Select Committee on Social Security First Report


APPENDIX 11

Memorandum submitted by Mr Steve Wilcox (TAB 78)

UNFINISHED BUSINESS: HOUSING COSTS AND THE REFORM OF WELFARE BENEFITS

  The proposal for a Tax Credit scheme set out in the March budget is the first key element of the new Labour governments promise to modernize the welfare state, and to provide improved incentives and support to help families take up opportunities for low paid work. The potential returns from low paid work will be further enhanced for many households with the introduction of a minimum wage.

  These reforms directly address two of the key issues concerning households wanting to move off of Income Support and into work—low wages and child care costs. They do not, however, directly address the other key issue—the housing costs that are typically by far the largest single item in household budgets. For the governments welfare to work strategy to succeed it needs to respond to all these issues, as well as ensuring the supply of appropriate child care, training and education services, and of course economic and regional policies to promote a sufficient demand for labour throughout the UK.

  The focus in this paper is on the key element of the unfinished business in the reform of welfare benefits—the continuing review of the current housing benefit scheme. While decisions on that front have not yet been made, the tax credit proposals have significantly changed the context in which those decisions will have to be reached. It is therefore necessary to update and qualify earlier assessments of the options for housing benefit reform, to take account of the potential impact of the tax credit proposals.

  This brief paper does not attempt to cover all the aspects of the housing benefit scheme that could be usefully reformed, as these have been covered in earlier reports.[47] Rather it focuses on those options for reform that are most significant for families with dependant children, and that need to be reconsidered in the new context of the tax credit proposals.

TWO HOUSING BENEFIT ISSUES

  The review of the current housing benefit scheme is focusing on two main issues. The first is the work incentive dimension of the scheme, related to the governments wider welfare to work programme. The second is the treatment of eligible rents for housing benefit, and the suggestion that some or all tenants should be required to pay some proportion of the rents from their "base" incomes, abolishing the current arrangement where tenants can get up to 100 per cent of their rent met by housing benefit. These two issues are considered in turn below.

HOUSING BENEFIT AND WELFARE TO WORK

  There are two main limitations of the current housing benefit scheme, and for families they are both linked to the messy overlap of the housing benefit and family credit schemes. In principle the housing benefit and family credit schemes should ensure that all families are slightly better off in work (unless they have very high child care or travel to work costs). However the complexity of these overlapping benefits is such that households do not take housing benefit into account when they are considering moving into low paid work, and only in a limited proportion of cases do families take account of the availability of family credit to supplement their earned incomes.

  The overlap of these two means tested benefits also creates the extended poverty trap, where families can increase their gross earnings only to find that from every extra £1 they are left with just a three pence increase in their net disposable income. Higher rent levels extend this poverty trap further up the income scale.

  While there is a strong equitable case for reducing the severity of that poverty trap, research suggests that it is has little direct effect on household behaviour, not least because of the complexity of in work welfare benefits and the related evidence that households do not consider in work housing benefit when making decisions about labour market participation. This suggests that if housing benefits are to reinforce the "work pays" message then housing benefits, and in work benefits more generally, need to be radically simplified.

ENTER TAX CREDIT

  The structure, severity and incidence of the poverty trap will, however, be eased and modified by the Budget proposal for a tax credit scheme to replace family credit. In fact the tax credit scheme is very similar to the family credit scheme, but with three critical changes. First it is to be administered as part of the tax system, second it will have enhanced provisions for qualifying child care costs, and thirdly it is to have a 55 per cent taper rate, against the current 70 per cent rate.

  The proposed tax credit scheme is clearly more generous than the family credit scheme. However, there are continuing concerns, particularly for families with high rents—or very low earnings. For families with low rents the improved generosity of the tax credit scheme will generally be sufficient to take them out of housing benefit dependence altogether. Broadly this applies to families with rents below £40 per week, and earning more than £140 per week (gross). For those households there is as a result no overlap in the tax credit and housing benefit tapers, and after tax, national insurance and tax credit deductions, they will retain 30 pence from each additional £1 of gross earnings.

  The tax credit scheme will also be a signficant improvement for low income home buying households, who are currently denied access to housing benefit. Not only will the scheme be more generous, the administration of the scheme through the tax system could lead to a signficant improvement over the current poor take up rate of family credit by home buyers (c50 per cent). On its own, however, the tax credit scheme is only sufficient to ensure that home buyers with very limited mortgages are better off in low paid work.

