Almost five million adults live in jobless homes

The 'Shameless' generation of benefit addicts: Almost five million adults live in jobless homes



By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:57 PM on 26th August 2009

The number of jobless households has risen at its fastest rate since Labour came to power with almost five million people now living in homes where no one works.
New figures reveal a massive 4.8million people of working age now live in a home where no one holds down a job.
The data for April to June this year shows an increase of 500,000 on a year ago before the recession took a crippling grip on Britain.
The percentage of households where no adults work is now 16.9 per cent, up 1.1 per cent on 2008, according to the data from the Office for National Statistics.
It is the highest rate since 1999 and the largest year-on-year increase since 1997 when Labour came to power.
The data will fuel fears that the Government has cultivated a 'Shameless' generation dependent on the state and comes after the Daily Mail revealed at least five million people of working age have not done a day's work since Labour came to power.

Like the five million Britons who have never worked under Labour, characters such as alcoholic Frank Gallagher (David Threlfall) in Shameless live on long-term benefits

The figure does not include the 1.9million children who now live in workless homes, which is up 170,000 on 2008.
Workless households now number 3.3million, up from 240,000, while working homes are at 10.7million - down 410,000.
A massive 40 per cent of single parent families are workless. The rate is highest in the north east at 23.2 per cent and lowest in the East of England at 12.2 per cent.
At the same time, an analysis of official data by the Tories shows that three million in England and Wales had no job between 1996 and 2001, while a further two million had never had a job.

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The latest official figures say unemployment has risen to 2.4million - its highest since 1995 - as the recession takes hold.
But there is growing evidence of a hidden army of Britons of working age who are not in jobs.
They include those stuck on incapacity benefit, lone parents and youngsters not in education or employment (NEETs).
In a keynote speech tomorrow, Tory work and pensions spokesman Theresa May will unveil research based on the census figures showing that millions have not held a job for years and are living long-term on benefits, like characters from the Channel 4 programme Shameless.
Of those classified as unemployed and able to work, 100,000 had never had a job. A further 140,000 who were classified unemployed had not worked since 1996.

But these figures did not include the millions who were not working, but not registered as unemployed.

Mrs May says that including these people, the figures show that five million have not had a job since Labour came to office. The latest relevant figures date from the 2001 census, and the Tories claim the picture is likely to have worsened.
Mrs May claims that Labour's failure to reform our welfare state during times of economic prosperity has had a huge social and economic cost.
She will say: 'The reality is that under Labour there has been a steady growth in welfare ghettos - unemployment did not disappear during the boom years. It was merely disguised, renamed, and hidden away in ever-growing pockets of poverty.'
Most of those covered in the statistics do not appear in official unemployment figures, she will say.
These include some of the 800,000 people who have been on incapacity benefits for more than ten years, lone parents whose children are under 16 and the NEETs.
They also include the around eight million 'economically inactive' who are not working and not looking to do so.
The Work and Pensions department questioned the Tories' use of figures dating back to 2001.
And welfare reform minister Jim Knight attacked the party for highlighting them while criticising Government schemes intended to limit the rise in unemployment.

'This is two-faced nonsense from the Tory party who deliberately pushed people on to sickness benefit and into longterm worklessness in the Eighties and Nineties and are now opposing our investment and reforms which are getting people back into work,' Mr Knight said.
'The facts are that there are 2.5million more people in work now than in 1997 and before this recession the Jobseeker's Allowance claimant count was at its lowest ever level. Our reforms have been reversing the damage of the Tory years.'

JOBLESS CROMPTON FAMILY RAKE-IN £33,000 A YEAR

Benefits Britain: Harry and Tracy Crompton with their 10 children (rear left to right) Robin, Sarah, Harry, Tracy, Matthew, Michael (Middle row) Harry Andrew, Alex, Kristian (front) Joshua and Jesse

The Crompton family, nicknamed 'Britain's Biggest Freeloaders' by their neighbours in Hull, live in a seven-bed house and get £33,000 a year.
Harry Crompton, 51, has been out of work for 15 years and his wife Tracey, 41, has never had a job. Yet thanks to the generosity of the welfare state they receive £32,656 a year.

The Cromptons were provided with two semis knocked together by the council at a cost of £20,000. The couple's only income from paid work is £20 a week from eldest son Michael, who has a factory job.
They receive a further £628 a week in income support, disability allowance, carer's allowance, child tax credit, plus £120 a week rent on their seven-bedroom house.

A working parent would have to earn £46,500 a year to match their income.

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