week. CAS has worked out how much the allowance is worth in real terms; that is, what the actual amount of money the DWP pays is worth when you factor in inflation. It said that, if the government removes the £20 a week uplift, then across all circumstances the standard allowance will be worth less in real terms than it was in 2013:

    Standard Allowance Real Terms Value

    CAS is calling for the government to keep the uplift. It noted some case studies of how a reduction in Universal Credit would affect people:

    A West of Scotland CAB reports of a client with a young baby facing financial difficulties as a result of unexplained deductions to her benefits. Client’s deductions are around £50 a month, meaning removal of the uplift will push her into more severe hardship.

    An East of Scotland CAB reports of a client moved over to UC as she would be £12 a week better off than on legacy benefits. Cutting the £20 a week UC uplift will make her materially worse off than she was pre-pandemic.

    But CAS has missed another point about the uplift. Because it hasn’t calculated the effects of inflation on overall payments; not just on the standard allowance.

    Canary number crunching

    The Canary has crunched the numbers. DWP figures for mean (average) overall Universal Credit payments only go back to 2015. But as its figures show, couples with children already on average got less money in August 2020 than they did in August 2015. This is with the uplift:

    UC averages couples with children

    Then, factor inflation into these figures. The results are shocking.

    Systemically broken

    This would mean that:

    • Lone parents are £137 a month worse off. Without the uplift, this would go up to around a £217 a month loss (based on four calendar weeks, without inflation).
    • Couples with children are £359 a month worse off. Without the uplift, the figure is around £439.
    • Couples with no children are £8.31 a month worse off. Without the uplift, this is around £88.

    The only group which is better off now than in 2015 is single people with no children; to the tune of £144 a month. But even this is reduced to just £64 if you take off the uplift.

    All this is without even touching on the around 1.5 million claimants of things like Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The government hasn’t given any extra support to these people at all during the pandemic.

    Universal Credit has been a disaster from the start. And while an extra £20 a week is crucial, it’s just a tweak in a system that’s already broken. Entrenched poverty and inequality are now a systemic fault in our social security system. No amount of tinkering around the edges with £20 here and there is going to solve that.

    Featured image via geralt – pixabay, Wikimedia and Wikimedia 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A day of action against the DWP has put a spotlight on our broken social security system

    Campaigners have thrust the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) into the spotlight again. Because on Saturday 6 February, Universal Credit was the subject of a day of online action.

    DWP and the Treasury: at war

    In April 2020, the DWP increased the rate of Universal Credit by around £20 a week. But ever since then, uncertainty has existed over what will happen this April. Since the Tories are ending this increase, people will see a £20 per week cut to their payments.

    Chaos has ensued in government. At first, Sunak talked about giving Universal Credit claimants a one-off, £500 payment. Then, he was allegedly thinking about making this £1,000. But the DWP boss Thérèse Coffey ‘slapped down‘ Sunak’s idea. She said it was not her department’s “preferred approach”, but without saying what the DWP’s answer would be.

    So the Tories are leaving claimants anxious and waiting. And several campaign groups have decided to voice their concerns via social media.

    #20More4All

    Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Homes For All, and People Before Profit are grassroots campaign groups. They set up an online day of action on 6 February. The groups asked people to use #20More4All and #NoCutsToBenefits to post on social media why the government needs to sort this. And so, people did:

    Other groups got involved:

    As did some MPs:

    People also took the campaign into the real world. There were socially distanced demos up and down the UK. And the day of action showed other problems with our social security system too.

    Systemic problems

    #20More4All highlighted people who claim other social security. Because for around 1.5 million claimants of things like Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), the government hasn’t given any extra support at all during the pandemic. And the day of action also made a broader point. It’s that the social security system is not fit for purpose anyway.

    Universal Credit was plagued by problems before coronavirus (Covid-19) hit. This led UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston to call it “Universal Discredit”. Things like the five-week wait for a first payment haven’t gone away because of coronavirus. In fact, some of the problems have become more widespread. For example, a study by the University of York found that:

    Nearly two thirds (63 per cent) of those who claimed for Universal Credit (UC) between March and June [2020] are living on less than they are assessed to need due to deductions. …

    Almost all of the deductions include repayments of an advance loan that claimants can take out while they wait five weeks before receiving their first payment.

    Little has changed

    On Sunday 7 February, the Observer reported that:

    More than three in 10 people who began claiming universal credit after the start of the pandemic last year have acquired new debts, or seen their existing debts grow

    Little has changed since early 2018, when DPAC said the government must ‘scrap’ Universal Credit. The major difference now is millions more people claim it. In the short term, the Tories need to fix the immediate problem of the £20 uplift. And in the long term, the whole social security system needs razing and redesigning.

    Featured image via DPAC, Sky News – YouTube and Wikimedia 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A Desperate Bargain

    Parents are forced to give up custody to get their children medical and psychological treatments. Also, a Trump administration practice forces parents to risk deportation in order to claim their kids from government shelters.

    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.