Almost half a million low-income tenants who are claiming universal credit are struggling to pay rent because it only covers the cheapest third of rents in each part of the country, new research shows.

Fresh analysis by Generation Rent suggests 474,000 tenants in the UK currently face a shortfall between their universal credit housing payments and their actual market rents.

A number of tenants have been forced to apply for the benefit during the coronavirus pandemic, and with unemployment rising this trend looks set to continue.

Lindsay Judge, the research director at the thinktank, said: “As lockdown measures continue to ramp up around the UK, high housing costs are making the ongoing economic situation even worse for many families.”

The thinktank said 8% of private renters and 7% of social renters have lost their jobs since coronavirus struck, compared with 3% of people with a mortgage, in figures based on a survey of more than 6,000 UK adults.

Despite the economic fallout from the pandemic, the Resolution Foundation said private rents had continued to increase over the past few months. It said a sustained expansion in benefit support was needed as furlough ends, and protections from eviction were vital over the winter period.

Generation Rent is calling on the government to suspend evictions for arrears and ensure Local Housing Allowance covers the median rent.

It also wants to see a fast-track abolition of Section 21 evictions to prevent unnecessary hardship now that courts have reopened.

Unless changes are made and struggling tenants are given greater financial support, the campaign’s director, Alicia Kennedy, warns that the government will end up presiding over “mass impoverishment”.

She said: “Thousands of renters started claiming universal credit at the start of the pandemic and have found that it is nowhere near enough to cover the rent they owe.”

“More than a million employees are at risk of redundancy and a quarter of them are private tenants,” she added.

A government spokesperson said: “We’ve taken the unprecedented action to protect renters, including a six-month ban on evictions and increased local housing allowance rates, benefitting more than one million households by £600 a year on average.

“We’ve also raised universal credit by £1,040 a year, and a further £180m of discretionary housing payments are available for those who need additional support.”