Around 825,000 people who earn just too much to qualify for Universal Credit – meaning they miss out on a £300 instalment of the £900 Cost of Living Payment – will end up with less income than those earning just less than them, who do qualify for the support, a think tank has warned.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) slammed the way the support measures are being implemented, saying that hundreds of thousands of people would be better off if they earned less. It also said that more money is being spent by the Government than if it had simply raised benefits in line with inflation over the past few years.
The IFS said the uprating of all benefits in April 2023 will “merely take them back to around the real level they were at a year earlier”. According to the think tank, real benefits rates were 7.6% lower in 2022 compared to their pre-pandemic levels in 2019. In 2023, they will be 6.2% lower and in 2024 they will be 2.0% lower, the Daily Record reports.
