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4 million households with no working adult
09 September 2010
Four million households in Britain have no adults in work, according to official figures, a number which has risen to a ten-year high. Data from the Office for National Statistics show that in the majority of these homes, no-one is looking for a job. The Telegraph reports Chris Grayling, the Employment Minister, suggests the scale of worklessness had been inherited from the previous government. "Some areas of Britain are suffering from intergenerational worklessness, which is why we must act now to ensure that children living in workless households are not left behind like their parents have been. "This is why we are pushing ahead with our Work Programme, which will give people who are out of work and need a job the right support at the right time so that they can get into employment," he said. The statistical bulletin published on Wednesday, based on the Labour Force Survey, showed that between April and June 2010, there were 3.9m workless households in Britain, or 19.2% of the total population. This showed 148,000 more people were out of work since Q2 last year and that Britain had the highest proportion of workless households since April to June 1999. A workless household is defined as an address containing at least one adult of working age, where no one over 16 has a job. The reasons given were mainly that they were retired, were looking after their family or home, or were themselves unable to work. The analysis showed that 841,000 households were workless because everyone at the address was sick, injured or disabled, with 612,000 households containing some members who were unable to work. The concentration of workless families was highest in the North East (24.3 per cent of the total population for the area) while the lowest was in the South East, at 14.2 per cent. Single mothers with young children were the household type most likely to be workless at 39.7 per cent of lone parent households with dependents. The government is working on a White Paper targeted to address the situation where benefits are more valuable than work to claimants. Telegraph figures show 889,000 people have been on sickness benefits for a decade, at a cost of £4.2bn a year. In total, the Department for Work and Pensions spends £148bn a year on all benefits. Published by Mortgage Solutions
