How do you live on £36.95 a week? Asylum seekers on surviving on their allowance

Thanks The Guardian

How do you live on £36.95 a week?

It’s a question that 39,000 asylum seekers in Britain are currently grappling with. When people arrive in the UK and apply for asylum, they are not allowed to work while they wait for their claim to be decided. Those who have savings must live off them; those who are destitute – an understandably high number, given the circumstances in which many people flee their countries – are entitled to support in the form of housing and an allowance of £36.95 a person a week.

This works out at £1,921.40 a year – slightly more than 50% of job seeker’s allowance. It is meant to cover everything except housing and bills: food, transport, clothing and toiletries, obviously. But also mobile phone plans, so that people can stay in touch with families back home, toys and activities for children, trips to the barber, school shoes, birthday presents.