47% of households forced onto DWP Universal credit lost money

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has released official figures for how many people have managed the move from legacy benefits to Universal Credit. They are, of course, trying to paint a pretty picture of the people they’ve supported. But the figures speak for themselves on how many have been left with less – or worse, with nothing.

DWP celebrates people losing money

If you were to take the media and politicians’ word for it, you’d think that welfare was ‘out of control’ and Universal Credit claimants have ‘increased significantly’ because nobody wants to work. But, as the DWP eventually had to admit, the reason for this is, of course, that over 2 million people were forced to migrate from legacy benefits to Universal Credit.

Back in February, I reported for the Canary that the DWP had celebrated stripping over 360,000 of their legacy benefits, as they announced the closure of Employment Support Allowance and Housing Benefit.

As I wrote at the time:

They bragged:

“Over 1.9 million people now better supported to find good, secure jobs as the Government moves customers off outdated benefits and on to Universal Credit.”

Considering ESA was a benefit for disabled people who couldn’t work as much or at all, it’s absolutely gross that the focus here is on work. But it doesn’t come as a surprise from the department that wants to force disabled people into work by any means necessary.

Well, now with the updated figures for completing the move to Universal Credit, we can see just how many people have lost their benefits. Not only that, but how many are worse off after being forced to move to Universal Credit.

DWP’s own figures show how screwed vulnerable people are

The DWP’s own stats show that, between July 2022 and the end of March 2026, 2,353,319 claimants were sent migration notices, or 1,822,374 households. Of that, 1,992,161 people in 1,580,239 households made a claim for Universal Credit and 1,131 people in 1,073 households are still going through the process.

This means that 360,030 people in 241,064 households did not manage to make a claim in the three-month period DWP imposed. That’s 15% of claimants and 13% of households that lost their vital support.

As the Canary has previously reported, making the move to Universal Credit is especially difficult for chronically ill and disabled people, who struggle with stress and lack the energy to fill in excessive forms.

An internal report also showed that some disabled claimants often had very little understanding of what they were being asked to do. As a result, many didn’t manage to claim Universal Credit and lost their legacy benefit.

The National Association of Welfare Rights Workers told Work and Pensions committee chair Debbie Abrahams that:

These claimants will all have long-term health conditions and/or disabilities, and their legacy benefits are likely to be their only source of income. A failure to migrate to universal credit therefore carries a high risk of destitution, rapid deterioration in their health, and even death.

Those who claimed still lost

The stats also showed how many people had managed to apply for ‘transitional protection’. This is awarded to even out the fact that many may lose money when switching benefits. But not everyone managed to do this. Of the number of 1,531,860 households eligible for protection, just 814,703 were awarded it.

This means that 717,157 households did not receive transitional protection and will have lost money by moving to Universal Credit.

What’s notable is we aren’t told in the report why people didn’t get the protection. As they were already eligible, this is presumably a problem of not contacting the DWP in time. And this again shows that, by putting a strict 3-month time-limit on claimants, many did not have enough time to jump through all of the DWP’s hoops.

But what’s really interesting is that, for the rest of the stats in the report, the DWP have provided individual and household figures; for transitional protection, they’ve only provided households affected. This means we don’t know how many individual claimants were affected, which could’ve been a lot higher than 43%.

It was previously discovered by Policy in Practice that around 200,000 households lost around £59.54 a week. That’s over £230 a month that people are just expected to do without.

DWP is a failure of an organisation

There are many things the DWP could’ve done differently here. Their system could be easier to navigate and phonelines easier to get through to. They could’ve made transitional protection a part of the main application that you didn’t have to apply separately for. But owt to save a few quid

The DWP are trying to market these stats as a good thing, but all they show, once again, is how much of a failure of an organisation they are.

Featured image via the Canary