£24,000 doesn’t represent what most Universal Credit claimants receive

In a Facebook post, Conservative MP Lee Anderson gave an estimate of the yearly Universal Credit entitlement for a single-parent of three based in his constituency of Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. We’ve been asked to check this by readers.

In the post, Mr Anderson says that a single parent of three children renting in his constituency and working 16 hours a week on minimum wage could receive £24,000 a year in benefits tax-free on top of their paid job, and still receive other support such as free school meals.

Mr Anderson appears to be responding to a petition from footballer and campaigner Marcus Rashford, who has said that all children in households receiving Universal Credit or equivalent benefits should be entitled to free school meals. Currently, only households with an annual income of less than £7,400 after tax are entitled to free school meals. We’ve written about what this means for some families on Universal Credit before.

According to the details in the post by Mr Anderson, the family he described would be eligible for free school meals, as their yearly income before benefits would be £7,255.04 (16 hours work per week at £8.72 per hour the national living wage for those aged 25 and over). This is also below the tax threshold.

We’ve taken a look at some of the other claims Mr Anderson makes in the post.

How much do people get on Universal Credit?

Mr Anderson provided Full Fact with the information he inputted into a benefits calculator to create the example of the family he uses. When we replicated his calculation, we got to around £24,000 a year entitlement (£23,996.88).

The figure provided amounts to £412.06 Universal Credit weekly, or £1,758.62 a month, (plus £48.95 weekly child benefit and £0.83 council tax credit), and represents the higher end of Universal Credit payments. Most households do not receive this much support.

Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions from May this year shows that 8% of all households receiving a Universal Credit payment received over £1,500 per month. The average (mean) payment of Universal Credit was £780 a month, and the median was £690 a month, although this is slightly inflated due to extra money being made temporarily available during the Covid-19 pandemic.

What impacts Universal Credit?

There are numerous factors that can affect the amount of Universal Credit a household receives. This includes if a member of the household is working, how many children are in the house and their ages, and where in the country someone is living.

In the example Mr Anderson gave Full Fact, he stated that the single parent was renting private accommodation in his constituency at a cost of £450 a month. She has three boys aged six, eight and 12—with the younger two receiving childcare at £50 a week each. The mother works 16 hours a week in a minimum wage job. The fictional family live in a council tax band A property (the lowest level) and do not currently receive any other state support.

Mr Anderson estimated £50 a week would be spent on childcare costs for each of the two younger children. However, this is considerably below term-time averages and is unlikely to factor in additional school holiday care costs. For example, Money Advice Service estimates that for just one child the average cost of an after-school club is £70 a week.

Mr Anderson states in the post that if the single parent in his example received child maintenance, it would not be taken into account during the Universal Credit calculation and it could result in an extra £3,000 to £4,000 a year income. Similarly to Universal Credit, calculation of child maintenance is based on numerous factors, such as income, the number of children, and how often they see the children. Presuming the parent paying maintenance has no other children, does not receive benefits, and does not visit the children, it is possible that someone earning around £20,000 a year could pay this yearly for the three children. It is also true that child maintenance payments do not affect Universal Credit entitlement.

The calculation also doesn’t factor in things such as debt, which a large proportion of Universal Credit claimants have, and something that affects payment as debt payments can be taken from benefits.

So while the figure argued by Mr Anderson is possible, it doesn’t represent the general amount given to people in need for government financial support.