Millions of people in receipt of benefits will feel the effects of a 10.1 percent rise in May. That is one change this month, alongside changes to payment dates and the first cost of living payment.
The £301 payment, the first of five across the 2023-24 financial year, will be welcomed by many as households across the UK continue to struggle, Birmingham Live reports. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 10.4 percent in the 12 months to February 2023, up from 10.1 percent in January, while earnings have fallen by 3 percent in real terms.
In the 12 months to February 2023, the cost of food and non-alcoholic drinks rose at the fastest rate in more than 45 years. Prices are also going up at a record pace in restaurants, cafes and pubs. More than half of adults are buying cheaper food, around one in four are opting for more tinned or longer shelf-life food, and one in five are now eating food that has passed its use-by date.
Here are the changes coming this year, with many bringing a welcome boost to family budgets.
Benefit pay rises
Many claimants will begin seeing the new benefit increases applied to the amounts they receive. Although the new rates came into effect on April 10, most people won't see them in their payments until either May or June because benefits are paid in arrears.
So when you receive your benefits weekly, fortnightly or monthly, they aren't paid in advance, but for a previous timeframe of one, two or four weeks. That means people need a full payment cycle after April 10 to feel the effect of the rise.
For Universal Credit, this is a four-week assessment period that must start on or after April 10. It means anyone paid their Universal Credit up till May 16 will still receive their money at the old rate. After that, for the rest of May and into June and beyond, they'll be paid at the new rate.
The same applies to other monthly payments such as Personal Independence Payment, State Pension, Disability Living Allowance, Child Benefit and Attendance Allowance. Where possible, those who choose to get their benefits or pension paid weekly will see the annual increase much sooner.
For benefits paid every fortnight, such as Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, and Income Support, claimants will have seen the increase take effect in April following a payment cycle that began two weeks after April 10.
Bank holiday payments
There are three bank holidays in May this year. As well as the usual Early May Bank Holiday on May 1 and the Spring Bank Holiday on May 29 there is an extra one this year - the Coronation Bank Holiday on May 8. All of them are three-day weekends created by a bank holiday Monday at the end.
It means your regular benefit payments will be moved three times. Anyone set to receive a payment on any of those days and dates should instead get it on the preceding Friday. So it goes in earlier but will have to last you a little bit longer until the next due date.
The list of benefits affected by the bank holiday payment date changes include:
- Attendance Allowance
- Carer's Allowance
- Child Benefit
- Disability Living Allowance
- Employment and Support Allowance
- Income Support
- Jobseeker's Allowance
- Pension Credit
- Personal Independence Payment
- State Pension
- Universal Credit
- Tax credits (such as Working Tax Credit)
Cost of living payment for means-tested benefits
Some will be receiving the first of three cost of living payments for people on means-tested benefits. A sum of £301 is being paid into accounts from April 25 up to May 17.
The benefits that qualify for this are:
- income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)
- income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Income Support
- Pension Credit
- Universal Credit
Two further instalments of £300 and £299 will be paid later in the year, making a total of £900. The first payment of £301 has a qualifying period of January 26 to February 25.
What this means is that people on Universal Credit must have had a payment after an assessment period that ended within those dates. For the other benefits on the eligibility list, people must have been entitled to a payment between those dates.
The payment reference for bank accounts will be DWP COLP, along with the claimant's National Insurance number, so it should be easy to identify the amount going in, where it has come from, and why it has been paid.
Tax Credits cost of living payment
For those who only receive Working Tax Credit and/or Child Tax Credit and aren't on any DWP benefits in the list above, their £301 cost of living payment will be arriving between May 2 and 9.
People will need to have received a payment of tax credits for any day between January 26 and February 25, 2023, or later found to be entitled to a payment for that period. This is the cut-off being used to decide who receives the money.
If eligible, you will get the payment with the code HMRC COLS alongside it in your bank or building society account. It will appear as a separate sum in the same account where you normally receive your Tax Credit payments. Those who are eligible won't need to apply for the money but will receive the cost of living payment automatically.
Pension Credit cost of living deadline
People are being urged to carry out a simple check to see if they can get later access to the £301 cost of living payment from the Government.
Around 850,000 older people are missing out on Pension Credit, an income top-up benefit that is eligible for three cost of living payments including the £301 that's due between April 25 and May 17.
In most cases, you must have been on one of the qualifying benefits between January 26 and February 25. But there is still a way for older people to be entitled to the cost of living support if they put in a later claim for Pension Credit before May 19. The DWP explained that this benefit can be backdated for three months, so it would then cover the earlier qualifying period for the cost of living cash.
Even if you miss out on that particular claims deadline, if you apply after that you could still get the two other cost of living amounts coming later in the financial year, the Government said.
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