Record numbers of Brits are having their Universal Credit cut or stopped after numbers exploded in a Tory crackdown.
Charities today warned people “need these payments to live” after 110,000 claimants were being sanctioned by the Jobcentre in May.
The “cruel” figure - more than double six months ago, despite a cost of living crisis - is now nearly 6% of all potential claimants.
It comes after Tory ministers forced claimants to look for jobs outside their expertise after four weeks - instead of three months - to get 500,000 into work by June.
Sanctions also skyrocketed after face-to-face Jobcentre appointments restarted last summer.
The number of claimants subject to a sanction rose from 3,827 in May 2021 to 109,506 in May 2022.
Numbers rose steadily through winter but leaped after Way to Work launched in February, from 74,746 in January to 93,479 in March.
A record 59,000 new sanctions were slapped on Universal Credit claimants in March alone.
It comes after the Mirror revealed some poverty-stricken Brits were denied a £326 cost of living payment in July because they had been sanctioned.
Guidance to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) staff, seen by the Mirror, told them to refuse the payment to claimants whose sanction led to a “nil award”.
People’s benefits are either cut back or stopped entirely if Jobcentres decide they have fallen foul of rules.
But mental health charity Mind warned sanctions are often “unfair” and “people on benefits need these payments to live – whether they’ve been sanctioned or not.”
Rethink Mental Illness chief executive Mark Winstanley said the “huge” rise was a “cruel political choice” making “more people subject to punitive measures at the worst possible time”.
He added: “Benefit sanctions are incredibly damaging to people’s mental health, whether they’re living with the fear of being hit by penalties, or dealing with the massive financial and psychological impact.
“We’re calling on the government to stop subjecting disabled people and those living with mental illness to these devastating sanctions.”
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the rise in sanctions - even when potential claimants fell - was “pushing claimants into deeper hardship and debt”.
“Families are facing a catastrophe but neither this Zombie Government nor the two Tory continuity candidates are offering any solutions,” he said.
Official figures today showed 3.9million children were in UC households in May, a rise of 100,000 in three months. More than a million were under five and 71% of families on UC were single parents.
Save The Children’s Becca Lyon said: “We know life for those supported by Universal Credit can be tough at the best of times but after months of cutting back, parents are now running out of options.”
A DWP spokesman said: “Way to Work successfully supported half a million unemployed people to move into work, helping lift incomes as people can be £6,000 better off in work than on benefits.
“It is right that people who can work, are encouraged to take up employment and people are only sanctioned if they fail, without good reason, to meet the conditions they agreed to.”
He added people who were denied a cost-of-living payment in July “could be entitled retrospectively if a sanction is successfully appealed”.