  Moreover for households with higher rents (ie £60+) the Tax Credit scheme will overlap with housing benefit much further up the income scale. This is because the lower tax credit taper extends the scheme up to c£290 per week gross earnings, while the current family credit scheme expires at c£230 per week gross earnings (and at correspondingly higher levels for families with more than one child). For a family with two children the tax credit scheme will operate for incomes up to c£330 per annum. This is higher than average male manual earnings.

  For households with very low wages, typically from part time work, tax credit can leave families dependant on housing benefit even when they face rents of little more than £8 per week. For families with net earnings below £90 per week, however, this does not involve overlapping tapers, as the Tax Credit taper is proposed to operate only above that threshold level. These points are illustrated in more detail in the schedules in Annex 1.

  These show a range of low earning figures, for lone parents and couples with children, and the net income they would have, inclusive of tax credit, at that level of earnings. The schedules also show the amount of housing costs "implicit" in that level of net income, that is the amount by which their housing benefit entitlement would be reduced at that point. Only if their rent is lower than the "implied housing costs" would they escape the dependency on housing benefit. For the gross earning levels figures shown, and any rent levels above the "implicit" housing costs, this would potentially involve overlapping tax credit and housing benefit tapers.

  The main point from the schedules is that for families on low wage rates working just 16 hours a week, their income including tax credit would be sufficient only to cover a rent of some £8-£26 per week. For families working 30 hours at the same low hourly rates their income would be sufficient to cover a rent of £32 to £46 per week. It is also notable that the implicit housing cost figures show little variation between different household types.

  Where the tax credit and housing benefit schemes continue to overlap households will face marginal deduction rates from gross earning of 95 per cent (compared to 97 per cent), or more frequently 89 per cent as the more generous tax credit scheme will also result in many more households being removed from any dependency on council tax benefit. The impact of higher rents in extending these higher cumulative rates of marginal deductions from earnings is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the case of a couple with two children. Equivalent data showing the position for other household types is given in Table 1.

  Even so the tax credit scheme will result in substantially increased in work incomes for households still dependent on housing benefit, not least because of the removal of the "parallel" deductions of housing benefit and the c£10 extra family credit paid to households that work over thirty hours per week. This current anomaly results in a 135 per cent deduction from net earnings over the income range where the extra family credit tapers out. This seemingly minor, but very welcome, element in the tax credit reform has a particularly strong impact on the net incomes of households with gross earnings in the mid £200s, as shown in Figure 2.

  The greatest weakness of the reform proposals to date, however, is that for many households with higher rents the confusing overlap of the different in work benefits remains in place. Such households are as a result no more likely to take account of the potential for housing benefit to boost their in work incomes than they do now. So for high housing cost households the "work pays" message will not be effectively delivered.

EARNED INCOMES OF WORKING TENANTS

  The practical significance of the tax credit reforms also critically depend on the distribution of earned incomes for low income families, and the distribution of rent levels. An indication of the distribution of the net earned incomes of new housing association tenants is given in Table 2. This shows figures at 1998-99 levels uprated from 1996-97 data.

  It can be seen for example, that there are more lone parents working part time than full time, and that one in six of the couples with children have a household head working part time. It is also the case that over 50 per cent of lone parents working part time, and 30 per cent of couples with a household head working part time, have take home pay of less than £70 per week.

  The average take home pay for a lone parent working part time is just £74 per week, and £79 for couples with just one partner in part time work. For families in full time work the take home pay figures are £166 per week for lone parents, and £183 for couples with only one partner in work. For dual earner couples the figures are higher, with the average for couples where both partners are in full time work reaching £312 per week.

  The introduction of a minimum wage will have a significant impact in reducing the numbers of families in full time work with net earnings below £120 per week, but will have only a limited impact on earnings at higher levels—in some of the cases of couples where both partners are in low paid work, whether full or part time. The minimum wage will, in turn, significantly reduce the numbers of families, with at least one adult in full time work, that remain dependant on housing benefit where rents are no more than £40 to £45 per week. At those rent levels, only families relying solely on part time earnings, earnings from self employment, very young families, or families otherwise outside the scope of the minimum wage provisions, should remain eligible for housing benefit.

  However, even in the local authority and housing association sectors, average rents for family size dwellings in England are very often above that level. Average council rents for three bedroom lettings in London are now over £65 per week, while in the South East they are over £55 per week. Three quarters of all new housing association lettings of two bedroom properties in England are at rents exceeding £50 per week; with some 45 per cent being over £60 per week. Similarly seven out of every eight lettings of three bedroom lettings are at rents over £50 per week, with some 70 per cent being over £60 per week.

