Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of universal credit claimants are lone parents (a) under 25 and (b) 25 and over.
The Department has a range of support on offer through Universal Credit (UC) to help claimants, including lone parents, prepare for and move into work. For example, from April 2019 we increased work allowance rates by £1,000 and they will be uprated in line with inflation in the future. This measure provides additional support in a package announced in Autumn Budget 2018, worth £1.7 billion by 2023/24, to some of the most vulnerable low paid working households.
The table below has an estimate based on households claiming UC by matching the UC household dataset (which contains information about family type), with the people on UC dataset (which contains information about age). The table gives the estimated total number of households on UC and those occupied by single parents in November 2018, split by age groups. The information in the table should be read in conjunction with the notes.
Estimated number of total households on Universal Credit and those occupied by single parents, by age, in Great Britain, November 2018 | |
| Number of households |
Total | 1,262,000 |
|
|
Single Parents aged 25 or over | 273,000 |
Single Parents aged under 25 | 55,000 |
Single Parents age unknown | 12,000 |
Source: Universal Credit household dataset and people on Universal Credit dataset
Notes: