A report by Landman Economics concluded that changes made since 2010, which include the introduction of a £500-a-week household benefit cap and the so-called bedroom tax, will cut annual spending by £30.5bn by 2016/17. According to the analysis, the impact of this will be felt more by working families, who will suffer a loss of social security support worth £17.9bn a year by 2016/17, over twice the £6.2bn cut experienced by out-of-work families.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said ‘Ministers like to say that their welfare reforms target workshy scroungers and will get them back to work. But the fact is that the bulk of the cuts hit low-paid families already in work, as well as pensioners who have no way to make up the money lost as a result of Chancellor George Osborne’s social security axe. With nearly half the total cost of welfare changes falling on working families with children, the prime minister has already failed his own new family test, announced just this week. The government has been steadily chipping away at the social security safety net we all pay into and expect will support us when we need help.’
Most benefit cuts, including the £13.8bn annual reduction in tax credits, are a result of the chancellor’s decision to change the measure for uprating benefits from the Retail Prices Index to the lower Consumer Prices Index. In addition, the government’s Universal Credit programme, which is intended to ensure people are always better off in work, will lead to a further £5bn of annual cuts – almost half of which will fall on pensioner families. This is because new UC claimants of this age will no longer get Pension Credit and instead will receive less generous support, as well as being subject to the government’s new sanctions regime.
O’Grady went on to say ‘While many people may think that the recovery means the end of the squeeze on their social security support, the worse cuts are still to come. This new nastier social security system is a world away from the support people expect having paid their national insurance contributions.’
Meanwhile the BBC reports that more people are suffering from malnutrition as a result of worsening food poverty, experts have warned. The Faculty of Public Health said conditions like rickets were becoming more apparent because people could not afford quality food in their diet. Health figures recently revealed a 19% increase in the number of people admitted to hospital with malnutrition over the past year. UK food prices had risen by 12% since 2007. It also noted that in the same period, UK workers had suffered a 7.6% fall in wages
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said ‘Ministers like to say that their welfare reforms target workshy scroungers and will get them back to work. But the fact is that the bulk of the cuts hit low-paid families already in work, as well as pensioners who have no way to make up the money lost as a result of Chancellor George Osborne’s social security axe. With nearly half the total cost of welfare changes falling on working families with children, the prime minister has already failed his own new family test, announced just this week. The government has been steadily chipping away at the social security safety net we all pay into and expect will support us when we need help.’
Most benefit cuts, including the £13.8bn annual reduction in tax credits, are a result of the chancellor’s decision to change the measure for uprating benefits from the Retail Prices Index to the lower Consumer Prices Index. In addition, the government’s Universal Credit programme, which is intended to ensure people are always better off in work, will lead to a further £5bn of annual cuts – almost half of which will fall on pensioner families. This is because new UC claimants of this age will no longer get Pension Credit and instead will receive less generous support, as well as being subject to the government’s new sanctions regime.
O’Grady went on to say ‘While many people may think that the recovery means the end of the squeeze on their social security support, the worse cuts are still to come. This new nastier social security system is a world away from the support people expect having paid their national insurance contributions.’
Meanwhile the BBC reports that more people are suffering from malnutrition as a result of worsening food poverty, experts have warned. The Faculty of Public Health said conditions like rickets were becoming more apparent because people could not afford quality food in their diet. Health figures recently revealed a 19% increase in the number of people admitted to hospital with malnutrition over the past year. UK food prices had risen by 12% since 2007. It also noted that in the same period, UK workers had suffered a 7.6% fall in wages
The sooner this dreadful money grabbing could not care less about the ordinary man government is gone the better. All they have done is caused chaos and misery to a large section of the nation which the majority are working people whilst setting their propaganda machine in motion demonising people who have to claim benefits because of government policies. They only care about themselves and their corporate rich pals. They should be ashamed off themselves and hang their heads in shame but of course they really could not care less. Anyone who can not see this or does not believe it is either blind or totally deluded. I hate what you have done to this country along with your closet Tory mate Blair. The lot of you should be sent packing into exile and let us get back to being a fair and caring society as we where in the Britain I grew up in.
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