With neither of the main parties wanting to scrap Universal Credit, whoever wins the election will be governing a ‘Universal Credit Britain’, as the final stage of what has been the biggest benefit reform in a generation is due to end with a system covering 7 million families by 2029. But it is nearly 14 years since Universal Credit was first proposed, and both Universal Credit and the country have seen big changes since then. This note assesses how the current Universal Credit system compares to the legacy benefit system it is replacing, and how changes in the country over the last decade have altered its impact.
