It’s been just over a year since we started campaigning for Universal Credit to protect people from going without the essentials, in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Over 150,000 of you have stood with us and are helping to guarantee our essentials.

Here are three successes that show that our collective voice is becoming impossible to ignore.

1. We’ve kept the issue of Universal Credit inadequacy on the news agenda by sharing statistics and stories that drive home that our social security system is not fit for purpose.

2. We have coordinated charities, celebrities and a range of faith and business leaders to publicly back the campaign.
 

3. And thanks to all this collaboration, we’re seeing support for an Essentials Guarantee across different political parties, regions, and nations. In fact, last week the cross-party Work and Pensions Committee published a report that echoed our concerns about the number of people going without the essentials due to social security inadequacy and backed our call for benefits to be linked to the cost of living.  

Thank you to everyone who has supported the campaign so far. These successes show momentum and the impact we can achieve together.

However, until our essentials are guaranteed, food banks are being stretched to breaking point. They’re working tirelessly to bridge the gap created by low levels of Universal Credit.

While we push for an Essentials Guarantee together, take two minutes to send a message of solidarity to food banks today.