The implications of the bedroom tax are slowly seeping into wider consciousness. Even so, there are still many people who haven't a clue what is about to happen. There are families who don't know how badly hit they will be when the tax, officially known as the under-occupation penalty, starts in April.
I've been trying to figure out what the government expects people to do in response. This is important because the whole point, as well as reducing housing benefit costs for the government, is to change the behaviour of people who live in social housing.
But first a recap. The bedroom tax is a deliberate financial penalty directed at people receiving housing benefit whose homes are judged to be too large for their needs. It only applies to people in social housing and is the government's answer to the problem of "under-occupation".
Rules have been set about the right size of a home for a family, focusing on the number of bedrooms. Each person or couple in the household is allowed a bedroom. Except that:
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