Alex never thought he would need benefits – then he lost his job and needed universal credit to survive

Alex had been a high earner in a senior marketing role before the pandemic hit. Then, as the world struggled to recover economically and inflation soared, he was made redundant. Twice. Suddenly, Alex found himself reliant on the social security system and food banks to survive.

“My earnings were sliding between redundancy and the next job,” Alex says. “After a couple of redundancies, it became difficult to find employment.”

Alex was among more than a million people in the UK made redundant during or in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, and the job market was a difficult beast.

A father of two, Alex claimed universal credit to support his family. He is a single parent in a shared care arrangement, where carers split responsibilities between them. His 14-year-old daughter and 20-year-old son are both neurodiverse.

“There were just no jobs doing what I did, and looking at LinkedIn, you would see hundreds of applicants for every single job within hours of it being posted online. It was frightening,” Alex explains.

He felt an overwhelming sense of “loneliness”, and the thought of applying for benefits was “terrifying”. He later discovered charity Turn2us, which offers information and support to people facing financial insecurity and helps them access benefits and charitable grants, but at first he felt alone in the system.

“First thing that struck me was the sense of suspicion and the second was how many hoops I had to jump through, which were quite infantilising,” Alex says.

The Jobcentre made him attend a CV-writing workshop and another on how to look for jobs online. Under the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) rules, people have to attend workshops like this or they could lose their universal credit.

“It felt like an absolute waste of time. It was frustrating. It also felt like a waste of resource on their part. Somebody who really needed it could have been in that seat,” says Alex.

As he is not in receipt of child benefit, the DWP treated him as a single person, so he was not entitled to additional universal credit despite having caring responsibilities.

“It’s quite a degrading experience. You’re being told that your identity as a parent is not recognised,” Alex adds.

Alex has been sharing the care of his children equally for 10 years since his divorce. To support his family he has been contributing to the mortgage of the house where his ex-wife and their children live while covering his own rent in a place nearby.

“Because I didn’t get the child element, my first universal credit payment was £50 lower than my monthly rent without paying any bills or anything like that,” Alex says.

“I phoned DWP and begged and pleaded. I was quite upset on this phone call. I made disclosures about my mental health at the time that should have triggered some safeguarding questions. But what happened was the person I was speaking to repeatedly explained how the assessment periods work.”

Alex knows now, through receiving support from Turn2us, that he could have fought for the child element of universal credit, as it is not dependent on a person receiving child benefit despite the DWP often using this as proof of them being a primary caregiver.

“I’d have been much better informed had I been in touch with Turn2us. It would have been invaluable.”

“I’d have been much better informed had I been in touch with Turn2us. I can’t overstate the importance or the benefit of having that support. It would have been invaluable,” Alex says.

But without it, Alex felt the only option he had was to get any job at all, so he has worked as a postman for more than two years while continuing to apply for marketing roles. He says he’s applied for hundreds of jobs during this time. At times, he has used food banks and borrowed money from friends to pay bills.

“During the two years where I was a postie topped up with universal credit, nobody from DWP contacted me. I did receive the odd automated message via the journal asking me to re-accept my commitments,” Alex says.

A former colleague got in touch and offered some freelance work, and that gave Alex the confidence to register as self-employed with HMRC. He now works three days a week as a postman, and four days a week trying to build a business.

On registering as freelance, he received a letter from the Jobcentre saying he would be sanctioned if he didn’t provide proof his freelance work would be profitable. At a meeting, the Jobcentre told him he had a start-up period of a year, but the initial email was worrying.

Alex says he discovered Turn2us “two years too late” but their support is so helpful.

The charity has an online benefits calculator so that people can find out what financial support they may be entitled to, and it provides accessible information around maximising income.

Turn2us are fuelling the fight to fix the broken benefits system and pushing for a financially secure future for all – but they need support.

The Labour government has announced plans for “the biggest reforms to employment support in a generation”, including overhauling Jobcentres and creating a new jobs and careers service focused on skills and guidance, rather than managing claims. But campaigners argue that there is still work to be done to fix the system.

Alex would like to see a welfare system that is “tailored, intensive and discretionary” and that offers “not just financial but professional support”. He wrote to his local MP and the secretary of state to urge action on this. He never heard back from his MP, whose office raised the issue as a complaint with the local Jobcentre rather than dealing with it on a systemic level.

Alex adds: “While it’s nice to think about what a welfare system would look like in a perfect world, what we’re lacking is basic professional standards and treating people with decency.”

Key stats

68%
of people feel ashamed about claiming support, with over half of those claiming agreeing the process made their mental health worse

3 in 5
of current claimants felt the benefits system was trying to catch them out

Others are facing the same struggles as Alex right now. Your donations help people access information, support and guidance before they reach crisis point. Will you stand with Turn2us to create a financially secure future for all? Donate today to help people in crisis: turn2us.org.uk/give

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