Children’s Society says coalition’s universal credit, as currently envisaged, seems a step backward
More than 350,000 children will lose their free school meals under the government’s radical plans to reform welfare entitlement next year, an analysis by the Children’s Society has warned.
In a report entitled Fair and Square, the charity says the proposed universal credit system, which comes into force in October 2013, will stop paying for certain benefits if a household earns more than £7,500.
At present the welfare system compensates poor families with cash from the tax credit system.
Government’s upcoming reforms must take the needs and contributions of unpaid carers into account
We will all need care or provide care for loved ones at some point in our lives – it is an issue for all of society and all parts of government.
As care and support for older and disabled people rises up the political agenda, decision-makers and the public are confronted with an array of stark statistics on the rising demand for care – with the number of people over 80 to double by 2020, 11 million people alive today expected to live to 100, the number of adults with learning disabilities to rise by a third by 2030 and the number of carers by 50% in the next 25 years to 9 million.
But these statistics do little to shed light on what this care challenge means in practical terms or what solutions might look like. They also fail to truly reflect how demographic change is bringing about significant shifts in all of our lives – not just the lives of people using social care services.
Most people are completely unaware of the extent to which there is poverty today
With thanks to Rhiannon Lockley who wrote this blog for us. Rhiannon is West mids regional women’s officer for UCU.
“We were really struggling. It really did get to the point where we just didn’t know how we were going to cope. It was literally pick one thing and do that, a case of either stay warm or eat.”
(Michaela, a Birmingham mother helped by Gateway Family Services Pregnancy Outreach Team, talks to ITV news, Wednesday 11th April 2012)
Usually when people talk about poverty in the UK they are referring to relative poverty. A person classed as relatively impoverished is significantly below average in wealth, meaning they are economically unable to participate fully in society. High levels of relative poverty indicate high levels of social inequality, which as has been argued in Wilkinson and Pickett’s 2009 book The Spirit Level are linked to a variety of negative problems in society. Relative poverty impacts on things like physical health, mental well-being, educational and career opportunities.
