{"id":51745,"date":"2021-02-23T10:52:27","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T10:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=748610"},"modified":"2021-02-23T10:52:27","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T10:52:27","slug":"more-than-a-third-of-all-universal-credit-claims-made-since-start-of-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/23\/more-than-a-third-of-all-universal-credit-claims-made-since-start-of-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"More than a third of all Universal Credit claims made since start of pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than a third of claims made since Universal Credit was introduced have been made during the coronavirus pandemic, figures show.<\/p>\n<h5>Claimants<\/h5>\n<p>There were 4.5 million claims for the benefit between 13 March 2020 and 14 January this year, according to figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).<\/p>\n<p>This represents 39% of the 11.4 million claims made since Universal Credit was introduced in April 2013.<\/p>\n<p>The latest quarterly figures take the total number of people on UC to 6 million as of 14 January \u2013 a 98% rise from 12 March 2020.<\/p>\n<p><!-- EMBED START PA Big Number --><\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"pa-embed pa-embed-big-number\" data-type=\"big-number\" data-numbervalue=\"4.2 million\" data-context=\"households received a Universal Credit payment in November 2020\" data-source=\"\"><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/content-embed.pressassociation.com\/embeds.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/figure>\n<p><!-- EMBED END PA Big Number --><\/p>\n<p>The latest available figures show there were 4.9 million households on Universal Credit in November\u00a02020\u00a0\u00a0\u2013\u00a0up 2.2 million since March.<\/p>\n<p>Of these, 85% (4.2 million) received a payment.<\/p>\n<h5>Children<\/h5>\n<p>There has also been a rise in the proportion of households without children which are receiving payments.<\/p>\n<p>Some 59% of households receiving Universal Credit payments were households without children in November 2020, up from 54% in March.<\/p>\n<p>Claims have largely made a return to pre-pandemic levels following a spike at the beginning of the pandemic, with two weeks in spring seeing 10 times as many claims as usual. The DWP said claims also rose in the weeks coinciding with the start of lockdowns in November and January.<\/p>\n<p>People aged 20 to 24 and the over-40s on Universal Credit have increased in proportion since the start of the crisis.<\/p>\n<p><!-- TRACKING START GA --><script>(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','\/\/www.google-analytics.com\/analytics.js','ga');  ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'}); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Jemma Crew, PA Social Affairs Correspondent'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', '8de8ae8c-0aac-4bc0-923c-1d887f81157f'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:finance,paservice:finance:personal-finance,paservice:news,paservice:news:uk'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', null); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'anonymizeIp', true); ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'More than a third of all Universal Credit claims made since start of pandemic'});<\/script><!-- TRACKING END GA --><\/p>\n<h5>&#8220;Uncertainty&#8221;<\/h5>\n<p>Writing on 21 February, <em>Canary <\/em>journalist Steve Topple <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/uk\/analysis\/2021\/02\/21\/confirmed-the-tories-have-caused-destitution-to-explode\/\">reported<\/a> that even with the \u00a320 uplift, Universal Credit is still providing &#8220;inadequate&#8221; support:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The Canary<\/em>\u00a0has been\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/topics\/universal-credit\/\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">covering<\/a>\u00a0Universal Credit during the pandemic. A lot of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/uk\/analysis\/2021\/02\/19\/a-report-just-slammed-the-universal-credit-20-uplift-as-inadequate\/\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">debate<\/a>\u00a0has been about the \u00a320 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 \u00a320 per week from their money. Then, on Friday 19 February,\u00a0<em>ITV News<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/2021-02-19\/peston-universal-credit-20-uplift-to-continue-for-another-six-months\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a>\u00a0that the Tories would keep the uplift. But this would only be for another six months.<\/p>\n<p>This won\u2019t solve several basic issues; not least destitution. For example, for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/uk\/analysis\/2020\/09\/30\/universal-credit-is-back-in-the-spotlight-as-the-tories-dodge-a-massive-issue\/\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">around<\/a>\u00a01.5 million claimants of things like Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), the government hasn\u2019t given any extra support at all during the pandemic. Also, a survey of Universal Credit claimants\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/uk\/analysis\/2021\/02\/19\/a-report-just-slammed-the-universal-credit-20-uplift-as-inadequate\/\"  rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">found<\/a>\u00a0the \u00a320 uplift to be \u201cinadequate\u201d anyway. For example, over 50% of new claimants said they either:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Struggled with affording food.<\/li>\n<li>Couldn\u2019t afford fresh fruit and veg.<\/li>\n<li>Fell behind on their housing costs.<\/li>\n<li>Couldn\u2019t keep up with bills\/debts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>By <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/author\/thecanary\/\">The Canary<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/uk\/news\/2021\/02\/23\/more-than-a-third-of-all-universal-credit-claims-made-since-start-of-pandemic\/\">The Canary<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There were 4.5 million claims for the benefit between March 13 2020 and January 14 2021, according to the Department for Work and Pensions.<\/p>\n<p>By <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/author\/thecanary\/\">The Canary<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1541,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338,304,6620,4,1395,6621,1288],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51746,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51745\/revisions\/51746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}