Cost Of Living Grants In 2023/24 For Benefit Recipients And Pensioners - no support for the rest

20th November 2022

The Chancellor announced further ‘one-off' grants for households in 2023-24, targeted at households on means-tested or disability benefits and pensioners. Unlike the 2022-23 vintage, there will be no such support this time for those not receiving a benefit or state pension. With £900 for those on means-tested benefits, £300 for pensioners and £150 for those on disability benefits (none of which are mutually exclusive), these grants will - alongside the tax rises - mean that the package of measures announced today has a highly progressive effect in 2023-24.

However, one must remember the backdrop for this rather ad hoc form of additional support for benefit recipients: the actual rates of ‘ordinary' benefits (i.e. excluding the one-off grants) will, despite the 10.1% increase confirmed for April 2023, remain lower in real terms than prior to the current spike in inflation until at least April 2024. The inadequacies in our method of uprating benefits in line with the cost of living - done once per year, and using out-of-date inflation measures - are directly related to the choice to provide these additional, temporary grants. And the grants are not a genuine substitute for ordinary benefits actually keeping up with inflation. Their flat-rate nature does not account for variation in circumstances, such as the number of children people have, and there is a cliff-edge in support for low-earning working households at the point when the last £1 of Universal Credit is withdrawn and they lose their £900 grant as well.