Universal Credit
(asked on 24th February 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sherlock on 10 February (HL4425), what is the breakdown of the number of couples receiving Universal Credit where the calculation of earnings includes a work allowance, (1) by whether the couple has (a) one earner, or (b) two earners, and (2) by the gender of the lead carer where the couple has dependent children.
The table below provides the breakdown of the number of couples receiving Universal Credit where the calculation of earnings includes a work allowance by whether the couple has one earner or two earners.
| Volumes (October 2024) |
One earner | 460,000 |
Two earners | 230,000 |
Total | 690,000 |
The table below provides the breakdown of the number of couples receiving Universal Credit where the calculation of earnings includes a work allowance by the gender of the lead carer where the couple has children.
Gender of lead carer | Volumes (October 2024) |
Female | 510,000 |
Male | 68,000 |
Total | 580,000 |
Note: the data above is from Universal Credit administrative data from October 2024 and subject to retrospective changes. The volumes are of people who were in payment of UC in October 2024 and those with a positive earnings record. The figures have been rounded to 2 significant figures. We have defined single status and couple status according to their standard allowance amount. 2-3% of households did not have a match between Universal Credit data and the Lead Carer data - those with missing values have been excluded from the figure above.