DWP is not giving cost of living payments to 100,000s of claimants

The Canary can reveal that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will deny over 20,000 more chronically ill and disabled people November’s cost of living payments than it did in July. It comes as the DWP has already warned people not to expect the £324 immediately. Overall, around one million benefit claimants will not get the payment.

DWP cost of living payments

As the Liverpool Echo reported, the DWP will be issuing the second cost of living payments between 8-23 November. People claiming the following benefits should get it:

• Universal Credit
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Income Support
• Pension Credit

If you claim Tax Credits, the DWP will only give it to you now if you also claim one of the benefits listed above. If you don’t, HMRC will pay you the £324 between November 23-30. However, like the first one in July, not everyone who claims social security will get the cost of living payments.

1.5 million missed out who claim benefits

As the Canary previously reported, the DWP did not give July’s £326 payment to a lot of claimants. This included:

• 433,000 Housing Benefit claimants
• 523,000 Carer’s Allowance claimants
• 568,000 PIP/DLA claimants

It was not possible to work out the number of non-income-based ESA/JSA claimants not entitled to the payment as the DWP doesn’t make the figures publicly available. So, overall, around 1.5 million social security claimants were not entitled to July’s cost of living payments.

Now, the Canary has crunched the numbers again for PIP/DLA claimants, looking at November’s payment.

Disabled people being penalised once more

We’ve found that over 20,000 less chronically ill and disabled PIP/DLA claimants are entitled to the second cost of living payments. This is because the number of people claiming the two benefits only has gone up – from 568,889 to 590,435. These claimants won’t get the payments because they don’t claim any other benefit – like Universal Credit.

Meanwhile, the number of Housing Benefit claimants who won’t be getting the cost of living payments has gone down – from 433,015 to 405,236. Now, this may mean that the DWP will give the payment to more people – but only if these people have moved to another qualifying benefit, again like Universal Credit. However, that is still over 400,000 people who the DWP says are poor enough to need support with rent – but not poor enough for anything else.

DWP: beyond belief

As the Canary previously reported, the DWP had not done an impact assessment at the time of rolling out July’s cost of living payments. This is where a government department checks how its policies will affect protected groups – like disabled people. However, in September the DWP did one for the cost of living payments. It stated that of all protected groups by law (like disabled people):

There is no evidence to suggest any specific impacts on customers within any of these protected characteristic groups.

This is likely demonstrably false, given there will be disabled people with high support needs that the DWP will not give the cost of living payments to. All this is without the 8.6 million chronically ill and disabled people who the DWP did not give the other, £150 cost of living payment to either.

It is beyond belief that the DWP will be denying some chronically ill and disabled people additional support this winter. This will be along with countless Housing Benefit and Carer’s Allowance claimants, too. Inflation is out of control, hitting food and energy bills hard. So, it will be charities and communities who pick up the pieces of the DWP’s neglect.

Featured image via Wikimedia