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Welfare
Coalition benefit cuts mean 'unacceptable' poverty is increasing, says Oxfam
The coalition's benefit cuts have pushed 1.75 million more people into even deeper poverty, according to a new report.
The study, by Oxfam and NPI, shows that the drop in the value of benefits, increased by less than inflation, and direct cuts to housing benefit and council tax benefit have meant some of the UK's poorest citizens have got worse off under the current government.
This group has seen a cut in their overall incomes and struggle to afford life's basics including food and energy.
Government's benefit cuts force food bank use - report
The government's benefit reforms are forcing some of Britain's poorest people to use food banks - despite all official denials.
According to a report by Sheffield University researcher Hannah Lambie-Mumford cited in today's Guardian, the link is now proven, despite a recent official government report reiterating that an increase in food bank use was not due to its welfare cuts.
Benefit cuts bring mental health problems, need lottery help
The government's benefit cuts are so damaging to the wellbeing of claimants that the national lottery is funding support for those who suffer mental health problems as a result.
The Big Lottery Fund will support Oxfordshire MIND to provide its Benefits for Better Mental Health (BBMH) project, which has been helping people access benefits since 2008.
The £336,000 grant has been given to help the organisation deal with a big increase in workload since the coalition started its war on benefit claimants.
Tory MP in benefit fraud claims despite anti-welfare votes
Tory MP Peter Bone has been accused of benefit fraud in a report in The Times newspaper.
The MP for Wellingborough and Rushden was alleged to have hidden assets belonging to his mother-in-law, Dorothy Sweeney, so her local authority, Northamptonshire County Council, would fund her care home costs.
Anyone who has assets of more than £23,250, including property and savings, must pay for their own care.
Police raided Bone's house after a year-long investigation, triggered after they became aware that Sweeney had sold a house shortly before going into a care home.
More than half of government cuts still to come
More than half of the government's austerity cuts are still ahead, according to a shock new report.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a respected thinktank, says that 60% of planned cuts in public funding are still to come, putting ontold strain on public services.
This follows a decision by Chancellor George Osborne to extend austerity to 2019, which includes the announcement of £12 billion cuts to benefits in addition to the billions detailed before.
Europe accuses UK of paying illegally-low benefits
The level of Britain's major benefits payments is illegally low, and could be raised in court according to a respected European institution.
UnemployedNet has written before about the UK's poverty-guaranteeing welfare amounts - they are among the lowest in Europe and lower than any comparable country - and the Council of Europe has confirmed this.
MPs call for proof that benefit cap works
The fallout from yesterday's report from the work and pensions committee of MPs continues.
Following yesterday's revelations that sanctions targets are in place and jobcentres are not providing the right services to the unemployed, The Guardian's Patrick Butler has more.
Benefits Street residents moved after receiving death threats
Residents of James Turner Street in Birmingham, the setting for controversial Channel 4 programme Benefits Street, have been moved to other areas after receiving death threats.
The Mirror is reporting that some of those living there have been threatened on Twitter and other social media, leading the local council to rehouse them for their own safety.
This was confirmed by a Mirror source who said: "After we named the street in the show, some of the participants in Benefits Street have had to be rehomed. They are vulnerable and we have a duty of care towards them.”
IDS uses Benefits Street success to justify failing policies
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is to make a speech today suggesting that the Channel 4 programme 'Benefits Street' has brought home the reality of life in some of Britain's inner cities to the wider public.
In a draft of the speech marking the tenth anniversay of his think tank the Centre for Social Justice, quoted in The Guardian, Smith said:
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