The rising number of working people living in
poverty is causing the government to spend billions more than planned on social
security, according to a new TUC report.
The TUC report Is Social Security Spending Really Out Of Control? compares social security spending over the course of this parliament with the government’s original forecast in 2010, as well as taking a longer term look at welfare spending over the last three decades.
The report examines the main areas of social security spending – which is set to be £9.2bn a year more than originally forecast by 2014-15 – and finds that rising in-work poverty, caused by real wage falls and the concentration of new jobs in low paying industries, is the main cause of over-spending.
The biggest area of social security over-spending – £2.6bn a year by 2014-15 – is on tax credits, two-thirds of which are going to working households. Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that the number of middle-income families receiving tax credits has almost doubled in the last five years.
This overspend is a result of falling real incomes leaving more working families in need of tax credit support – and has come in spite of cuts to tax credits that have left some families thousands of pounds a year worse off, says the TUC.
The next biggest area of overspending – £2.5bn a year by 2014-15 – is on housing benefit. This overspending is also likely to be due to rising in-work poverty as most of the increase in the housing benefit caseload since 2010 comes from working families.
The report follows recent TUC research which found that workers are experiencing the longest real wage squeeze in over a century – average weekly earnings growth has trailed inflation since late 2009 – and that 80 per cent of net job creation under the coalition has taken place in industries paying less than £8 an hour on average.
ONS figures published yesterday found that real household disposable income per head has fallen sharply in recent years and is now back at its 2005 level.
Rising in-work poverty is causing real hardship for families and a headache for government, which is overspending by billions on social security payments and is receiving less in tax revenues, says the TUC.
But rather than announce steps to tackle rising in-work poverty in the autumn statement later today, the Chancellor seems set to downplay the UK’s living standards crisis by saying that disposable incomes are rising and pay continues to rise in line with productivity, once employers’ pensions and national insurance contributions are included.
The Chancellor’s claims fly in the face of TUC research, as well official government statistics and reports by organisations ranging from the Resolution Foundation to the OECD and the IMF, all of whom have reported on Britain’s real wage squeeze and growing pay inequalities.
Read more...
The TUC report Is Social Security Spending Really Out Of Control? compares social security spending over the course of this parliament with the government’s original forecast in 2010, as well as taking a longer term look at welfare spending over the last three decades.
The report examines the main areas of social security spending – which is set to be £9.2bn a year more than originally forecast by 2014-15 – and finds that rising in-work poverty, caused by real wage falls and the concentration of new jobs in low paying industries, is the main cause of over-spending.
The biggest area of social security over-spending – £2.6bn a year by 2014-15 – is on tax credits, two-thirds of which are going to working households. Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that the number of middle-income families receiving tax credits has almost doubled in the last five years.
This overspend is a result of falling real incomes leaving more working families in need of tax credit support – and has come in spite of cuts to tax credits that have left some families thousands of pounds a year worse off, says the TUC.
The next biggest area of overspending – £2.5bn a year by 2014-15 – is on housing benefit. This overspending is also likely to be due to rising in-work poverty as most of the increase in the housing benefit caseload since 2010 comes from working families.
The report follows recent TUC research which found that workers are experiencing the longest real wage squeeze in over a century – average weekly earnings growth has trailed inflation since late 2009 – and that 80 per cent of net job creation under the coalition has taken place in industries paying less than £8 an hour on average.
ONS figures published yesterday found that real household disposable income per head has fallen sharply in recent years and is now back at its 2005 level.
Rising in-work poverty is causing real hardship for families and a headache for government, which is overspending by billions on social security payments and is receiving less in tax revenues, says the TUC.
But rather than announce steps to tackle rising in-work poverty in the autumn statement later today, the Chancellor seems set to downplay the UK’s living standards crisis by saying that disposable incomes are rising and pay continues to rise in line with productivity, once employers’ pensions and national insurance contributions are included.
The Chancellor’s claims fly in the face of TUC research, as well official government statistics and reports by organisations ranging from the Resolution Foundation to the OECD and the IMF, all of whom have reported on Britain’s real wage squeeze and growing pay inequalities.
Read more...
