This report looks in detail at food insecurity among benefit claimants using YouGov surveys of the...
Benefits
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06/10/2021
Hunger and the welfare state: Food insecurity among benefit claimants during COVID-19
This report looks in detail at food insecurity among benefit claimants using YouGov surveys of the general public (n=2,600) and of claimants (n=6,300), both conducted for the Welfare at a (Social) Distance project in May/June 2021. We look at two measures of food insecurity:
Any food insecurity, where the quality and variety of people’s diets were affected by lack of money (e.g. people couldn’t afford to eat balanced meals in the last 30 days); Severe food insecurity, where the amount of food that people eat has been reduced by lack of money (e.g. cutting the size of/skipping meals in the last 30 days).We come to seven conclusions about benefits and food insecurity:
Category: News stories -
14/01/2021
Covid hits poorest families hardest
The latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation annual report finds that those who had been struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic have suffered the most financial damage during the crisis,
Category: News stories -
08/12/2017
The centrality of poverty
Poverty as measured by material deprivation through lack of economic resources remains absolutely central to understanding the causation of most aspects of social exclusion and a range of social outcomes, concludes the 2nd of the two-volume PSE-UK study.
Category: Articles -
31/05/2017
The true cost of austerity
The human cost of government imposed austerity should be a key issue, argue Vickie Cooper and David Whyte. Drawing on their new book, 'The Violence of Austerity', they set out how austerity is shaping people's lives and deaths.
Category: Articles -
29/01/2016
Journal papers
Read the Journal papers coming from the PSE research. The latest paper examines how analyses of the micro paradata ‘by-products’ from the 1967/1968 Poverty in the United Kingdom (PinUK) and 2012 Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK (PSE) surveys highlight changes in the conditions of survey production over this 45 year period in the latest output from the PSE research.
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26/01/2016
Community engagement project in Northern Ireland
As part of the PSE UK team's commitment to encouraging public engagement, stimulating debate and informing policy, the team sought to develop new approaches to engaging with grassroots lobbying groups, community practitioners and people directly affected by poverty and social exclusion. In collaboration with the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland a pilot project was run with eight local community groups across Northern Ireland. The final report of the project's impact, 'We are sitting with the big people now', details the empowering impact this project had on the people involved. Further details can be found under Communities in Action including the videos and other outputs of the community groups involved.Category: PSE Report -
18/03/2014
MPs criticise ‘spin’ against benefit claimants
A report by MPs has criticised the Department for Work and Pensions for a series of cases in which official statistics were used to 'spin' stories about benefit claimants, thereby encouraging 'negative preconceptions and prejudices'.
Category: Reports -
03/03/2014
Call for benefits sanctions overhaul
Each year as many as 68,000 people on jobseeker's allowance have their benefits taken away unfairly and face unnecessary hardship as a result, according to a new report from the Policy Exchange think tank. The report calls for the system of sanctions to be overhauled.
Category: Reports -
19/02/2014
Record sanctions for benefits claimants
The total number of sanctions imposed on benefit claimants in the year to September 2013 was 897,690 – the highest figure for any 12-month period since jobseeker's allowance was introduced in 1996 – according to figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The figures show the number of sanctions imposed under the tougher new regime introduced by the coalition government in October 2012. They cover jobseeker's allowance (JSA) and employment and support allowance (ESA).
Category: Reports -
19/02/2014
Bishops condemn benefits reforms
Twenty-seven Church of England bishops have signed a letter condemning the coalition government's benefits reforms, which they say have forced people into food and fuel poverty.
In an open letter to the Prime Minister, published in the Daily Mirror to mark the beginning of Lent, the bishops – along with 16 representatives of other Churches – said that too many people were having to choose between 'heat or eat' as a result of 'cut backs and failures in the benefit system'.
Category: News stories
