More on the problems of Universal Credit

A report from the IPPR is critical of Universal Credit.  The report focuses on a series of features about UC which are causing problems. They include

• • • • the five-week wait
      • monthly payments
      • the two-child rule
      • the benefit cap
      • the high taper rate
      • the level of benefit
      • joint payments
      • sanctions and conditionality
      • the management of ‘debt’ to the system.

What’s striking in this list is that only one of those features – monthly payments, linked to monthly assessments – is integral to the design of the benefit.  All of the others have been tacked on, like decorations on a Xmas tree.  But UC has other, built-in flaws – problems that exist because of what the benefit is.  They include

• • • • the attempt to lump disparate benefits together, with the effect that problems in one part can lead to catastrophic suspension of the whole
      • the dismantling of the support system for Housing Benefits
      • the unpredictable and fluctuating benefit entitlement, exacerbated by the idea that assessments relate to income now rather than historic income
      • the very idea of a taper, which means that people cannot know when they become entitled to a benefit and when they cease to be entitled – a recurring problem with Housing Benefit and Tax Credits
      • the obsession with entry or re-entry to work, when the vast majority of intended claimants will not be part of the labour market
      • the implications of the ‘work allowance’, set too low to allow for continuous contact, and
      • the idea that technology, rather than competent administration, can settle complex human problems.

The IPPR are right to complain that this is “a tightrope over poverty, not a social safety net”.   But they don’t go anything like far enough.