{"id":1004980,"date":"2023-02-24T12:08:46","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T12:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=1649578"},"modified":"2023-02-24T12:08:46","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T12:08:46","slug":"we-now-know-the-dwp-is-still-not-properly-increasing-universal-credit-in-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/02\/24\/we-now-know-the-dwp-is-still-not-properly-increasing-universal-credit-in-april\/","title":{"rendered":"We now know the DWP is still not properly increasing Universal Credit in April"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP<\/a>) will be increasing benefits<\/a> by 10.1% in April<\/a>. These include payments like Universal Credit<\/a>. However, there’s a major problem. In fact, people’s money won’t really be going up enough to cover the cost of rising prices. So, people reliant on benefits are going to be worse off than before the coronavirus<\/a> (Covid-19) pandemic.<\/p>\n Think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies<\/a> (IFS) has crunched some numbers<\/a>. It’s worked out how much April’s benefits increase is actually worth when you factor in price rises (inflation<\/a>). This is called “real terms”. The chaos with inflation has hit the poorest people the hardest:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The IFS says that benefit claimants won’t actually be seeing an increase in April, overall. In reality, the DWP will be taking people’s benefits back up to the rate they were at in April 2022.<\/p>\n That is, if you’re on Universal Credit, your money will only be worth what it was a year ago. This is because everything is now more expensive. Moreover, you’ll still be worse off than before the pandemic. Look at the difference between “2019Q2” and “2023Q2” in the graph below:<\/p>\nOn Universal Credit? Here come the cuts<\/h2>\n