Benefit cap means CUT, not rise, in benefits from April [Tory lie of the day]
A new level of cruelty: failing to increase the benefit cap in line with inflation forces more households into poverty. It doesn’t help them.
What a great example of Tories giving with one hand while taking with the other.
In April this year, the Conservative government is claiming that it will give benefit claimants an inflation-matching 6.7 per cent increase in payments.
But this will not count for people whose entitlement will exceed the benefit cap – or already does.
This is because Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has not raised the threshold of the cap in line with entitlements.
The cap itself is simply a limit on the maximum amount of benefit payments a household is allowed to receive – regardless of whether it is enough for those households to make ends meet.
More than 85,000 households already affected by the benefit cap will not receive a single penny more in benefit, despite continuing steep rises in the cost of living. Who knows how many more will be affected from April onwards?
According to the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG),
“The benefit cap severs the link between need and entitlement in our social security system: a household will have their total need for support assessed, and if this comes out above the level of the cap (currently £22,020 per year for families with children, or £25,323 for families in London) they will simply receive less than they need.
“There are wide variations in the amounts that households are capped, but the average is £53 a week, a loss keenly felt by those already struggling to survive below the poverty line.”
The DWP has provided this line to The Independent:
“We are supporting the most vulnerable with a record £94bn cost of living support package – worth around £3,700 per household – and have halved inflation to make everyone’s money go further.
“On top of this we’ve raised benefits by 10.1 per cent and are investing £3.5bn to help thousands into jobs – the best way to help people secure long term financial security.”
None of these points mean anything.
The £3,700 per household is actually spread over the four years between 2022 and 2025 – so it doesn’t come close to covering the £2,756 that households whose benefits are capped will lose.
Halving inflation doesn’t make anybody’s money go further; it means their money won’t go as far as it used to. If inflation is halved, it just means the speed at which prices rise has slowed down. Nobody’s money is going further because inflation is halved.
Raised benefits don’t matter to households that are already capped.
And “helping” (forcing?) people into jobs won’t do any good if the jobs are so low-paid that they have to claim Universal Credit anyway – like the 40 per cent of people in work who already do. Jobs are not the best way to help people secure long-term financial security and haven’t been for decades.
What, then, is the result of this decision to keep benefits capped at the same level, despite price rises across the board?
Simple.
It will impoverish thousands upon thousands of families across the UK. As intended by Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak.
Source: DWP benefit claimants face payments cut next year | The Independent
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The theft from those of us who have less continues…Yet the gullible will still vote tory! Don’t think things will change with Starmer’s fake labour, judas party either!
Fascist tories refusing to increase maximum benefit cap ensures billions of our public money can be wasted on yet more fascist tory ‘vanity projects’ which will be given to their fascist tory donors! As usual fascist tories utter worthless platitudes whilst ensuring millions of women, children and men remain impoverished!