An estimated half a million families look set to become eligible for Universal Credit in two weeks’ time.
Changes to the benefit that were confirmed in the Budget are likely to take force from Wednesday 24 November, MPs have been told.
Tory ministers estimate they will make around 500,000 working people on low incomes eligible to claim who can’t claim now, because the benefit will be more generous for those who work.
The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies put the figure slightly higher at 600,000.
The think tank said 7million families - including 43% of all families with children and 84% of all single parents - will now be eligible for UC once it is fully rolled out.
But many of those half a million extra families will have dropped out of the UC system just weeks ago, when a £20-a-week uplift in UC was axed across the board.
The Budget changes do not make up for a £20-a-week cut for the vast majority of claimants.
And more than 3million who don’t or can’t work do not get an extra penny from the improvements in the Budget.
Last month’s Budget confirmed the taper rate - the amount of UC claimants lose for every £1 they earn from work - is being reduced from 63p to 55p in a Tory climbdown.
The work allowance - an amount some claimants can earn before the taper kicks in - is also being raised by £42 a month.
Previously ministers said the £2bn-a-year changes would happen by December 1. But Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey told MPs on Monday: “The latest information I have is that we intend to try to bring that in from November 24.”
Because the changes taper Universal Credit away more gradually for workers, experts say they will allow low-waged families who were previously just over the threshold to make a claim.
For example, a single parent homeowner with one child earning just over £20,000 a year is likely to be eligible for just over £1,000 a year of UC, compared to nothing under the current system, the IFS said.
Tom Waters of the IFS said: “The reach of Universal Credit is perhaps much wider than is commonly understood – and the Budget reforms extend that reach further up the income distribution, by slowing the speed that the benefit is withdrawn as earnings increase.
“It will now be the case that three in every seven families with children will be entitled to at least some Universal Credit at any one time, and many more over the course of a lifetime.
“For single earner families, especially renters, it is possible to earn well above average and still easily be eligible.
“We are now in a situation in which lone parents and single earner couples with children, paying average sorts of rents, will still be entitled to Universal Credit when their earnings reach £50,000 and beyond.
“They will both be paying higher rate income tax and be receiving means tested Universal Credit."
