The Express stirring up the hatred yet again đ
ANGER at the scale of Britainâs Âbenefits culture erupted last night after official figures showed there are nearly four million households where no one works.
The statistics also revealed the number of households where no one has ever worked has increased by 18,000 over the past year to 370,000.
A total of 3.88million homes with at least one working-age adult do not include anyone with a job. Despite a slight drop of 38,000 over the past year, the shocking figure represents one in five of households with at least one member of working-age.
In total 7.25million people, including 1.84million children, are living in workless households. The Âfigures yesterday triggered renewed fury at the ÂŁ180billion annual welfare benefits bill being picked up by taxpayers.
Critics seized on the statistics as fresh evidence of the culture of benefits dependency that was allowed to spiral out of control under the previous Labour government.
The figures confirmed that the number of households where no one has ever worked doubled under Labour.
 In total 7.25million people, including 1.84million children, are living in workless households
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 Emma Boon, of the TaxPayersâ Alliance campaign group, said: âThose out of work are living on benefits and it is taxpayers who are picking up the tab. Despite a fall, there is still a shocking number of workless households and this is partly a symptom of our broken welfare system. Confusing and over-generous benefits are trapping people in poverty and mean they arenât getting the help they need to get a job and start earning for themselves and their family again.
âItâs in everyoneâs interest that the number of workless households is further reduced and the benefits system is fixed, to ease the pressure on the public finances.â
The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics and based on data collected between April and June, show that the number of households where no one has ever worked went up by 18,000 in the past year to 370,000. Excluding students, the figure was 297,000 â an increase of 27,000.Â
In some of the worst pockets of unemployment, one in four households is workless.
Regionally, the worklessness rate was highest in the North-east of England where between 22.8 and 25 per cent of households have no one with a job.
In contrast, in the South-east and East of England, only between 14 and 16.1 per cent of households are workless.
Employment minister Chris Grayling said: âWhile the slight fall in the numbers of workless households and children living in workless households is encouraging, these figures still underline the sheer scale of the challenge we face. Over the last decade thousands of people were simply abandoned to a lifetime on benefits, and a staggering 1.84million children are living in homes where currently no one works.
âThis is why we launched the Work Programme this summer which will give tailor-made support to help people get off benefits and into work, while our overhaul of the benefits system will ensure work is always the best option.â
According to the figures, the largest fall in the percentage of people living in workless households was for those aged 50 to 64, down 0.4 per cent to 21.1 per cent, while for those aged 16 to 24 the figure increased by 0.6 per cent to 14.2 per cent.
The biggest fall in workless households was driven by an 82,000 cut in the number of people classed as inactive, while there was a 37,000 increase in the numbers who were unemployed.
The percentage of children in workless households was 15.8 per cent, down 0.3 per cent from a year earlier.
Over the same period, the percentage of children in working households increased slightly by 0.1 per cent to 51.4 per cent.
Charities and trade union chiefs last night claimed that the level of worklessness could be worsened by benefits cuts.
Barnardoâs chief executive Anne Marie Carrie said: âA sure way to help children out of poverty is to help their families into work.
âBarnardoâs fears that any progress towards reducing the number of children living in workless households could be jeopardised by families potentially losing out on childcare help when universal credit is introduced. Damaging work incentives must be avoided at all costs if the Government truly wants to make work pay and end child Âpoverty. Barnardoâs wants to see a level of support that Âcovers at least 80 per cent of childcare payments.â
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: âThe welcome fall in workless households is thanks largely to Government support in helping lone parents into work. But as ministers talk tough on unemployed people, the fact is their own economic policies, which have created record female unemployment and harsh cutbacks in childcare support, are likely to mean the number of workless households will rise again.
âThe increase in never-worked households is disappointing, but as over a quarter of these are student houses, who wouldnât be expected to work in any case, it would be wrong to focus too much on a relatively small group.â
11 Responses
more spin…….
keep the hate wagon rolling against the vunerable in society
keeps
l thought a report by Ann begg’s committee was to stop this ?? Sill y me for got we are only 3rd class citizens
I did not realize there were 4M bankers
Sanity here –
Four million ‘scrounger’ families? A look at those worklessness statistics
02 Sept 2011
Full Fact
http://fullfact.org/blog/workless_households_statistics_unemployment_welfare-2952
Well according to the Express I live in a family of scroungers. My two eldest sons are students (both studying dumbed down subjects like linguistics and environmental science) and my middle boy is just scum as he gets ESA and of course I’m imagining working myself into the ground because really I just lie on my 50k sofa all day watching my 20ft plasma TV. I’m not a violent person but if I ever meet the ‘journalists’ who are weiting this shite and the DWP communications team who are feeding this poison to them by the bucketful I may not be responsible for my actions grrrrrrr!
They don’t explain exactly how welfare benefits create mass unemployment.
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Nea shit Sherlock. Instead of looking at this as proof that successive governments have ignored the areas with the greatest deprivation the express uses this statistic as a stick to beat already downtrodden people. Its like a Dickens novel.
The facts are totally irrelevant just as long as the gutter press are successfully spreading the governments message of hate in Greater Britain
I find it extremely annoying that the government don’t realise that just spouting their crap about families being out of work in the long run is just creating more bias and is going to make things worse for those families. There will be employers out there so angry at this group of people that they are highly unlikely to employ them anyway. The trouble is, there arn’t the jobs out there to employ these millions of families in the first place.
So… instead of criticising those who are doing the best they can with what they’ve got, get off your backsides government and create some flipping jobs. All I see is to much talking and not enough doing.
The press should realise that they are just the monkeys and the government the organ grinder and stop doing their bidding to make people in society look bad. If society is breaking down, here’s the reason why! You’re turning people on people and it’s time it was stopped.
Grow up you backstabbing, petty minded, rich I’m alright Jack millionaires, will you?