Official statistics released by DWP today show that by February this year there were 5 million Universal Credit (UC) claimants – double the number seen pre-pandemic.
This report examines how household incomes were changing in the UK up to the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how other measures of household living standards have changed over the course of the pandemic.
The temporary £20 per week increase in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit enacted at the start of the pandemic is due to expire at the end of March. Some campaigners have called for it to be extended for another year or made permanent, while the government are said to be considering instead a £500 one off bonus to benefit recipients.
The COVID-19 crisis has led to a profound shock to the labour market, one consequence of which is a rising number of claimants of means-tested benefits and higher entitlements among existing claimants.
This report examines how living standards – most commonly measured by households’ incomes – were changing in the UK up to approximately the eve of the current COVID-19 crisis, using the latest official household income data covering years up to 2018–19.
Using new data from the Understanding Society: COVID 19 survey collected in April 2020, we show how the aggregate shock caused by the pandemic affects individuals across the distribution.
Income inequality, as well as the impact of tax and benefit reforms on it, has typically been evaluated with respect to ‘snapshot’ incomes, measured over short periods such as one week or year.
The tax and benefit system has undergone significant reform since 2010, with large cuts to working-age benefits, a rise in the main rate of VAT, increases in the rate of the state pension, and reductions in direct tax, including a big rise in the income tax personal allowance. In this briefing note we investigate the impact that these reforms have had on household incomes.
This report examines how living standards – most commonly measured by households’ incomes – have changed for different groups in the UK, and the consequences that these changes have for income inequality and for measures of deprivation and poverty. In this latest report, we focus in particular on those people who are poorest in society.
This chapter analyses trends in average incomes and income inequality between UK individuals. We also explore the determinants of trends in income growth and how they have evolved over time, on average and for different groups.
In this research we investigate who wins and loses from universal credit, and by how much. For the first time, we also look at the effects of universal credit on people’s incomes over eight years of their lives, rather than just at a point in time. This lets us look at the impact on those that are persistently, rather than temporarily, low income.
Today Amber Rudd, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, announced that the ‘two-child limit’ in tax credits and Universal Credit will not apply to children born before the policy was implemented in April 2017. This tackles the ‘retrospective’ application of the policy that had attracted criticism, and it means that the full impact of the policy will not be felt until the mid-2030s. But that long-run impact remains unchanged: ultimately the two-child limit will, among those families affected by it, reduce their incomes by an average of £3,000 per year. This remains a major reform to our benefits system.
This report examines changes in the distribution of household incomes in the UK, and the determinants and consequences of recent trends. This includes analysing changes not only in average living standards but also in household income inequality and measures of income poverty and deprivation.
Eligibility for a free lunch was recently extended to all state school children in England and Scotland who are in Year 2 or below (i.e. up to age 6 or 7). For all other state school pupils in the UK, eligibility remains restricted by a means test so that free school meals (FSMs) go to a relatively narrow set of children in poor households. Around 1 million children currently receive means-tested FSMs: equivalent to 15% of those who are not entitled to universal FSMs. We estimate that around two-thirds of those children are in the lowest-income fifth of households with children.
This report examines changes in the distribution of household incomes in the UK, and the determinants and consequences of recent trends. This includes analysing not only
changes in average living standards, but also inequality in household incomes and measures of income poverty and deprivation.
