The take-up of means-tested benefits by working families with children

<p>The purpose of this paper is to analyse the take-up of the two major means-tested benefits that are available for working families with children in the UK: family income supplement (FIS) and housing benefit (HB). As eligibility for FIS depended on at least one member of the household working 30 hours per week (24 hours for single parents), we are concentrating on benefits to working families. The take-up of these benefits has become a particularly important issue because of the Government's policy of switching resources from child benefit, which is a universal benefit, to the means-tested family credit (FC) that replaced FIS in the 1988 social security reforms. Family credit has been in operation for too short a time to analyse the take-up behaviour of its potential recipients. However, its method of assessment is sufficiently similar to that of FIS for us to believe that the experience of FIS take-up will be a reasonable guide to the take-up of family credit.</p>