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'Six million' to claim benefits
18.08.09
The number of working-age adults claiming benefits is set to hit six million this month, a think-tank predicted today.
The centre-right Policy Exchange forecast the rise using official government figures on benefit claimants and the latest unemployment figures.
The think-tank said the cost of benefits would reach £193 billion next year and called for wholesale reform of the system.
The last official Department for Work and Pensions figures released in February showed 5.8 million people were claiming benefits but rising unemployment as a result of the recession would take the figure past six million this month, the think-tank claimed.
Last week unemployment figures for the three months to June showed the number of people on Jobseekers' Allowance (JSA) had risen by almost 25,000 to 1.58 million.
Figures in the Budget predicted further rises and assuming no changes in the take-up of other benefits, the number of people claiming support from the state will reach 6.8 million by the end of 2010, the Policy Exchange report claimed.
Neil O'Brien, director of Policy Exchange, said: "Any day now the total number on benefits will officially pass the six million mark.
"The narrow unemployment figures we are used to seeing tell you less and less about the real number of people who are trapped on benefits.
"To get the full picture you have to look at all the different benefits, including Incapacity Benefit and Income Support.
"In 1997 we spent £93 billion on social security benefits, but next year we will spend £193 billion.
"That's twice as much. Instead of investing in the future, we are paying the price for failing to reform the benefits system.
"Our unreformed benefits system is too complicated. It gives people too little financial incentive to work, and too little pressure and help to find work.
"Other countries have successfully reduced the number on benefits. We will need to totally change our benefits system.
"There's nothing kind about leaving people to rot on benefits "
The Department of Work and Pensions dismissed the report, insisting it ignored efforts to help people back to work.
A spokeswoman said: "This is simply not true and doesn't reflect the increased help and support people are getting.
"Before this recession began, the JSA claimant count was at its lowest level for 30 years.
"We are investing £5 billion to help people back into work and last month alone we helped over 330,000 people move off unemployment benefits.
"After the number of sick and disabled claiming benefits trebled between 1980 and 2000, it is now falling, with our new Employment and Support Allowance giving people the tailored support they need to get back into work."
Reader views (12)
The Nu Labor generation... What a waste it was!
- Georgie, Islington, London
I personally think that the New Deal scheme should only be offered for 3 months. After that if you still havent found a job you are either too picky or lazy.
When I first came to London I got a job glass collecting in a bar which is a rubbish job, but I took it because I needed rent money.
If people havent found a job witin those 3 months, the job centre should be allocating them with jobs. There is plenty of jobs out there, there is just no incentive for people to go out and work when they get paid more in benefits than they would earn.
I currently live next to a council house with a family of 6 people in it, they make noise 24/7, are always home and have no consideration of their neighbours. Instead they are making the people who worked hard for their home regret buying a place here.
I agree with food vouchers and the idea Hansel has for the children benefits. The world is over populated as it is, why is the government encouraging people to make more babies?
I am angry with all those benefits thiefs who make the people that really need benefits look bad.
Oh, lets have the people who cant find jobs trained to find the other benefit frauds!
- Josh, London
You should only be paid benefits for your first two children. Therefore these sink estate baby factories will limit their benefit requirements to only 3 bed homes as they will lose money beyond baby 2. Unemployment benefit should be continually diminished week-on-week to incentivise job hunting and reduce long term reliance. You can only reapply once the amount is at zero and have to show you have looked for work. The maximum paid to any one address in any given year should be capped at 15% below the national average wage, once again ensuring you are better off working than sitting at home having kids and creaming the state.
- Hansel, London
Ian,
I think the program you were referring to was Wife Swap. although they didn't have a swanky house and a nice car they had more kids than they could afford to keep. They were indeed getting around £ 40K in various benefits, which equates to a salary of around £ 57k per annum, which they could (not would) not earn between them, possible in anything up to four years.
The couple who they swapped with annual income was less than £ 40k and they were holding down three jobs.
As somebody who come from the Elephant & Castle and lived in a slum up until 1981 it makes me sick at the levels of benefit people are receiving. The only satisfaction is that everything I have is through hard work and I should have enough cash to wave goodbye to England and thus depriving the Chancellor of a few million quid over the course of the rest of my life and beyond.
- Mark, South-East London
Darius is right.
Normally it wouldn't be OK for me to tell other people how to live their lives, but if i FINANCE THEIR LIVES as a taxpayer, maybe I should have a little say.
Food vouchers not cash!
And why do people who don't have any intention of working get a council house for life?
- Steven, London
I am one of them, claiming JSA. Every single day of the week I actively look for work and am getting no replies whatsoever. I am not having a ball on JSA and struggle, paying my most essential bills. Where this "no incentive" claim comes from, I do not know. I would very much like to be in a regular job again with a regular income but there are no jobs or rather for every job there is, there are hundreds of applicants. Stop condemning everybody who is unemployed. Blame the Government which brought this situation on!
- V.S., Leicester, UK
Isn`t it about time benefits were given as food vouchers, etc?
Doesn`t the taxpayer (the giver of all) have the right to know how much of this handout is spent on fast food,ciggies, makeup, booze and online bingo?
Let`s get back to benefits being a safety NET and not a HAMMOCK.
- Darius, London UK
Does anyone remember the family that did a TV show a while back who were claiming benefits. I think they lived north of London, had a nice big house for the two parents and three kids, a car and I seem to remember were rather portly. The papers were up in arms because it worked out they were getting 40k a year and had no intention of going to work, and why should they? Where's the incentive?
And boy was I angry, these people get to vote, and they'll vote for the status quo which Labour are happy to give them in return for that vote. This is what is so fundamentally screwed up about this country now.
Labour have missed a trick though, while there's no incentive for the unemployed to go back to work, there's little support for me to switch from tax payer to tax scrounger without going through a really painful transition period. Come on Labour, you need the votes at the moment, make me an offer, I'll trade my job and small London home for something palacial up north, Sky TV and some pocket money, in return you get my vote...
I'm still angry.
- Ian, london
Yes but what it doesn't say is that four million of them are professional welfare scroungers who wouldn't take a job if you offered them one!
- Sue, Orpington, Kent
and it's now that the 'Open Borders' policy is going to bite us right in the backside.
- Hansel, London
So does the 6 million figure incorporate disability benefit, income support, jobseekers allowance, incapacity benefit and are we including those in jail, on remand or awaiting immigration reports also included in this figure? Or it just more spin? If so, approximately 15 million people are under 16 or in education, 10 million+ retired and 6 million not in work leaving less than 50% of the population paying taxes for everyone else. That's a system doomed to failure especially with Labour's current spending regime.
- Bob, Cheam
I can remember Tony B-Liar telling the country that he was going to change the benefit culture once and for all.He then appointed Frank Field to go and think the unthinkable on benefits. He certainly did only to be promptly fired by B-Liar for his trouble. This Government needs the huge amount of people on all these benefits as they seem to be, along with the local authority employees, the only idiots willing to vote for these clowns.
- Duncan Walker, Ex Peckham nowThailand
