Birmingham households hit most in the Midlands by Universal Credit cut
More than 100,000 homes in the area are claiming
Last updated 6th Oct 2021
Birmingham homes will be hit harder than anywhere else in the Midlands by the £20-per-week cut to Universal Credit, figures from GOV.UK and ArcGIS show.
Claimants of Universal Credit will receive less money from today after the Government announced it would withdraw the extra £20 support increase introduced at the start of the pandemic.
The data map, which reveals the number of households on Universal Credit as of 13 May 2021, shows that there are 135,437 homes in Birmingham claiming.
That's more households on Universal Credit than anywhere else in the Midlands, with areas like Leicester (35,217), Nottingham (32,631) and Coventry (30,845) having far less homes claiming.
In the Midlands, 819,487 households were on Universal Credit as of May 2021, 700,856 of which were in payment and 118,632 were not in payment.
In London, 857,001 households were on Universal Credit, while the North of England had the most homes with 1,133,515 receiving payment.
Recipients of Universal Credit will now be £1,040 pounds worse off per year than they were at the start of the pandemic, when the Government introduced the £20 increase.
A Government spokesman said: "We've always been clear that the uplift to Universal Credit was temporary.
It was designed to help claimants through the economic shock and financial disruption of the toughest stages of the pandemic, and it has done so."
View the figures showing the number of houses on Universal Credit by region.