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Benefits
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25/04/2013
Adequate benefits needed for ‘active inclusion’
Independent experts have sounded a series of warnings over the UK's progress on the active inclusion of people most excluded from the labour market. Adequate benefits, they say, are crucial to any active inclusion strategy.
The experts reviewed the coalition government's actions in 2012 on commitments given to the European Commission: their findings were initially summarised in a 'synthesis' report in January 2013, and have now been released in full.Category: Reports -
17/04/2013
Greater equality ‘harms work incentives’
There is a 'negative and significant' link between income equality and work incentives, says a new academic study of EU countries.
The study used EUROMOD (an EU-wide microsimulation model) to disentangle the role of taxes, benefits and social insurance contributions in influencing income inequality and work incentives – the latter being indicated by marginal effective tax rates (METRs), the share of an increase in earnings lost through higher tax and social insurance contributions and/or lower benefit entitlement.
Category: Reports -
17/04/2013
Exposing benefit ‘myths’
A set of recurring 'myths' often distorts public debate on the benefits system, according to a new briefing from the Centre for Labour and Social Studies in conjunction with Red Pepper Magazine. The briefing highlights 12 myths widely used by politicians and in the media to justify the rolling back of the welfare state.
Category: Reports -
11/04/2013
Poorest areas hit hardest by benefit cuts
The most deprived areas of Great Britain will also be the ones hit hardest by the coalition's policy of cutting benefits and tax credits, according to a new analysis from the Centre for Regional, Economic and Social Research in Sheffield.
The study does not cover the new universal credit system, which is not considered likely to have a major impact before 2018.
Category: Reports -
03/04/2013
Osborne sparks benefits row over Philpott deaths
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has said it is 'right to question' why the taxpayer was 'subsidising lifestyles' like that of Michael Philpott, the man convicted of manslaughter over the death of six of his children in a fire at his Derby home.
Osborne was immediately criticised for appearing to endorse tabloid coverage linking the crime to Philpott's alleged benefits income of £60,000 a year – the combination making Philpott, according to the Daily Mail, a 'vile product of Welfare UK'.
Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Osborne, said: 'The Philpott case is an individual tragedy. Children have died in that case. I think that is where we should let that case lie. I would not want to connect that to the much wider need to reform our welfare system'.Category: Reports -
03/04/2013
440,000 families suffer multiple benefit cuts
440,000 families are being affected by multiple benefit cuts being introduced by the coalition government, according to an analysis conducted by the New Policy Institute. For each of the families concerned this will mean a total income cut of £16.90 a week.
The analysis looks at the combined effect of four major changes to social security benefits from April 2013. Three of these involve cuts in absolute terms – the 'bedroom tax' affecting housing benefit claimants in social housing deemed to have spare bedrooms; the replacement of council tax benefit by localised council tax support schemes; and the overall annual benefit cap on households. The fourth change – the below-inflation uprating of out-of-work benefits and some elements of tax credits – involves benefit cuts in real terms.
Category: Reports -
01/04/2013
April 2013 ‘Big Bang’ for benefits and taxes
A series of major changes to the tax and benefits systems came into effect from April 2013, accompanied by disputes over their purpose and likely impact. The Chancellor George Osborne described them as being about backing 'hard working people who want to get on in life'.
Category: News stories -
01/04/2013
Duncan Smith says he could live on £53 a week
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has said he could manage to live on £53 a week 'if he had to'. He had been challenged on the BBC's Today programme by a market trader, David Bennett, who said he was forced to survive on that amount – his net income 'after paying rent and bills'. (The current level of jobseeker's allowance is £71.70 a week for those aged 25 or over.)
Following the programme, an online petition gathered 460,000 signatures, in the space of ten days, calling on Duncan Smith to prove his claim in practice.
Category: News stories -
19/03/2013
200,000 more children pushed into absolute poverty
An extra 200,000 children will be pushed into absolute poverty by the coalition's policy of capping annual increases in many benefits and tax credits, according to an estimate released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The estimate was uncovered by a freedom of information request submitted by the Child Poverty Action Group.
Defining absolute poverty as living on less than 60 per cent of median disposable household income as at 2010-11, uprated for inflation, the DWP gives a 'broad estimate' that around 200,000 extra children will be living in absolute poverty by the end of 2015-16 (the last year of the three-year cap on annual increases in most working-age benefits/tax credits).Category: Reports -
18/03/2013
2012 Autumn Statement ‘will increase child poverty’
Tax and benefit changes announced by the Chancellor in his 2012 Autumn Statement will mean an extra 200,000 children living in poverty by 2017-18, according to a new analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank.
The Autumn Statement announced several important changes to the tax and benefit system from April 2013 – including a higher personal tax allowance and a 1 per cent cap, for three years, on the annual uprating of most working-age benefits and tax credits.Category: Reports
