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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Aletha Adu

Benefit chiefs send Universal Credit claimants warning alerts ahead of cuts

Brits claiming Universal Credit will receive online warning notifications confirming the £20-a-week cut in 10 weeks time.

Benefit chiefs have said claimants will see their online journals updated, which will explain how much of their income had given in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

And as a result, how much they will be left with each week from October.

In a letter to Stephen Timms, Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Will Quince stressed claimants will not be receiving letters ahead of the cuts.

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Around half of people on Universal Credit only started claiming it during the pandemic (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The Minister for Welfare Delivery said: "We will do further communications with claimants over the Summer via theirstatement and journal messages ahead of the uplift ending in the Autumn,making it clear that it will no longer be included in their standard allowance."

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned that half a million more people are set to be pulled into poverty, including 200,000 children.

Around six in 10 of all single-parent families will experience their income falling by the equivalent of £1,040 per year because of the cut in Uniersal Credit.

Boris Johnson this week claimed the cut would help “get people off benefits and into work” - yet 37% of claimants have a job.

Katie Schmuecker, deputy director of policy and partnerships for the JRF, said: “Universal Credit has been a lifeline that has helped keep millions of heads above water, but the new analysis should act as a stark warning of the immense, immediate and avoidable consequences of what amounts to the biggest overnight cut to the basic rate of social security since the Second World War."

Around half of people on Universal Credit only started claiming it during the pandemic.

That means there will be millions of claimants who have never known life with the benefit £20 lower than it is now, and will be seeing the cut for the first time.

It comes afer six former Work and Pensions Secretaries have called for the cut to be axed, warning that failing to do so would "damage living standards, health and opportunities”.

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