  In these cases, of which there are relatively few in Scotland and Wales, households will continue to need to earn significantly above minimum wage levels if they are to avoid dependency on housing benefit (as shown in Table 1). Taking the income levels of new housing association tenant families in work (as shown in Table 2), over four fifths of all lone parents with rents of £60 per week will remain dependant on housing benefit after the advent of the minimum wage and tax credit. Similarly nearly three fifths of all couples with only one partner in work will remain dependent on housing benefit.

  The complex dual dependency on family and housing benefits will in consequence continue to impact on very substantial numbers of low income working families, without some further changes in rent and benefit policies.

OPTIONS FOR HOUSING BENEFIT AND RELATED REFORMS

  It is in this context that the reforms of the housing benefit scheme, and the related issues of rent policies in the social rented sectors now need to be evaluated. There are two broad approaches to reforms designed to provide enhance work incentives taking full account of housing costs—incremental reforms that do not change the fundamental structure of existing benefits, and more radical reforms to harmonize the structure of all in work benefits. Within each broad approach there are sundry variants. These broad approaches, and some of the more salient variations, are considered in turn below.

INCREMENTAL REFORMS

(a) Housing benefit reforms

  The most significant incremental reforms would be either increasing the housing benefit earnings disregards, so that households can earn more above Income Support levels before the taper is applied to reduce benefit entitlement, and/or reducing the 65 per cent rent taper.

  The annual costs of increasing the earnings disregards have recently been estimated at from £110 million (an extra £5 per week for single people, and an extra £10 for other households) to £250 million (an extra £15 and £20 per week respectively). These reforms would improve the in work incomes of low income working households without children, who have been largely ignored in the initial benefit reforms announced by the new labour government (although they will benefit from the proposed national insurance reforms).

  For families with children, however, both increasing the earnings disregard, and even more so reductions in the 65 per cent rent taper rate, will increase the incidence of overlap between the tax credit and the rent taper, bringing lower rent households back into the poverty trap, and consequently increasing the number of families facing marginal deduction rates of over 84-95 per cent.

(b) Tax credit reforms

  A further option would be to improve the proposed Tax Credit scheme, by increasing the level of the allowances. This would have the result of lifting more families off of housing benefit, with each £10 increase in Tax Credit adding £6.50 to the rent that families could meet without qualifying for housing benefit. The messy overlap between the two schemes would remain; but would apply to far fewer households. Any general increases in Tax Credit would also benefit low income working home buyer households.

  One disadvantage of this approach is the costs it entails in providing additional assistance to households (both tenants and home buyers) with relatively modest housing costs. The other is that, as shown in Annex 1, for families in part time work, or otherwise with very low earnings, there would need to be a very substantial increase in order to lift them off housing benefit, even when rents remain at modest levels.

(c) Restraining council and housing association rents

  If council and housing association rents were restricted, this could significantly reduce the incidence of overlap between the Tax Credit and Housing Benefit schemes. Such an option is not, however, possible within a deregulated private rented sector.

  There have been a range of official and other financial analyses showing that the costs of switching back, to some degree, from housing benefit to increased bricks and mortar subsidies, are quite modest. The net costs of a 10 per cent reduction in council rents were, for example, recently estimated at £100 million per annum. The long term costs of increasing housing association grant rates are similarly modest; however they require an "up front" expenditure on higher grants, against savings in housing benefit and inflation related costs over a run of years.

  It should however, be recognised that the advent of the more generous Tax Credit scheme, by absorbing part of the costs of housing benefit, will tend to increase the marginal costs of moving towards bricks and mortar subsidies. The precise form and levels of the "inflationary costs" arising from higher rent levels are also open to question.

  Nonetheless the key advantage of the rent restraint approach is that it bears most directly on the evidence that households concerns about meeting their housing costs are second only to their concerns about earnings levels, when they are considering moving off of benefits and into work.

  There are also related equitable and efficiency arguments in favour of a more coherent structure for council and housing association rents, and a move towards harmonizing rents in the two sectors would in itself go some way to reducing the very high levels of rents charged by some housing associations—and to a lesser extent by some councils.

  Any policy of rent restraint needs, however, to be sensitively implemented, and given the current extent of divergence, moves towards a more coherent rent structure are likely to take ten or more years to implement. A policy of rent restraint, while involving very limited net costs, does nonetheless place on central government a more direct responsibility to ensure that councils and housing associations have access to the necessary funds for investment in major repairs and stock improvements.

