“Ministers insisted nobody would be worse off [under the Universal Credit].

“But their claims were blown apart by the Department for Work and Pensions just two hours later when it stated 1.7 million households will be entitled to less." Daily Mirror, 18 February 2011.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Daily Mirror has come out strongly against the Government's welfare reform proposals published yesterday.

The paper sets out how, despite Ministers' assurances nobody would be worse off, in fact, 1.7 million will have lower entitlements.

So who to believe – politicians or a red top newspaper?

Analysis

The Impact Assessment published by the Department does back up this claim – estimating that there will be 1.7 million potentially worse off, 2.7 million with higher entitlements, and 3.5 million seeing no change.

So does the existence of this 1.7 million 'blow apart' ministers' claims about the proposals, as the Mirror claims? Not quite.

The Impact Assessment states that “around 1.7 million households will have lower entitlements under Universal Credit. However it is important to recognise that transitional protection will ensure there are no cash losers at the point of change.”

But what does this actually mean?

As a spokesperson for the DWP explained to Full Fact, this means that the only people whose entitlement would be lower are those who begin making claims after the reforms come in from 2013.

In a hypothetical case where two people are in identical circumstances - apart from one is claiming benefits and the other is not - the following could occur.

If, after 2013, the person not claiming benefits began a claim under the new universal credit system, but the other person remained in the same circumstances and on the same benefits, the new claimant may be entitled to less money. According to the DWP figures it is estimated there will be 1.7 million people in this sort of position.

So the person making the new claim is getting less money than they would have done under the current system - but since they didn't claim under the old system this does not mean that the money they receive is actually being cut.

This does not challenge the Mirror's figures but it is perhaps not what most readers would typically understand when the report claims “1.7 million face a fall in living standards”.

Furthermore the 1.7 million figure does not directly challenge claims from Government ministers that current claimants would not lose out – the Mirror is talking about a different group of people.

The paper seems to have got its numbers wrong on the amounts by which entitlements would be reduced.

The report claims: “Of the 1.7 million facing a fall in their living standards, 500,000 will be up to £25 a week poorer and 200,000 up to £75 worse off.”

By implication this would mean the rest, some one million or so, would have an entitlement more than £75 per week lower than what they would currently get.

What the table in the incapacity benefit section actually shows is below.



In fact 100,000 people can expect lower entitlements of £75 week or more, whereas for 1.3 million the entitlement would be reduced by up to £25 a week.

So while the Mirror has understated the amounts of people seeing the relatively smaller falls in future entitlements, by extension it has massively overstated the number of people who would see bigger falls in entitlements.

Conclusion

The coverage in the Mirror does not explode claims by ministers about the how people will be effected by the new universal credit.

This does not mean the paper has got it wrong – it does not, after all, claim that existing claimants will see their benefits reduced, but rather gives an impression that ministers got it wrong.

The report fails to make clear that two different types of people, current claimants and future claimants, are being discussed – something that should be kept in mind when these numbers are used in the future.

Of course, however, since the figure is based on modelling of what will happen to a large number of people from 2013 onward, a proper picture of the winners and losers under the policy will emerge in time.

However with regard to the apparently inaccurate figures for the amounts people will lose we will be contacting the Mirror and asking for a correction.