Benefit Changes and Larger Families Project

We are a group of university-based researchers investigating how families in the UK with more than two children are coping with the benefit cap and/or the two-child limit. Larger families have always faced a higher risk of poverty. Two recent welfare reforms (the household benefit cap, which limits the benefit income a household can receive, and the two-child limit, which restricts universal credit and tax credits to two children) are expected to increase this risk even further. These reforms also break with precedent in the social security system by breaking the link between assessed need and entitlement to support.