A great deal of attention has been paid to the many individual changes to social security that are taking place this month. Not known are the combined impacts – when individuals and households get hit by numerous changes. It is a notable omission that no official estimates of the overlap between different reforms have been published. Our research, published today, tries to fill that gap.
We have analysed four major changes. Three of them are “absolute” cuts: the bedroom tax; the replacement of council tax benefit by council tax support; and the overall benefit cap (which is being piloted this month, with the aim of full rollout by September). All of these will result in a reduction of the amount of money these households have to spend on everything else. Additionally, the uprating of out of work benefits and some elements of tax credits by only 1 per cent, below the level of inflation (2.7 per cent), will result in a cut in real terms for those families receiving such benefits.
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