The Unemployed on Supplementary Benefit: Living Standards and Making Ends Meet on a Low Income

Abstract

The level of income which supplementary benefit provides can be viewed as the government-approved minimum income level for this country. This article reports on a study which looked at a particular group of people who are living on this state minimum, and investigated how they were managing financially. The study discovered that most of the male unemployed claimants who were interviewed had suffered an appreciable drop in their incomes and living standards compared with when they were in work, and this caused budgeting problems as they tried to cut back on their normal expenditure or to supplement their weekly income in various ways. Contrary to popular belief, the study found that it was the unemployed men with families who were least able to cope, although for them the relative drop in income between work and unemployment was less. They appeared to be hard pressed both in and out of work, and had less in the way of savings and stocks of clothing to cushion them for their period on benefit. The paper concludes, with the Supplementary Benefits Commission, that supplementary benefit incomes for the unemployed, especially those with families, are barely adequate to meet their needs at a level which would allow them to participate fully in the society in which they live.