RADICAL REFORMS

(a) An integrated "work credit" scheme

  It will only be possible to integrate housing benefit with the tax credit scheme by making further radical changes to the proposed tax credit scheme. Critical issues involve the personal allowances, which are not structured in the same way as for housing benefit, and the 55 per cent tax credit taper rate which already results in benefits extending a long way up the income scale, even for households without eligible child care costs.

0

  If the tax credit and housing benefit schemes are to be integrated this will realistically require a taper rate on net earnings higher than the 55 per cent rate for the tax credit scheme on its own, but lower than the combined 84-93 per cent rate that will apply to net earnings where the tax credit and housing benefit schemes overlap.

  The proposal for a work credit scheme set out in earlier CIH and NHF reports[48] was based on an 80 per cent combined taper rate. This, however, was estimated to cost just £750 million, compared to the £1.35 billion already committed for the tax credit scheme. Given this existing budgetary commitment it should be possible to create an integrated work credit scheme with a lower combined rate (say 70 per cent) without significant further costs.

  A further element of the work credit scheme proposal, was that it involved reducing the basic work credit entitlement, on the basis that all qualifying households then received the same help with housing costs as they would while in receipt of Income Support. This radical simplification of the structure of in work benefits was intended to respond to the evidence that households consider rent levels, and sometimes family credit, but hardly ever housing benefit, when thinking about moving into low paid work.

COVER FOR HOME BUYERS

  It is also noteworthy that the work credit scheme estimates included extending the scheme to low income home buyers. Far more effectively than the flat rate tax credit scheme this would serve to ensure that low paid home buyers were not left with net incomes below Income Support levels. The latest figures show that there were some 850,000 home buyers with sub Income Support income levels in 1992, of which the majority were households ineligible for Income Support by virtue of low paid employment (or self-employment).

  While those numbers are now likely to be somewhat lower, not least because of repossessions in the intervening years, continuing labour market trends, and household preferences, suggest that the issue of home owners in relatively low paid and insecure forms of work will not disappear. While there is a role for the further promotion of private insurance policies for home owners mortgage costs in the event of unemployment, these will provide only relatively short term cover. It should be possible to improve the currently low take up rates for such policies (c30 per cent). However, even the better insurance policies are inherently constrained in the help they can offer to self-employed and short term contract workers.

  The cost estimate for extending the work credit to home buying households, at c£250 million, is much lower than DSS estimates for a "mortgage benefit scheme". The lower estimate for the work credit scheme reflects four factors—a lower assumption about take up rates, including tighter limits on eligible mortgage costs, allowing for the impact of private insurance policies covering short periods of unemployment by one partner in dual earner households, and taking account of the offsetting savings in housing benefit costs resulting from reduced levels of repossessions.

  Finally a more "tenure neutral" benefit policy should provide a more stable level of political support for the reformed benefit system, and would at the same time make it easier to phrase out the last vestiges of MIRAS (and thus saving some £2 billion per annum).

(b) A "cost gap" housing credit

  An important variant to this integrated approach to reform would be to add a "cost gap" housing credit to the tax credit scheme, linked to the notion that the "basic" tax credit covers an initial element of housing costs. As with the work credit scheme outlined above this approach would require significant modifications to the current proposals for the work credit scheme. It would differ in that it would have a higher level of basic credit, and a correspondingly reduced "housing credit", on the reasoning that the basic credit was presumed to cover an initial element of housing costs. This approach would cost somewhat more than the work credit proposal, however, as the higher level of "basic credit" would also go to households with housing costs below the threshold for the cost gap housing credit.

  The costs of this approach would depend on the threshold level of housing costs deemed to be covered by Tax Credit, and the taper rates chosen for the schemes. This would require some substantial increase in the levels of maximum Tax Credit, which would need to be offset by a taper rate higher than 55 per cent, starting at a lower earnings threshold, in order to avoid benefit dependency extending uncomfortably far up the income scale.

  The need for such restructuring is indicated by the figures in Annex 1, showing that for households on very low incomes Tax Credit can carry with it little more than £8 "implicit" housing benefit. This implies, for example, a £30+ per week increase to basic Tax Credit allowances, if a cost gap housing credit scheme is only to apply to households with housing costs in excess of £40 per week.

