JOB losses created by Covid could see poverty in Dudley become ‘rampant’ as the number of benefit claimants increase over the coming months, it has been claimed.
Council officers predict new claims for council tax reductions from those on low wages or unemployed could reach 17,500 at the end of July before falling off later this year.
In a discussion on Dudley’s proposed budget council tax increase of 4.99 per cent, Quarry Bank and Dudley Wood councillor Bryan Cotterill told a meeting of the Corporate Scrutiny Committee that poverty could become ‘unimaginable’.
He said: “I don’t think we can even imagine what it’s going to be like when we come through this.