Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed that the £20 per week top-up to Universal Credit under Covid-19 will be extended until September.
The increase to Universal Credit, which totals just over £1,000 per year, was introduced last year to ease financial pressures during the pandemic and was due to come to an end on 31 March. During the Spring Budget 2021, Sunak told the House of Commons that the government was extending the benefit uplift for the "lowest paid and most vulnerable…well beyond the end of this national lockdown." "We will provide working tax credit claimants with equivalent support for the next six months, and because of the way that system works operationally, we will need to do so with a one-off payment ...
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