A family’s ability to get universal credit is often based not on their actual circumstances, but on a fictional version of their circumstances. Welfare rights worker Carri Swann explains.
The year 2020 has put unprecedented pressures on families bringing up children. Parents across the world have taken on new challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic in keeping their children healthy and safe as well as properly fed, educated and entertained at a time when they have been required to stay at home, and when many families’ livelihoods have been threatened. Our cost of a child report looks at what items families need to provide a minimum socially acceptable standard of living for their children in 2020.
Universal credit: what needs to change to reduce child poverty and make it fit for families? calls for design and funding changes to improve claimants’ experience of universal credit and to reduce child poverty.
This report shows parents struggled more than ever to provide a decent standard of living for their families in 2013. This is the second in a series of annual reports on the cost of bringing up a child in the UK.