LONDON (CU)_The number of people living in hardship on account of the pandemic could soar by one million by May this year, British finance minister Rishi Sunak has been warned ahead of the budget.
Reports have suggested that when delivering his budget to parliament on Wednesday (March 3), Sunak will extend the universal credit payments up until November, since they are due to expire later this month.
However, according to British think-tank New Economics Foundation (NEF), even if the chancellor extends this payment of £20-per-week, yet, over 21 million people will be unable to afford the basic requirements for a “decent standard of living”.
The Foundation added that as the United Kingdom emerges from the pandemic, “it will lay bare the true extent of the crisis in living standards that is now a reality for millions”.
NEF claims that by May this year, there will be an extra 1.1. million people living below the MIS, in comparison to September 2020. On the other hand, if the universal credit payments are removed, this number will increase by an extra 700,000 people, the think-tank said.
“There seems to be light at the end of the tunnel in this pandemic but we are by no means out of the woods yet,” Sarah Arnold, a senior economist at the New Economics Foundation, said. “If the public health crisis abates as we all hope it will, it will lay bare the true extent of the crisis in living standards that is now a reality for millions of families.”
She added that according to NEF’s new analysis, even if the economy begins to recover this year, however, there will still be an increase in the number of households falling into extreme hardship.
“This isn’t right — we shouldn’t be leaving anyone out of the recovery,” she noted.
Arnold added that it is time to build a safety net that is capable of protecting people’s livelihoods and their incomes, and that a part of this should be to ensure people are provided with a living income that is “enough to live, not just survive”.
