Margaret Greenwood

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The pandemic led to the closure of Job centers -

Almost A Million people have worsened for universal credit benefits in the last two weeks, as the Corona Virus pandemic has.

The Department for work and pensions said, 950,000 successful applications for payment were between the ages of 16 March, when the people were instructed, to home, to work, and at The End of the month.

The Department would normally expect that the 100,000-claims in a period of two weeks.

officials said they were "Flat Out " to help people get support.

But Labour said the figures were "truly shocking" and the government "must take to Wake up and measures" to help the millions of those who are in danger of losing, their jobs, and the self-employed non-hardship covered by the government regulations.

The figures show The Massive increase in the demand on The System will benefit, as the government urged people to avoid non-essential travel and contact with other people to curb the spread of The Virus .

There was A Warning on Wednesday that 20% of small businesses could fold in The Next few months due to the collapse of consumer demand, which, in spite of the unprecedented government interventions to support jobs.

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Universal credit is a consolidated monthly payment for those of working age, through a variety of existing benefits including income-based working parents in search of money, housing benefit, child tax credit and working tax credit".

In October, 2019, there were 2. 6 million universal credit claimants - just over a third of them were in work.

the government said The benefit system was always "on", despite The Massive increase in demand.

"With such a huge increase in claims, there is pressure on our services, but The System is also available for this and our dedicated employees work with high pressure, in order to support the people who Need them," a spokesman said.

"We are in the process of urgent measures to improve their efficiency - we moved out of 10,000 existing staff to help at The Front and we are recruiting more. "

The sudden and huge increase in this application is strong evidence that the coronavirus crisis is an economic hardship for a very significant part of The Public , the loss of work and income to lose in ways that you never expected a few short weeks.

The number of people lose out on work could therefore be even higher than this significant level. But to register, given the numbers that have managed, here there is obviously considerable further efforts in the case of the DWP, to meet to try The Service to expand, the scale of the needs.

The government has already stepped in with support for the economy and for workers in such a way that no modern parallel.

In Time , it may ask whether the country can really afford to support the new legions of workers through Hard Times for More Than a short time.

But for now, these figures are urgent notes that only two weeks after the country was told that shut up shop, there are many, many thousands of which are already in economic distress.

Since The Virus struck, was developed by the government a number of changes to claim it easier for the self-employed, the benefits, and to ensure that you lose as your income will dry up.

the work urged the Minister to go much further, namely the review of new applicants should be speeded up and in advance of cash available to those who should urgently be paid back.

"people Need help now," said Shadow Work and pensions Secretary Margaret Greenwood .

"The government should, in turn, wait for progress in non-repayable grants to The End of The Five weeks, and make sure that people get the support you Need , quickly at A Level that really protects you from poverty. "

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Source of news: bbc.com