‘Universal credit ruined my life and got me addicted to drugs’
A letter sent Danielle John’s life into a downward spiral. She had missed an appointment and the Department for Work and Pensions told her that her Universal Credit payments would be sanctioned as a result.
There was seemingly no attempt to first find out why she had missed the appointment, which was that she had suffered a miscarriage the day before and simply forgotten to inform her work coaches.
Instead, she was just told: “You didn’t come to a meeting with us… Because of this, you’ll lose some or all of your universal credit payment for a time. We call this being sanctioned.” Read on…