  As with the work credit scheme proposal the most important gains from this approach would be the radical simplification and harmonisation of in work benefits, removing the messy overlap of scheme tapers that currently produce the worst case poverty trap. As with the work credit scheme it would also be readily possible to extend the housing credit scheme to low income working home buyers.

  Most discussion of cost gap style housing allowances, drawing on the experience of European and other countries, also assumes that the allowance should only cover a proportion of housing costs above the threshold level, and not the whole rent. The difficulties of this rent proportional approach are considered further below. It should be noted here, however, that such an approach is not a necessary feature of a cost gap scheme.

  Not all of the above options are mutually exclusive. There is, for example, a strong case for combining policies of rent restraint and rent harmonization, with the introduction of an integrated work credit or housing credit scheme. It should also be noted that a number of the benefit reform options would permit significant administrative reforms and savings.

  One final observation on all these options is that decisions should not be based exclusively on cost benefit analyses that take no account of potential behaviour effects. The impacts on behaviour do need to be considered, even if the evidence is not sufficiently robust to be routinely included in cost benefit analyses. There are also issues of equity to consider, especially in a context where the cost benefit analyses show limited differences between the costs of alternative policies.

Eligible rents

  Whatever approach to reforms are taken in order to ensure that housing benefits make a more effective contribution to welfare to work policies, the issues involved in defining the limits to eligible housing costs need to be further considered. There is a particular issue about provision for "intensive" management and support costs (which is not dealt with here), and a more general issue around whether, when, and to what extent, households should be required to make some direct contribution from their net incomes towards their housing costs.

  Frequent references are made in this context to the generosity of the UK housing benefit scheme, in taking 100 per cent of the rent as the starting point in calculating housing benefit entitlement. Less often recognised is that this is the flip side of the coin for a system of basic social security and social insurance benefits that are among the least generous in Europe, notwithstanding the contribution of the housing benefit scheme.

  The March Budget announcement of increases in child benefit, and the higher Income Support allowances for children under the age of 11 are very welcome; but they are not sufficient to overcome the legacy of two decades when the gap between average earnings and benefit levels have been allowed to drift ever further apart. Out of work households in the UK are much less able to make any contribution to their rents than their European counter-parts, and will remain so unless there is a significant hike in the overall level of social security benefits.

  Rent levels in the UK also vary sharply both between and within tenures, and between and within regions. The extent of intra-regional rent variations in the private rented sector (in housing benefit cases) is shown in Figure 3. In this context any system of crude national or regional limits on eligible rents for benefit are likely to result in severe hardship for some low income households. Such a system will also exclude low income households from localities with above average rents, and consequently will run counter to the policy objective of tackling social exclusion.

  Tighter restrictions on eligible rents for housing benefit are also likely to result in a further reduction in the supply of private rented housing to low income households. Already, in eighteen months since the "local reference rent" limits were introduced in January 1996, we have seen a 12 per cent (130,000) reduction in the number of housing benefit claimants with private sector tenancies. Together with other factors (reduced unemployment, action on fraud) this has also resulted in substantial savings to the exchequer; and the forecast for expenditure on rent allowances this year is now £300 million lower than in the expenditure plans inherited from the last government.

  Given the potential impact on the supply of private rented lettings to low income households, any further restrictions in eligible rents in the sector should logically be accompanied by compensating measures to boost the supply of council and housing association tenancies, and a clear strategy to ensure that the concentration of low income households to those tenures does not lead to increased geographical social exclusion.

  There is a sound "in principle" case that households should have some incentives to be prudent in the housing cost commitments they enter. However, for all the reasons indicated above, there is also a case for proceeding cautiously in reforming the current locally determined limits on the housing costs eligible for housing benefit, rather than introducing a "big bang" reform based on national or regional limits. Moreover for council and housing association tenants there is little sense in incentivizing benefit dependent households about rent levels without first ensuring that there is a coherent rent policy.

  This is not to argue that there should be no reforms of the current arrangements. Indeed there is a case for reviewing the operation of the very different limits relating both to housing cost levels, and to under-occupation, as they currently apply (in both theory and practice) in each of the tenures, with particular regard being given to the emerging evidence of the impact of the rent restrictions introduced since January 1996 in respect of private rents.

CONCLUSION

  The outcome of the review of the housing benefit scheme is not just important for the fortunes for millions of low income households in and out of work. Getting it right remains an essential ingredient if the government's wider "welfare to work" policies are to succeed.

