Department for Work and Pensions

Stories

• Economic inactivity rate is 21.8% with 9.2million people aged between 16 and 64 not in work.
• 20,000 people off work due to mental health problems every month.
• More than 5million are on out of work benefits.
• Pays out £108 a week if you have one of these 57 medical conditions or disabilities including "unknown" and other diseases with a wide spectrum of symptoms.
• Saorsa Amatheia Tweedale, the Department for Work and Pensions diversity ambassador, compares taking children puberty blockers to taking the contraceptive pill.
• Offers to pay benefits to people with multiple spouses.
• Five Bulgarian nationals admitted stealing over £50 million from the Department for Work and Pensions.
• The UK economic inactivity rate for those aged 16 to 64 years was 22.2%.
• 3.9million people receiving out of work benefits.
• The number of people inactive because of long-term sickness reached 850,000 in 2024.
• Spent £69bn on benefits for people of working age with a disability or health conditions in 2024.
• Youngsters not in work or education rise to 870,000 in 2024.
• Polish couple stole £700,000 with bogus claims and tried to leave the country.
• No longer publishes statistics by nationality for income tax, national insurance, tax credits and child benefits.
• Wasted £13.9 billion due to fraud and error in one year.
• Assumed a 5% increase in fraudulent behaviour each year in its forecasting.
• Does not expect fraudulent claims to decrease ever again.

People

• Saorsa Amatheia Tweedale

Twitter

• https://twitter.com/DWPgovuk