Citizens Advice Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale and Trafford urges government against “devastating” Universal Credit cut
Staff and volunteers at Citizens Advice Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale and Trafford have helped 4239 people with Universal Credit since March last year.
Around 59% of people seeking our advice on benefits have never contacted the charity before.
Advisers say many needing support from the benefits system have lost their job or suffered a drop in income as a result of the pandemic.
Citizens Advice Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale and Trafford, which has continued to provide one-to-one support throughout the pandemic, warns that local families could be pushed into further hardship if the £20 a week Universal Credit uplift ends as planned in April.
Steve Hughes, Chief Officer of Citizens Advice Stockport, said:
“We support people every day whose lives have been turned upside down by this pandemic. For many of them, Universal Credit is the lifeline that has helped pay the bills and put food on the table.
“But households across Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale and Trafford now face the devastating prospect of a £20 a week cut to their benefits in just a few short months.
“With a tough outlook in the jobs market, we’re urging the government to continue doing the right thing and maintain the Universal Credit uplift.”
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We give people the knowledge and confidence they need to find their way forward - whoever they are, and whatever their problem.
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published 19/01/2021
Citizens Advice also runs a Help to Claim service which can support you with making a Universal Credit claim. For more information visit www.casort.org/universal-credit
To calculate how much £20 a week is equivalent to in everyday spending, we analysed the 2018-19 Living Costs and Food Survey (the latest available data). This is a large, nationally representative survey run by the Office for National Statistics looking at household spending. To make sure we better reflect the likely experience of households on Universal Credit, we have only included households in the bottom half of the income distribution in our analysis. This is because, on average higher-income households spend more than lower-income households.