Could you live on £11 a day?

Bevan Foundation director, Victoria Winckler, looks at the low level of social security benefits and asks if you could live on £11 a day

Could you live on £11 a day? When I’ve asked some people they answer yes, of course! They tell me about their low cost, healthy meals and their other money-saving tips. But when I explain that that £11 has to cover everything, from gas and electricity, water charges, bus fares, cost of a phone and data, clothes, toiletries and household cleaning materials, they pause. At best it would be huge challenge.

This is not an academic question

£11 a day is the standard amount a single person aged over 25 receives in Universal Credit.  Universal Credit is, however, paid monthly which can make budgeting such a small amount even more difficult. 

Shockingly, the equivalent of £11 a day is the maximum someone on Universal Credit receives.  Research by the Child Poverty Action Group has found that around four out of ten people receiving Universal Credit have up to 25 per cent of their benefit deducted to repay debt.

Deductions can be to cover a variety of debts, such as council tax arrears and fuel bill debts. However by far the most common debt is to the Department for Work and Pensions itself, to repay advance payments made before a Universal Credit claim is processed or reimbursing overpayments of tax credits.  As a result, a substantial minority of people may be living off as little as £8.25 a day.

What about uprating?

Low as these figures are, it’s widely anticipated that the convention of increasing benefits in line with inflation will be ditched this year. Instead, it is thought that benefits will match the rise in earnings – a potential uplift of just 5.4% at a time when inflation is running at 9.9%.  If the rumours are right, someone on the standard Universal Credit allowance would be 59p a day (£4.16 a week) better off in cash terms. The uplift would be enough to run a one kilowatt electric fire for less than two hours.

Any below inflation uplift comes on top of many years of benefit freezes. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation points out that, if implemented, it would be the largest permanent deliberate real terms cut to basic rate benefits in history.  

Time for another U-turn?

We have seen today that the UK Government can make a dramatic U-turn when faced with the threat of  political rebellion over tax cuts.  It remains to be seen whether MPs realise that ‘levelling up’ involves lifting up those on the lowest incomes as well as taxing at the top. 

Victoria Winckler is Director of the Bevan Foundation