More than one million unpaid carers looking after disabled, infirm or sick relatives in the UK are living in poverty, with one in ten experiencing extreme hardship that means they cannot afford to feed themselves or heat their home, a new survey has found.
Campaigners said carers, regularly praised by politicians as unsung heroes who sacrifice to support the NHS, were paying the price for “holding society together” and called on ministers to act to remedy “unacceptable” levels of hardship.
The scale of carer poverty will put further pressure on ministers to fulfil pre-election promises to reform outdated carer's benefit and fix punitive welfare rules that make it difficult for unpaid carers to get and keep part-time paid work.
A lack of paid work is the strongest predictor of carer poverty, but flaws in the design of the main carer benefit, Carer's Allowance, actively prevented unpaid carers from working part-time in addition to their caring duties, the study said.
The plight of unpaid carers has shot up the political agenda in recent months after a Guardian investigation revealed that tens of thousands of carers had inadvertently breached excessive carer benefit rules and paid back huge overpayments to the government.
The brutal treatment of carers by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for minor breaches of the £151-a-week Carer's Allowance income limit has sparked public outrage and been compared to the Post Office scandal.
Emily Holzhausen, director of policy and communications at the charity Carers UK, which published the research, said: “The figures showing that millions of unpaid carers are living in poverty are deeply disturbing and shocking.”
She added: “The care provided by carers every day across the UK helps to hold society together, but too many people are paying a very heavy price for their care, putting them at risk of falling into poverty and financial hardship. This is completely unacceptable.”
“The recent scandal over carers' allowance underpayment shows that a review of carers' allowance, and the process behind it, is long overdue. We need a modern benefits system that meets the changing needs of carers and society.”
An overhaul of Carer's Allowance, which is paid just £81.90 a week, would remove barriers to the jobs market and help ministers fulfil their promise to tackle child poverty. An estimated 40% of carer households have dependants.
Carers UK estimates that 600 people a day leave work to care for a loved one, and cites research by the Centre for Social Justice think tank which found that four in 10 unpaid carers would return to work if the £151-a-week earnings limit (the equivalent of 13 hours' work at the minimum wage) was increased.
A series of articles in the Guardian this year revealed how hundreds of thousands of carers who accidentally breached the limits by just a few pounds a week have been forced to pay back millions in overpayments by the DWP, and in some cases threatened with fraud prosecution.
The latest figures show the DWP has recovered £251 million from 134,000 unpaid carers in overpayments linked to breaches of income rules. Many of the carers affected, who were already struggling financially, are left with huge debts and face years of weekly wage and benefit deductions to pay them off.
The research found that carers are 50% more likely to be in poverty than non-carers, and that women, ethnic minorities and carers living in mid- and north-east England are much more likely to struggle financially than carers living in the south-east.
Carers UK has called for the earnings cap on carers' allowance to be increased to £240 a week, or 21 hours the national minimum wage, which would lift 50,000 carers out of poverty at a cost of £90 million a year. It also called for an immediate increase in the carers' part of Universal Credit and Pension Credit by £11 a week, which would pull 30,000 carers above the poverty line at a cost of £580 million a year.
Unpaid carers have been particularly hard hit by the cost of living crisis, with a Carers UK survey last year revealing that one in three were cutting back on spending on essentials and one in five were struggling to pay for food.
The DWP has been contacted for comment.
