The government's decision to cut universal credit by £20 per week from September has attracted widespread criticism from campaigners, opposition parties, and prominent Conservatives.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed this week that they will press ahead with the change, despite claims doing so will "hit the lowest paid hardest and hurt our economic recovery".
The £20 per week uplift was added to top up universal credit payments from the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
READ MORE: Self-employed universal credit claimants face huge cut from next month
That uplift was due to end in March, but the government caved in to pressure from opposition parties, backbench MPs, and campaigners, extending it by six months.
It is now due to end in September, meaning anyone on universal credit will be around £1,000 a year worse off, despite the cost of living continuing to rise.
Labour has said it would extend the uplift until a "fairer system can be put in place".
The shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said: "The government’s plans to cut universal credit will hit the lowest paid hardest and hurt our economic recovery. Six million families are set to lose £1,000 a year while out of work support will be left at its lowest level in decades.
"There is near-universal opposition to this cut, including from prominent Conservatives. It is time the government saw sense, backed struggling families and cancelled their cut to universal credit."
The Liberal Democrats have said the government "should commit to extending the uplift and give households the security they need".
The Scottish National Party said the removal of the £20 uplift "will be a callous act".
Earlier this week a group of six former work and pensions secretaries, all of them senior Tories, called on the government to keep the uplift.
“As the economy reopens, and the government re-evaluates where it has been spending money, we ask that the current funding for individuals in the universal credit envelope be kept at the current level,” the group, comprising Iain Duncan Smith, Damian Green, Stephen Crabb, David Gauke, Esther McVey, and Amber Rudd, wrote.
"We ask that you protect the investment in universal credit, to strengthen work incentives for those who can work and support more generously those who cannot work."
Defending the government's decision, Johnson told the commons liaison committee that “higher skilled jobs” are the “best way forward”.
Asked if he accepted that removing the uplift could cause hardship to many people, the Prime Minister told the committee: "I think that the best way forward is to get people into higher wage, higher skilled jobs.
"That’s the ambition of this Government and if you ask me to make a choice between more welfare or better, higher paid jobs, I’m going to go for better, higher paid jobs."
Others argue that nobody is asking the Prime Minister to choose between those two options.
About 2.2 million people on universal credit (37 per cent of all claimants) are already in work, and still need benefits to live due to low wages.
A further 1.6 million universal credit claimants are unable to work due to childcare demands or ill health.
The Resolution Foundation, a respected poverty thinktank, says that without the £20 uplift, unemployment benefits will be at their lowest ever when compared to average earnings.
The organisation is urging the government to keep the £20 uplift, with its chief executive calling the cut "political and economic madness".
Stephen Timms, the Labour MP who chairs the cross-party work and pensions committee, said cutting universal credit would "push half a million people - including 200,000 children - below the poverty line".
The government has previously said it doesn't know how many children will be plunged into poverty by the move.
Separately, it has emerged that self-employed universal credit claimants face a cut to their monthly payments from next month due to a change in the way the DWP works out its allocations.
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