UK Benefits are already notoriously low and barely enough to survive on: certainly not enough to build up any reserves for a rainy day. Yet, as David Webster’s recent analysis shows (19-05 UC Hardship Payments – D.Webster), the vast majority of those sanctioned don’t claim hardship payments. Hardship payments were claimed by 45% of people sanctioned from JSA, but only 17% of people sanctioned from UC.

The reasons aren’t hard to guess. Hardship payments are now a loan, paid back off future benefits, which effectively increases the sanction period to 2 ½ times its nominal length. This comes on top of a system that seems calculated to push people into ever more distressing and unmanageable levels of debt, starting with the initial waiting period, for which many need an advance loan. Hardship payments are also harder to get under UC and have to be reapplied for every month.

The sanction rate may be down from the high percentages of five years ago, but the impact of getting sanctioned can be a lot worse. Of course the official statistics don’t examine how people who have been sanctioned actually survive, but anecdotal evidence tells us that many have to fall back on family and friends who are themselves struggling to make ends meet, while some will turn to less legal methods. They also don’t tell us what impact this has on mental and physical health and family relationships.