Out-of-work benefits hit record high since Labour took power
A record-number of Brits are now on jobless benefits, with the figure jumping by more than half a million since Labour came to power.
Listen to this article
Official figures show the number of people receiving some form of worklessness welfare had reached 6.5 million since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister.
This total included anyone receiving incapacity benefits, unemployment support, and Universal Credit payments for those without a job.
The latest figure is well ahead of the previous 5.9 million peak hit during the pandemic and represents a 79% rise in the number of working-age adults on one of these welfare payments since 2018.
Sir Keir had promised during his election campaign to “get Britain working”, but the latest Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures showed more than 15% of the working-age population were on out-of-work benefits as of February 2025.
Read more: Sadiq Khan targets ‘headphone dodgers’ as part of new public transport campaign
This is up 9% from a decade earlier and makes for grim reading for Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who scrapped her planned benefit reforms after a revolt from Labour backbenchers earlier this year.
Andrew Griffith, shadow business secretary, said: "This shows Britain has a worklessness crisis which Labour seems determined to make even worse with more tax rises and additional employment red tape.
"Rather than watch it spiral out of control, Labour need to U-turn now."
Out-of-work benefit numbers last peaked at 5.9 million in February 2021 before declining steadily.
But the figure began rising again in May 2022 and has climbed by nearly 9% since Labour came to power last summer.
One key factor for this sharp rise is the number of young people claiming sickness benefits, which has jumped by 52% since the start of 2020 to a record 235,000.
There are also 3.7 million working-age adults in the UK claiming Universal Credit but are exempt from trying to find a job, up from 2.67 million in July 2024 when Labour won the election.
But over the same period, the number of people required to look for a job as a condition of receiving their benefits has actually fallen from 1.65 million to 1.6 million.
A DWP spokesman said: "These figures are yet more evidence of the broken welfare system we inherited that is denying people the support they need to get into work and get on at work.
"That’s why we are rebalancing the rate of Universal Credit to increase work incentives, while also investing £3.8bn over this parliament to genuinely help sick or disabled people into jobs, while ensuring there is always a safety net for the most vulnerable."