Entry-Level Workers Driven Out Of London by Soaring Rents

London's housing shortage is driving graduates and low-paid workers to move further from the capital, prompting fears of an imminent jobs crisis as businesses struggle to recruit entry-level labour. According to the CBI's new poll of London-based businesses, some 57pc of bosses said that the high cost and low availability of housing was affecting their ability to recruit staff for lower-wage jobs. Almost a third said that employees were having to leave their jobs because costs are too high. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Rents in EVERY London Postcode Are ‘Unaffordable’ For Workers on Living Wage

Rent in every London postcode is now “unaffordable” for low-paid workers — even those on the London Living Wage — according to a new survey.  Figures show that workers paid £9.15 an hour, the “living” rate, have to spend more than half their income on rent. The situation is even bleaker for apprentices, whose £2.73-an-hour earnings mean they do not stand a chance. Even the capital’s cheapest postcodes such as SE28 and N9 are now considered out of reach with rooms on average costing £480 a month and £505 a month respectively. At these rates renters on the Living Wage would be forced to spend about 40 per cent of their net income on accommodation. SpareRoom.co.uk, which conducted the research, calculated “affordable” as spending less than 35 per cent of take-home earnings on rent. Read more on the Evening Standard website.

The Housing Market Isn’t Helping People to Make Ends Meet

In recent years there has been a vast increase in low-paid, part time and insecure work, which means that getting a job does not necessarily mean getting out of poverty. These changes have had an impact on housing, with the number of Housing Benefit claimants in work doubling between 2009 and 2014. But housing isn’t helping people cope with the changed labour market. Paying housing costs pushes three million people into poverty every year and the number of people in poverty in the private rented sector, the most expensive form of housing, has doubled in the last decade. Traditionally, social housing has played an important role in reducing the degree of poverty experienced by low-income groups, but in recent years things have changed. Rents for most new lettings are now linked directly to the dysfunctional private rented housing market this group can’t afford to access.  Read more on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website.

The DWP's Solution to the Problem of Low Pay? Blame Working Families

How many hours should low-paid parents be expected to work? Universal credit (UC) pilots provide an insight into government thinking on this question. Over the next year or so, 15,000 working families in receipt of UC will be randomly subject to different levels of ‘in-work conditionality’ requiring them to look for more or better paid jobs. Some will receive the light touch: a couple of phone calls every now and then encouraging them to increase their hours. Others will have to participate in a more intensive programme of ‘challenging’ interviews. All will be at risk of losing at least part of their benefit if they fail to comply. Read more on the Child Poverty Action Group website.

Get a Free Council House for Coming off Benefits

Millions of houses would be “given away” to low-paid workers under Tory plans to reward people who come off benefits. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, is pushing for a pledge to “gift” tenants their council home after a year in work to be included in the Tory manifesto. Such tenants would cease to be eligible for housing benefit and would have to pay 35 per cent of the sale proceeds in tax if they sold their property within three years, according to one model under discussion. Read more on the New Statesman website.

Govt. Dodged Scrutiny of Universal Credit

The damage coalition cuts and bodge have done to Universal Credit was omitted from the National Audit Office assessment of the scheme in November.  The full story emerged a week after the auditor published its report. Had the NAO been able to put all the cards on the table, it may have discredited the coalition as the country entered its few months of mudslinging before the general election in May. The ambitious Universal Credit welfare scheme was in a worse state than the DWP had admitted when the auditor did its assessment. But this may have been caused more by government cuts in welfare to people in low paid jobs than its well-publicised IT problems. Read more on Computer Weekly.

Shift Spending From Benefits to Building Homes and Tackling Unemployment

Shifting spending from housing benefit to house building and tackling low pay and unemployment is the best way of lifting people out of poverty and cutting the housing benefit bill, according to a new report. The report, from the CIH, concludes that short-term measures that cut the amount of benefits people can receive (such as the bedroom tax and the benefit cap) do nothing to tackle the causes of welfare dependency and are unlikely to have any significant impact in reversing it.  Download a copy of the report from the CIH website.

City in Grip of Housing Benefits 'Explosion'

New figures show that Bradford is in the grip of a low pay crisis – with an explosion in the number of working people surviving on housing benefit. The number of claimants in the city who have jobs has leapt by 73 per cent since the last General Election, according to official statistics. Across the district, there are 28,513 people working, but on housing benefit, after similar leaps in Calderdale (up 56 per cent), Kirklees (58 per cent) and Leeds (89 per cent).  There has been growing criticism of the Government’s insistence that getting people off benefits and into work is, by itself, a route out of poverty.  Read more on the Bradford Argus & Telegraph website.