Five-to-one: 65 per cent of the public want the welfare couple penalty abolished, new poll finds

Five-to-one: 65 per cent of the public want the welfare couple penalty abolished, new poll finds

Sixty-five per cent of the British public want the benefits system to stop financially penalising couples who live together, according to new polling from the Family Education Trust. Just 12 per cent oppose. The five-to-one majority crosses every political divide, and the Family Education Trust is writing to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to call for the penalty to be ended in this Parliament.

New polling from the Family Education Trust, conducted by Whitestone Insight, a British Polling Council member, among a representative sample of 2,086 UK adults, finds overwhelming public support for fixing the so-called couple penalty in the benefits system, where Universal Credit and means-tested benefits can leave couples financially worse off if they live together than if they live apart.

The finding

65 per cent of the public support ensuring that couples on benefits are never financially worse off living together than they would be living apart.

Just 12 per cent oppose this. 23 per cent are undecided.

The net positive is 53 percentage points. By a margin of more than five to one, the British public wants the penalty removed.

Why it matters

The couple penalty in the UK welfare system has been documented for nearly two decades. Where two adults claim benefits separately, they typically receive more in total than the same two adults claiming as a couple. For low-income families with children, the penalty can be substantial, and the perverse incentive to live apart has been a long-standing concern of family-policy researchers across the political spectrum.

The Family Education Trust position

Dr Tony Rucinski, Chair of the Family Education Trust, said:

"This is the easiest cross-bench win in family policy. Sixty-five per cent of the public think the benefits system should never punish couples for living together, and just 12 per cent disagree. The couple penalty is not a values issue, it is a fairness issue. It costs low-income families money for doing exactly what every common-sense instinct says they should, which is bring up their children together under the same roof. I have written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions asking the Government to bring forward a reform package that ends the couple penalty in this Parliament. The country is waiting."

Dr Rucinski added:

"This is a cost-of-living issue, a child-poverty issue and a family-stability issue in one. There is no political party in this country whose voters disagree with this finding. The public has done its job. It is now for ministers to do theirs."