It’s right that benefits are uprated as usual but this should never have been in doubt and legislation mandating inflationary increases is needed as a basic protection for living standards. Struggling families have been worrying themselves sick for months about whether an unmanageable income cut was coming in order to provide the government with a rabbit-out-of-the-hat moment.
Parents typically need to find at least £39 per week for a child’s secondary school education and £19 for a primary-aged child, research for Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) finds.
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.
What impact will rising fuel prices have on fuel poverty? How many households are spending ever greater proportions of their income on fuel? And who will be worst affected? These estimates take into account the cost of living payments announced in the Autumn Statement.
What impact will rising fuel prices have on fuel poverty? How many households are spending ever greater proportions of their income on fuel? And who will be worst affected?
Low-income families will have an estimated £1,000 shortfall for energy costs alone in the year to April 2023, if as expected Ofgem’s price cap rises to £3,554 in October, new analysis from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) shows. An announcement on the new cap is due tomorrow.
This paper is a revision of the analysis which was published by Child Poverty Action Group on 1 August. On 2 August new gas and electricity price cap estimates were published for October 2022 and January 2023 which slightly lowered the estimates for October and slightly increased them for January.
By January 2023 over half of households in the UK (15 million) will be in fuel poverty – spending over 10 per cent of net income on fuel. They will on average be spending £38.25 above the 10 per cent threshold. There are big regional variations in fuel poverty ranging from 47.5 per cent in London to 71.7 per cent in Northern Ireland.
The DWP has just confirmed that it's pressing ahead with managed migration (the process by which people on the old ‘legacy’ benefits will move to universal credit (UC)). Here are six reasons for alarm as the government forges ahead with its plans to move 1.7m people by the end of 2024.
I have found this whole cost of living subject a difficult one for us in particular. It is topical at the moment and is a constant weight on my mind. There's no escape, everywhere I turn, it’s all around me. The TV, the news and social media. I’m tired of it and the continuous daily struggle. I feel we’ve been experiencing and have been living this for some time.