  In the writers view the reforms that would be most likely to meet welfare to work and related policy objectives would include:

    —  an integrated approach to in work family and housing benefits;

    —  support for low income working home buyers as well as tenants;

    —  a policy of rent restraint and harmonization in the council and housing association sectors;

    —  and a cautious review of the treatment of housing costs eligible for benefit.

4 May 1998

TABLE 1
Escaping benefit dependency: Weekly earnings levels at which tax credit and housing benefit entitlement cease
(a) Gross earnings level at which benefit dependency ceases
£ per week

Housing benefit at various rent levels
Household typeTax Credit £40£50£55 £60£65£70 £80

Lone parent + 1 child <11290.00 134.40184.20209.70 235.20260.70286.20 311.20
Lone parent + 2 children <11330.30 120.60169.50195.30 220.80246.30271.80 322.90
Couple + 1 child <11290.00 142.90193.00218.50 244.00269.50292.30 315.20
Couple + 2 children <11 & 11-15345.40 128.90178.40203.90 229.40254.90280.50 331.50
Couple + 3 children 2 <11 & 1 11-15 385.80115.10164.00 189.50215.00240.50 266.00317.00


(b) Net earnings level at which benefit dependency ceases
£ per week

Housing benefit at various rent levels
Household typeTax Credit £40£50£55 £60£65£70 £80

Lone parent + 1 child <11225.40 120.30154.50169.60 188.70205.70222.80 239.60
Lone parent + 2 children <11252.30 110.60144.70161.90 179.00196.10213.20 247.40
Couple + 1 child <11225.40 126.20160.40177.50 194.60211.60226.90 242.30
Couple + 2 children <11 & 11-15259.50 116.40150.60167.70 184.80201.90219.00 253.20
Couple + 3 children 2 <11 & 1 11-15 289.60106.70140.90 158.10175.00192.20 209.40243.50

Notes:
All figures to nearest 10p; based on standard 1998-99 Income Support and Housing Benefit rates.
All cases based on at least one adult working for 30+ hours.

TABLE 2

Take home pay of new housing association tenants

1996 data converted in 1998 levels (ie x 1.07)

Cumulative Percentages

RangeLone parents
Couples with children
Part-time
work
Full time
work
AllOne in
Part-time
work
One in
full-time
work
Two in
part-time
work
One in p/t
work and
one in f/t
work
Two in
full-time
work
All

Under £5024.52.6 14.622.52.1 5.21.51.6 4.4
Under £6038.83.9 23.138.12.8 10.41.81.8 6.8
Under £7051.95.7 31.151.54.4 16.72.41.8 9.5
Under £8061.27.7 37.161.75.8 20.82.61.9 11.6
Under £9071.110.3 43.770.27.9 25.03.12.0 14.0
Under £10078.314.3 49.575.69.8 30.23.72.1 15.9
Under £11084.620.7 55.882.013.0 38.54.32.4 18.7
Under £12088.225.4 59.984.715.8 42.74.82.8 20.9
Under £13091.131.8 64.487.420.9 46.95.63.0 24.5
Under £14093.738.8 69.090.327.1 55.26.43.9 28.7
Under £15095.344.5 72.491.633.0 58.37.64.6 32.7
Under £16096.147.6 74.292.335.7 61.58.74.7 34.6
Under £17097.655.9 78.894.545.4 70.810.86.4 41.2
Under £18098.360.9 81.495.751.9 70.813.27.6 45.7
Under £19098.865.9 84.096.257.8 72.915.98.1 49.8
Under £20099.170.8 86.396.963.3 78.119.610.2 54.0
Under £22099.681.5 91.598.175.8 85.432.716.0 64.6
Under £24099.786.4 93.798.881.0 86.542.220.6 69.8
Under £26099.890.1 95.599.385.9 89.652.927.0 75.3
All Cases100.0100.0 100.0100.0100.0 100.0100.0100.0 100.0
(Number)2,4742,026 4,5001,0885,428 961,5281,054 9,194











47   References: Time for mortgage benefits, S Webb and S Wilcox, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1991. Housing benefit and the disincentive to work, S Wilcox, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1993. Replacing housing benefit with housing credit, S Wilcox, Chartered Institute of Housing, 1997. Securing home ownership: providing an effective safety net for home buyers, H Sutherland and S Wilcox, Council of Mortgage Lenders, 1997. Housing benefit, affordability and work incentives, H Sutherland and S Wilcox. Back

48   See footnote on p. 114. Back


 
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