Extending the £20 universal credit uplift to legacy benefit claimants is the ‘right thing to do’, JRF says

New briefing highlights that disability benefit claimants, the majority of whom claim legacy benefits, are facing extra costs and greater risks to employment income in the pandemic but have been 'cut adrift' without extra support

Extending the £20 universal credit uplift to legacy benefit claimants is the ‘right thing to do’, the JRF has said in a new briefing on the financial impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) on disabled people and their carers.

In The financial impact of COVID-19 on disabled people and their carers, the JRF reviews recent research into the additional financial pressures on disabled people and their carers, both prior to and as a result of, the pandemic, and presents key findings including that -

• on average, disabled people face extra costs of £583 per month to sustain the same quality of life as a non-disabled person (from research carried out before the pandemic by Scope);
• people with a disability are more likely to report household outgoings increasing as a result of the pandemic - 36.7 per cent as opposed to 22.8 per cent of non-disabled people as of September 2020 (findings from research by the JRF);
• 63 per cent of disabled male workers and 67 per cent of disabled female workers have had their employment affected as a result of the outbreak, compared to 43 per cent and 50 per cent of non-disabled workers respectively (findings from Turn2Us research); and
• the pandemic has caused an increase in caring responsibilities for 25.5 per cent of people who were providing care before the pandemic (from research by the Institute for Social and Economic Research).

In addition, the JRF says that, as the majority of people who claim disability benefits are on legacy benefits - employment and support allowance, income support or jobseeker's allowance - they have not been supported through the pandemic by the temporary £20 uplift to universal credit this year.

This, the JRF says, has lead to legacy benefit claimants being 'cut adrift without crucial support' and, as a result, it calls for the uplift to be extended to legacy benefits and for it to be made permanent -

‘Throwing the equivalent £20 lifeline to people on legacy benefits is the right thing to do. It would see 1.6 million more families who are most at risk of poverty benefiting from this crucial support in 2021/2022. It would also lift a further 200,000 people out of poverty. The cost of throwing this lifeline would fall over the coming years as most people on legacy benefits migrate to universal credit, but for families struggling to stay afloat the need is urgent.’

For more information, see The financial impact of COVID-19 on disabled people and their carers from jrf.org.uk