The Chancellor is under pressure to extend the £20 uplift in Universal Credit (UC) payment beyond March this year at the Spring Budget next week. However, Professor Len Shackleton, Editorial and Research Fellow at the IEA, said the top-up did not distinguish between people in need after losing jobs due to lockdown and longer-term benefits claimants.

Shackleton argued that “The uplift was meant to protect people who faced serious short-run disruption to living standards as they unexpectedly became unemployed or had working hours sharply reduced. Those on long-term UC did not really face the same problem, but they got the extra anyway”.

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