LBC Fact Check: Single Mothers ARE Being Targeted By Benefit Cap

11 November 2016, 15:27 | Updated: 11 November 2016, 15:32

The GMB union claims that the government's benefit cap is a "montrous" assault on 40,000 single mothers. LBC's Fact Check discovers their right.

Full Fact's Claire Milne explains: "The benefit cap, which limits the amount of money households can claim in various benefits, was lowered this week. The government estimates that a typical household will see their benefits reduced by about £49 a week if they don't take their own steps to avoid the cap.

"The trade union GMB is describing it as "a monstrous new assault on 40,000 single mothers which risk shattering the life chances of children up and down our country".

"The GMB's figure is likely to be right. An estimated 88,000 households could be affected by the benefit cap overall. 54,000 of these are households with single mothers. The GMB is only talking about single mothers who have been newly affected by the changes to the benefit cap. We don't have exact figures for this but before the count was increased, about the same proportion of people affected worst single mothers. That suggests it's around 40,000.

"But why single mothers? Well, the government says that the majority of households are likely to be affected by the cap have children. Single parents are much less likely to be in employment than parents who are married or cohabiting and about 86% are single mothers.

"The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the new benefit cap will lower spending by around £100million a year. This is less than 1% of the planned benefit spending reductions up to 2020."