Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
SPECIAL PRICE: Just £9.99 for your next 8 magazines
Subscribe today
Social Justice

Universal credit cut: What £20 can get you in a supermarket

Households across the UK will lose out on £20-per-week in a matter of days through the universal credit cut. This is how much it could cut into their weekly shop.

Families will lose £80 per month in the universal credit cut.

Families will lose £80 per month in the universal credit cut. Diego Sevilla Ruiz/Flickr

The government has cut universal credit by £20 a week, a move that is expected 500,000 people will be pushed into poverty.

Ministers introduced the £20-per-week increase at the start of the pandemic to support people through the crisis. But as Covid-19’s financial shockwaves continue to ripple through the population – and as furlough is axed, energy bills soar, living costs rise and wages stagnate – the government will scrap the increase, amounting to a loss of £1,040 per year each for the 5.5 million people relying on the benefit.

Universal credit covers everything from fuel bills, clothes, transport, toiletries, outstanding debt repayments, medication and much more for households on low incomes.

But for a family with two adults and two children, a week’s worth of food alone costs an average £99, according to the Office for National Statistics. Families on lower incomes spend a higher proportion of their incomes on essentials such as food.

The universal credit cut could force 1.2 million people to skip meals, according to the Trussell Trust, and food banks are expecting a surge in demand from October.

The Big Issue found out how much could be bought for a week with £20 at Asda. Other supermarkets are available.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

Cornflakes 790g – 93p
Semi-skimmed milk 6 pints – £1.60
Gala apples x6 – 95p
Bananas x7 – 97p
Seedless grapes 500g – £1.06
Baking potatoes x4 – 42p
Salad tomatoes x6 – 68p
Carrots 1kg – 43p
Brown onions x3 – 58p
Broccoli 360g – 47p
Wholemeal medium sliced bread 800g – 58p
Fusilli pasta 1kg – £1
Tomato and garlic pasta sauce 500g – 64p
Chicken breast fillets 1kg – £4.79
Easy cook long grain white rice 1kg – £1.18
Mature cheddar cheese 400g – £1.99
Baked beans in tomato sauce 410g x2 – 60p
Dried red lentils 500g – £1.15
Digestives 400g – 45p
No added sugar double strength orange and pineapple squash 1.5l – 99p

Total = £19.96

Households with particular dietary requirements have less choice to shop from and are often forced to spend more. And many on low incomes, despite struggling to make ends meet, are not entitled to free school meals.

This doesn’t take into account the cost of transport to and from a supermarket, the cost of shopping bags, how much time a household has to spend cooking fresh meals or what facilities they have at home to cook or store food.

Families plunged into poverty and forced to turn to food banks – which have to offer non-perishable food in emergency parcels – will face having to go without fresh fruit and vegetables.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

READER-SUPPORTED SINCE 1991

Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

Recommended for you

View all
Inside the fight to save independent cafes from 'corporate greed and exploitative capitalism'
independent cafes

Inside the fight to save independent cafes from 'corporate greed and exploitative capitalism'

Everyone thinks pensioners are rich. But I'm forced to choose between heating and eating
pensioner
Pensioner poverty

Everyone thinks pensioners are rich. But I'm forced to choose between heating and eating

Single people must earn at least £30,500 per year to live well in the UK
woman in supermarket
Living standards

Single people must earn at least £30,500 per year to live well in the UK

Revealed: Millions of disabled people went to a food bank last year as Labour plotted benefit cuts
A Trussell food bank worker sorting food parcels. Image: Dan Prince
Food banks

Revealed: Millions of disabled people went to a food bank last year as Labour plotted benefit cuts

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue

Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

Every day, Big Issue digs deeper – speaking up for those society overlooks. Will you help us keep doing this work?