A report called Welfare at a (Social) Distance, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, found-
'Around 500,000 of people missed out on UC at the start of the Covid- 19 pandemic.' this included-
Around 220,000 people who thought they were eligible for UC (mostly correctly) but didn’t want to claim it. Of these-One-third of those who didn’t want to claim said that this was because they did not need benefts. But more commonly, people hadn’t applied for UC because of the perceived hassle of applying (59%), including the challenge of fguring out if they were eligible, the claims process itself, or the threat of sanctions. (Indeed, an outright majority said that conditionality would put them off applying in future). A further sizeable minority (27%) didn’t claim UC because of benefts stigma.
280,000– 390,000 people wrongly thought they were ineligible for UC.
The report found instead of claiming UC, they had 'To make ends meet, ...people relied on savings, friends/family (for more than a quarter) or borrowed from banks. Relatively small numbers had used emergency help like food banks.' 'More than one-in-six had skipped a meal in the previous two weeks because they could not afford to eat '
JSA (c )-'estimated that 80,000 people were probably eligible for new style JSA but
did not claim it. There were also other indications that awareness of contributory benefts is lower than awareness of UC. '
Book now- More basic- An Overview of Universal Credit 2021 More advanced- Universal Credit – the Tricky Parts 2021