There was a lot to be preoccupied with on April Fools’ Day, when suddenly the general public has to assess whether each news story they read is real. But for 340,000 families waking up on 1 April, a change to their income wasn’t remotely funny.

Since April 2013, council tax benefit has effectively been abolished as a centralised benefit: councils have had the centralised funding withdrawn, and instead been told to make their own provisions, without the attendant cash. Some councils have held out, to try and protect the poorest residents from the hike in bills, but the number maintaining comprehensive support has dwindled considerably: new analysis in a report by the New Policy Institute thinktank says that “in April 2016, 259 councils had introduced a ‘minimum payment’ where the poorest families have to pay a proportion of their council tax liability, up from 229 councils in the first year [of the council tax benefit changes].”

Over the past three years, most English councils have introduced minimum payments for people who were previously exempt, usually 25%-30% of the council tax owed. On average these families will now be required to pay £171 in council tax per year: a total of 2.3 million households are now affected. In Luton, which this month introduced a minimum payment of 25%, more than 11,000 low-income households will pay on average £240 more per year in council tax. Of the councils introducing minimum payments for the first time this financial year, Luton has the highest minimum payment and the second highest number of households affected, so the new regime is likely to have the biggest impact.

The average earner might scoff at these sums. Surely paying what amounts to a few pounds a week more is barely noticeable (payments levied by councils range from £1.30-£7.56 per week)? But that’s not the case when you’re on subsistence benefits. For someone under 25 on jobseeker’s allowance, a £5 payment is almost a tenth of their weekly budget. Energy, transport and rent haven’t become cheaper in the past five years, so many people simply can’t afford to pay.

With bailiff and court fees, his debt of £51 arrears had ballooned to £700. A lot of human misery for a piddling sum

Hundreds of thousands of people have ended up in court. The magistrates’ court adds about £120 in court fees and £30 in administrative costs to the arrears, causing the debt to spiral and residents to become terrified. Council tax is one of the only debts you can face prison for, and being dragged in front of a judge because you can’t afford to pay £3 a week is as humiliating as it is stressful. The Children’s Society has also raised concerns about how many children are having their mental health and wellbeing jeopardised by bailiff visits resulting from council tax debt.

The cost incurred in chasing these debts vastly outweighs the small sums owed at the beginning: one man in his 50s, a full-time carer for his wife, handed me his paperwork as he sat in Tottenham magistrates’ court for the second time back in October. With the cost of bailiffs’ letters and visits, court fees, and the administrative fees charged by the council, his original debt of £51 had ballooned to more than £700. He couldn’t pay it, and now was hit by the bedroom tax as well, due to the fact he slept separately from his wife, because she couldn’t climb stairs.

That’s a lot of human misery for such a piddling sum. But nearly every council that has implemented a minimum payment scheme has found the number of subsequent court summons they have issued has rocketed. Staff in council tax departments are spending far more time in court than ever before. The charity Money Advice Trust found councils in England and Wales referred 2.1 million debts to bailiffs in 2014-15 – up 16% in two years, with far more debts being settled in courts. A recent work and pensions committee report on the local welfare safety net was critical of how withdrawal of council tax benefit had impoverished already poor families.

But where now? Despite affecting far more people (and often the same people) as the bedroom tax, this cut garners little attention. Perhaps our politicians could benefit from a day spent in a packed courtroom, explaining to panicked low-income families that the threat of bailiffs shows we’re all in this together.