About the call for evidence

The Department for Work and Pensions has launched a call for evidence into Carer’s Allowance, the main benefit for unpaid carers in England and Wales. The call for evidence was open in July and August 2026 and aims to ‘shape future policy thinking about how Carer’s Allowance can be modernised to support carers’. The call included specific questions about policy design features but stopped short of creating space for ambitious reform of the policy. Our response to the call encouraged the Department to go further, and is written in full below.

The case for reforming Carer’s Allowance

Unpaid care is the foundation of our lives and economy. Yet it is too often viewed as something to be minimised and placed in second place to paid work. Without adequate infrastructure – of which Carer’s Allowance is an essential part – to support people to live well whilst caring for others, we are left in a situation where unpaid carers are too often forced to take on inappropriate or insecure paid work to make ends meet, or else live in poverty.

Whilst this call for evidence states that ‘Carer’s Allowance provides a measure of financial support to people in England and Wales who are not able to work full time because of their caring responsibilities’, its current design does not allow the benefit to fulfil this promise. In part this is due to the poverty level income it provides to those who are unable to work – just £86.45 a week is not enough – and in part because the taper rate means taking on part time or flexible work comes with a risk of unpaid carers losing their entire entitlement if they breach the earnings threshold.

Carer’s Allowance needs urgent and radical reform. It needs to move beyond providing ‘a measure of financial support’ and towards ensuring that unpaid carers are able to live well and do not have to risk their own wellbeing due to financial strain.

Immediate actions

1. Carer’s Allowance provides a poverty income, it must be increased

For those reliant on Carer’s Allowance as their primary or only income source it is inadequate. This is evidenced by the reality that unpaid carers disproportionately live in poverty in the UK (JRF, Poverty in the UK). Whilst the earnings threshold has increased this year this does nothing for those already earning below it. We therefore recommend that Carers Allowance is increased to at least the level proposed as part of the Essentials Guarantee campaign, namely £120 per week for a single person (JRF, Guarantee our Essentials).

Research from 2023 (when Carer’s Allowance was at £76.75 per week) found that, in Northern Ireland, increasing the benefit by £43.25/week could decrease the poverty rate in carers who receive Carer’s Allowance by 8% points, from 46% to 38% (WPI Economics, Policy measures to tackle poverty among unpaid carers in Northern Ireland). This is an indication of the scale of impact an increase across England and Wales might also have on poverty levels.

2. It can cost to take on more work alongside Carer’s Allowance, a taper rate is a fairer alternative

Given the low levels of income Carer’s Allowance provides, many have to take on work alongside full time caring responsibilities, often with flexible or part-time working patterns to ensure that they are able to get by whilst still managing the care they are responsible for. This means that their incomes can fluctuate. But, the current Carer’s Allowance system has no mechanism to effectively deal with this. The rigid system means that for an unpaid carer earning minimum wage earning even one penny too much can leave them down almost a working day a week of income (almost 7 hours at minimum wage) through the loss of the entirety of their Carer’s Allowance.

At a bare minimum there must be a taper rate introduced, akin to that used in the provision of Universal Credit, to ensure that unpaid carers never lose out by taking on more work when they can. This should be designed to ensure that unpaid carers are never losing income at a rate higher than their increase in income (ie earning £1 more through paid work leads to a reduction in Carer’s Allowance of less than £1). This should be an immediate and interim measure which the system has the capacity to move on.

Long term reform

Focusing on a taper rate alone is not enough. Many unpaid carers are not in paid employment at all; according to the Health Foundation, 65% of unpaid carers caring for 35 hours a week or more (the qualifying amount for Carer’s Allowance) are not in paid employment, compared to 33% with no caring responsibilities. More still will be earning below the current threshold and so unaffected by any changes to the earnings limit or taper rate.

We must design Carer’s Allowance to adequately support people no matter their relationship with paid work, because the care they provide is essential to our collective wellbeing and ensuring everyone is able to live well and with dignity.

In the long term we would like to see a move away from a conditionality focused system – where there are limits on working hours, study time and additional complexities for those who are self-employed or have fluctuating incomes.

In place of this there should be a recommitment to Carer’s Allowance as a non-means tested benefit which is designed to support with the additional costs and labour that come with being an unpaid carer. 

We recommend that Carer’s Allowance is not reduced according to earnings elsewhere, but that the income is taxable as income. This would mean that those carers whose sole income is Carer’s Allowance are not taxed as the income is below the Personal Tax Allowance, but for those earning more Carer’s Allowance is treated as additional income and taxed accordingly. This means too that there is parity in income relating to paid and unpaid labour, balancing the two more fairly than the current Carer’s Allowance cliff edge.

By way of an example, in Finland, the equivalent benefit to Carers Allowance – Hoitopalkkio – is a fixed payment which is not affected by income from other sources. The benefit is taxed as earned income would be which means that higher income households will have a lower gross income. It is a reminder that there are international examples and evidence that we can learn from to create a fairer system.

As the new Prime Minister brings social care to centre stage, it presents an opportunity to bring wider policies related to unpaid care up to date. For too long unpaid care has remained actively marginalised by our economy, as a result our social security system – as well as our workplaces – does not enable or sustain care.

When the prime minister announced the fast tracking of the Casey Commission and cross-party talks he began his speech with the question: “how has it got so difficult to care for each other?” 

It is this question that should frame our exploration of the changes to our social security model.  At Care Full we ask, that instead of assessing whether small changes will be adequate to facilitate an inadequate system to continue to limp along, whilst unpaid carers continue to struggle; you take a bolder approach and design a system fit for the future that meaningfully enables and support unpaid care and all of those that provide it equally, without hierarchy, with clarity and with equity.