Benefits cap drive poor back to work In the study backed by the department, researchers from Sheffield Hallam University and the pollster Ipsos Mori interviewed 1,910 claimants living in private rented accommodation face-to-face as well as canvassing the views of landlords. Two thirds of tenants said they were suffering a shortfall, meaning that their benefit did not cover the full cost of their rent. But a quarter of claimants who had a shortfall said it had prompted them to look for a job and one in 10 said they had been searching for better paid work if they were already employed. In London, these rates were higher with more than a third responding to the shortfall by looking for work in addition to a further 20 per cent who were already employed but searching for a job with a higher salary and 14 per cent who increased their hours. Of those who responded by asking their landlords for a rent cut, four out of 10 were successful. In London three out of 10 secured a reduction. Only three per cent overall said they were forced to move house to make up a shortfall and the figure in London was only two per cent. Nevertheless, four out of 10 said they were having to cut back on essentials to make ends meet and a third said they had borrowed money from friends or family. Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, said: "We have capped housing benefit so that people can no longer claim over £100,000 a year to live in large houses in expensive areas of London. This is the right and fair thing to do. This research gives us an early insight into what is really happening and it shows the many scare stories about the effects of housing benefit reform are simply not materialising.