The streets with more benefits claimants than workers: Britain's 3,000 welfare hotspots mapped

Unemployed benefits claimants outnumber actual workers in thousands of British neighbourhoods, analysis shows. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has identified 3,000 'welfare hotspots' across England and Wales, where at least half of working-age people are claiming out-of-work benefits. More than 150 neighbourhoods even had rates that exceeded 80 per cent. Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the figures show unemployment has 'gradually become accepted as a fact of life since the pandemic'. Sir Iain said: 'Britain is now living with levels of worklessness that would once have been treated as a national emergency. 'Yet because much of that worklessness is recorded as incapacity rather than conventional unemployment, it has gradually become accepted as a fact of life since the pandemic. This is not good enough. Lives are being ruined and yet this issue hides in plain sight. Your browser does not support iframes. 'The reforms I introduced, including Universal Credit, helped drive worklessness to record lows before the pandemic. With political courage and determination, it can be done again. 'Leaving millions of people in left-behind areas without the purpose, security and dignity that come with employment is neither compassionate nor sustainable. 'This report proves beyond doubt that it is time for the next generation of welfare reform.' Birmingham topped the list of local authorities with neighbourhoods where out-of-work claimant numbers exceed half the estimated working-age population, with a tally of 166. Second on the CSJ's list was Liverpool (112) followed by Sheffield (82) and Bradford (81). However, areas containing the highest share of the neighbourhoods – typically home to around 250 people – were Blackpool, Hartlepool and Redcar and Cleveland at 15, 12 and 8 per cent, respectively. The findings were published in State of Dependency, a 250-page report and part of a new inquiry into welfare. In total, around 22 per cent of neighbourhoods in Liverpool and 18 per cent in Birmingham have out-of-work claimant numbers equivalent to at least 40 per cent of the working-age population – compared to just 2 per cent in London. Since 2019, the number of working-age benefit claimants facing no requirement to seek or prepare for employment has increased by almost 1.7million. Your browser does not support iframes. The incapacity benefit caseload has risen by 6161 per cent – making Britain an international outlier – while the prevalence of disability among the working-age population increased by 16 per cent. The report found worklessness today increasingly appears as 'incapacity' rather than unemployment, with mental health being a key driver – as 3.2million more working-age people now report a mental health difficulty than in 2012. A participant at an event run by the CSJ claimed they had a 'spreadsheet of every single young person and where they lived', adding they had noticed 'they all lived within particular areas of the city - within five or ten streets of each other'. The report warned generations can grow up in 'welfare hotspots' surrounded by fewer working adults and with weaker everyday connections to employment. Earlier this month it was revealed almost two million foreign nationals now receive benefits or the state pension in Britain. Separate analysis by the CSJ found 1.3million people who are not British citizens receive Universal Credit, including 745,000 Europeans who stayed after Brexit. And disability claims are said to have risen more quickly in recent years than in the aftermath of WWI. Your browser does not support iframes. Your browser does not support iframes. A study found 8million more working-age people were classified as disabled – under a definition that includes those with mental health conditions – between 2019-20 and 2024-25. By contrast, 1.6m servicemen had by March 1923 established claims for disability after being injured on duty in the Great War. Responding to the most recent CSJ report, the Department for Work and Pensions told the Daily Mail: 'These statistics show that for far too many years, worklessness has been entrenched in many communities and ill-health increasingly used as a reason to be left behind, resulting in the broken welfare system we inherited. 'We are already reforming the welfare system across the country by narrowing the gap between Universal Credit standard and health rates, restoring face-to-face assessments, and investing £3.5billion in employment support to end the culture of people being signed off and written off. 'We're putting work and opportunity at the heart of the system, and the final recommendations from the Timms and Milburn Reviews will lay the foundation for sustainable reform.'