At an event on 13 May 2025, people from around Greater Manchester were joined by the metro mayor to officially launch the GM Living Income Campaign.
The campaign aims to give 200 households on Universal Credit or with ‘no recourse to public funds’ in Middleton, Tameside, Oldham, and Manchester a living income for two years.
It is a collaboration between four main organisations: the New Economics Foundation (NEF), Middleton Cooperating, the Mama Health and Poverty Partnership, and Our Agency CIC.
Speaking at the event, Andy Burnham said: “If you set people up to succeed, they will succeed.
“We are saying to the government, let us here in Greater Manchester rethink the entire benefits system and turn it from a negative deficit model that’s trying to see the worst in people into an empowering system that builds people up rather than knocks them down.”
The team behind the campaign hope to show that a social security system that guarantees people the ability to meet their needs with less conditions and sanctions produces better outcomes for people and communities.
The campaign came to life out of conversations the participating organisations were having with people they support over two years, about how a living income scheme would operate, with policy support from NEF.
Listening events were held across Wigan, Ashton, Oldham, Middleton and Manchester, engaging with over a hundred people on topics such as income level, employment support, and other provisions to co-design a pilot for the campaign that would actually meet needs.
The launch party was an important milestone in the campaign according to steering group member Mark Fraser: “The big goal was to get as many people as possible together, including Andy Burnham, and demonstrate the power that we’ve built so far.”
According to Fraser, the next big step will be getting together the funding to actually implement the income pilot across the target of 200 households over two years.
They are aiming for at least 60% of the nationally agreed income level for a minimum acceptable standard of living (MIS) adjusted for household size, as opposed to Universal Credit which can be as low as 29% – this would cost around £3.5 million according to the campaign team, including administration and evaluation costs.
Fraser says one of the biggest things they hope to offer is freedom from the stress of meeting Universal Credit conditions, and more space to explore future careers without worrying about losing social security before they are self-sufficient.
Part of the challenge they face is negotiating with the DWP and HMRC to make sure that recipients can actually use money for living, instead of losing other support and using it to make up shortfalls, or else being hit with unreasonable tax bills.
But the biggest roadblock to taking the campaign forward is that £3.5 million price tag, which Fraser says they hope will mostly be paid by wealthy private funders and philanthropic organisations.
“There aren’t really resources in the local system, but we need the cooperation of the local authorities especially to facilitate this and help make it happen.
“It’s about realising that this radical campaign can really change people’s lives for the better.”
Find out more and support the campaign at https://gmlivingincome.co.uk/
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Featured Image: Alice-Kanako Reid
Other Image: GM Living Income
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