Around half of those who were unsuccessful in claiming benefits at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic were unable to keep up with essential costs

New research also shows that, of the claims that were rejected, 70 per cent were on the basis that income or savings were too high

Around half of those who were unsuccessful in claiming benefits at the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic were unable to keep up with essential costs, according to new research from Salford University.

In At the edge of the safety net: Unsuccessful benefits claims at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic - the third in a series of rapid reports carried out by the Welfare at a (Social) Distance project looking at how people access social security and employment support during the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath - the researchers explore the reasons why people were unsuccessful in making claims for universal credit, new-style jobseeker's allowance (JSA) and new-style employment and support allowance (ESA).

NB - for this research, 'unsuccessful' was defined as where a person had started a claim but did not submit it, had submitted a claim but failed to complete the process, or had completed a claim but it was rejected.

Estimating that around 290,000 people have been unsuccessful in claiming the benefits, the researchers looked at the reasons for that failure and found that - 

• 41,000 failed to complete the application - due to difficulties such as verifying their identity online or the website crashing;
• 31,000 made a claim that they subsequently withdrew - of these, about a third experienced frustration with the process and gave up, while the remainder withdrew because they thought they would be ineligible or receive very little; and
• 220,000 completed the claim process but the claim was rejected - 45.4 per cent due to earnings being too high, and 23.9 per cent because their savings were too high.

For those claimants who only tried to claim universal credit, around two-thirds had not even considered applying for JSA or ESA, and the researchers observe - 

'This is true even among those rejected from universal credit because of savings or partner earnings, which do not disentitle people from new-style JSA/ESA (where eligibility is determined by national insurance contributions). As such, there is a concern that some people are missing out on the benefits that they may be entitled to.'

Moving on then to consider the effects of not receiving the benefits, the research notes that, on average, unsuccessful claimants were from higher socio-economic groups than successful claimants and had several strategies to manage financially - for example, using savings if they had them, borrowing from a bank, or borrowing/gifts from friends/family. Nevertheless, the research found that - 

• 80.7 per cent reported less severe forms of financial strain, such as being unable to replace/repair major electrical goods or save a small amount regularly; 
• 48.4 per cent reported more severe financial strains – falling behind on housing costs (27.4 per cent), not keeping up with bills (22 per cent), not being able to afford daily fresh fruit and vegetables (28 per cent), or recently being hungry and not eating (15.2 per cent); and
• 4 per cent were using food banks.

At the edge of the safety net: Unsuccessful benefits claims at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic is available from hub.salford.ac.uk