The JRF report highlights that:
- 5.7 million low-income households are having to cut down or skip meals because they don’t have enough money for food, while the number going without items such as food, heating or basic toiletries (63%) has remained around 7 million for more than a year.
- 2.3 million low-income households on UC, more than two thirds of those receiving UC, have been forced into changing the kind of food they buy – including making less nutritious choices.
- Around nine in ten (87%) low-income households on UC have gone without at least one essential for the third survey in over a year – three quarters (76%) have gone hungry, cut down on or skipped meals in the last 30 days, demonstrating the urgent need for an Essentials Guarantee to protect the nation’s health.
As a result, the JRF says, the situation has been “almost universally dire” for people on UC in spite of cost-of-living payments from the Government.
Rachelle Earwaker, JRF’s Senior Economist said: “Over the past year people have been telling us about being unable to afford hot meals, shampoo or a warm shower.
We are seeing these levels of hardship persist and it has become a horrendous new normal – with over half of low-income households on Universal Credit going without three or more of the essentials that we all need to live.”
The JRF report concludes by making the following recommendations:
Start the work towards introducing an Essentials Guarantee. This would make sure the basic rate of UC at least covers the essentials – like food, utilities and vital household items – and that deductions (such as the repayment of debts to the Government at unaffordable rates) can never pull support below this level.
Unfreeze Local Housing Allowance and, at a minimum, realign it with the bottom 30th percentile of local market rents.
Ensure that the Renters Reform Bill does not allow landlords to raise rents within tenancies to unaffordable levels for renters as a loophole to evictions.
Ken Butler DR UK’s Welfare Rights and Policy Adviser said:
“January 2023 research by the Resolution Foundation highlighted that Disabled people are hardest hit by the Cost-of-living crisis, disproportionately struggling to pay energy costs and food bills.
The JRF proposed Essentials Guarantee would significantly improve Disabled people’s standard of living. However, while the thrust of the proposal is extremely positive, it is not as generous as The Plan for a Decent Social Security System, produced by the Commission on Social Security - led by experts by experience, which calls for a Guaranteed Decent Income (GDI).”
GDI would replace UC, employment and support allowance, jobseeker’s allowance, income support, and child and working tax credits. The reform consists of a means-tested, individual (not household) GDI set at 50% of the National Minimum Wage (NMW).
DR UK supports the proposal to replace UC and all other legacy benefits with a GDI that would:
Have no sanctions, no benefit cap, no bedroom tax, no conditionality, no five week wait for first payment and no two-child limit.
Meet the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Minimum Income Standards for what amount of money is needed for an acceptable standard of living.
Include a Disability Supplement as part of GDI.
Introduce a new non-means tested benefit to meet the additional costs of disability, to replace PIP.
The JRF report - Unable to escape persistent hardship: JRF’s cost of living tracker, Summer 2023 – is available from jrf.org.uk.