UNEMPLOYMENT - New figures have shown 1.8million have claimed Universal Credit, 250,000 claimed jobseekers’ allowance and 20,000 claimed Employment and Support Allowance between March 16 and the end of April.
UC claims are still running at around 25,000 a day and the latest figures suggest around 5million people may now be on Universal Credit in the UK - many of them in work on low incomes.
The Treasury estimate they have spent an extra £6.5bn on welfare benefits since the onset of the pandemic.
Ms Coffey DWP minister announced the figures and admitted people had at first “experienced significant delays in verifying their identity.”
In the US meanwhile, jobless claims top 30 million.
Around 18 per cent of the workforce is currently unemployed. Around 3.8 million more workers filed for first-time employment benefits last week, bringing the national jobless total to a staggering 30 million — or around 18 per cent of the workforce.
Continuing claims, or the number of people receiving ongoing benefits, hit 18 million last week, far surpassing the recessionary peak of 6.6 million, according to data released Thursday from the Department of Labor.
The numbers claiming in the whole of the UK are roughly similar to those claiming in Texas.
Image: US Department of Labor offices, New York.
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