In any benefit reform, there are likely to be winners and losers; unless there is a substantial increase in the budget, the gains for some can only be made because others are being paid less. A fascinating report from Mike Brewer and his colleagues at the Institute of Fiscal Studies looks at the difference between short- and long-term gains and losses from Universal Credit. The difference is important, because Universal Credit has in theory been designed to maintain contact with large numbers of people over extended periods of time.
What the IFS report finds includes
- greater losses for people on long-term low incomes,
- losses for people with disabilities
- short term losses for self-employed people with low earnings, that are less likely to last as their circumstances change, and
- some large gains and losses in the short term, which are not always reflected in the long-term outcomes.
The report is concerned with entitlement, rather than the actual amounts of benefit received – the serious problems there have been in practical delivery, and the impact of conditionality and sanctions, are going to mean that many more people are worse off than they ought to be on paper. Short term losses matter, too. For people on very low incoimes, a short-term loss means, in practice, that people have periods of severe privation, often going without food and accumulating debts.