Impact of universal credit cuts one year on

A year and a half later, people are still struggling to find reliable work and coronavirus continues to rage, but this lifeline – along with a host of others - is ripped away and claimants are left with £80-a-month less in their pockets; with thousands of young people losing a quarter of their income overnight.  

This week marks a year since that £20 a week was cut from Universal Credit.  

We are facing a crisis similar in scale to the pandemic but, instead of debating whether temporarily increasing Universal Credit would help, the talk in Westminster this week has been about whether it should face a real terms cut.  

We think this is unconscionable and will push young people across the country further into poverty and hardship. 

Young people are struggling so much that Centrepoint research found that many 16-25 year olds are losing sleep, skipping meals and selling possessions to cope with the financial stress the Universal Credit cut triggered. Over half of the charities Centrepoint spoke to (53 per cent), reported that most vulnerable young people were failing to meet living costs, and two-thirds of the charities surveyed (66 per cent) said vulnerable young people have no choice but to go hungry and skip meals. 

Young people have been struggling to live like this for the past year and the pandemic may be slowly veering towards a halt, but it’s clear that the cost-of-living crisis is still rearing it’s ugly head and young people are being forced to choose between food and energy. 

An Opinium poll of 2,000 young people, commissioned by Centrepoint, showed that even more damage has been done. A third of 16-25s (35 per cent) are going a whole day without food, and a quarter of young people (23 per cent) are missing work or education due to the mental effects of a lack of food. 

Young people are labelled as the next generation, but how can they fulfil their ambitions when they’re struggling to put food on the table and heat their homes? Vulnerable young people have now been waiting a year for urgent financial support and the government continues to make no acknowledgement of this desperate situation that young people find themselves in. 

Recent support on energy bills is helpful – but it’s not only the price of gas and electric that have soared in recent months. Similarly, the cost of living payments to vulnerable households have made a real difference, although they do not make up for the major cut to Universal Credit last year. 

And now, as we lurch from a crisis affecting mainly low income households to one engulfing mortgage holders too, there’s a danger that these young people will be forgotten, even when they find themselves going hungry or facing homelessness.  

It’s not an exaggeration to say we are on the brink of a crisis on the same scale as the pandemic. Less than three years later, the government has forgotten what worked last time and is failing to respond in a similar way. Increasing Universal Credit was a lifeline in March 2020; cutting it in real terms now would leave young people struggling to stay afloat. 

Billy Harding is policy and research manager at Centrepoint