DWP left pensioner with £1.88 payment and £3,000 debt after wife took art course

A pensioner was plunged into a financial nightmare, racking up £3,000 in debt and destroying his credit score, after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) slashed his Universal Credit to a mere £1.88 per month.

Daniel Walsh, 74, said the DWP has "destroyed" him financially, physically, and mentally over the past eight months. The trouble started in September when his wife Esperanza, 48, embarked on a Master's degree in Art Therapy at university.

Previously, Daniel and Esperanza were receiving a monthly sum of between £439 and £568 from their joint Universal Credit claim, after deductions. Daniel, who also gets his state pension and Attendance Allowance due to needing a mobility scooter, and Esperanza, who was getting Carer's Allowance, anticipated changes to their benefits when she began her full-time studies, as full-time students are ineligible for some benefits, reports the Mirror.

READ MORE: DWP PIP payouts of £737 available to 1.1 million living with daily pain problem

To cover her tuition, Esperanza took out a £6,000 loan, which, along with an additional £3,000 loan, paid for her course fees in full. She explained: "I didn't really have this money at all, it came into my bank account and it was gone soon after, it wasn't savings so we didn't think our Universal Credit claim would be cut by too much."

The couple experienced a jarring decrease in their Universal Credit claim in September 2023, receiving merely £95.29 from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). For the ensuing months, the figures remained low with payouts of £44.84, £95.29, and essentially nothing in January.

Similarly bleak payments followed in February and March, with the couple only receiving a paltry sum of £1.88. Commenting on