Estimated number and type of GB families and individuals in families benefitting from the up-rating of benefits in 2023 to 2024
Published 17 November 2022
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
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Introduction
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and HM Treasury have a statutory obligation to undertake annual reviews of State Pensions and both the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HMRC-administered benefits. Parliament is informed of the outcome of these reviews by means of Ministerial Statements and publication of a list of the existing and new benefit and pension rates on GOV.UK. For example, the DWP-administered benefit rates for 2022 to 2023 can be found at benefit and pension rates 2022 to 2023.
Subject to Parliamentary approval, inflation-linked DWP benefits, tax credit elements and benefits administered by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) will rise by 10.1% from April 2023, in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rate of inflation in September 2022. The Basic and New State Pensions will also be up-rated in line with CPI inflation in 2022 to 2023 as part of the ‘triple lock’[footnote 1].
Existing Official Statistics on benefit recipients
DWP publish a comprehensive set of benefit statistics on Stat-Xplore. This includes Official statistics on the number and characteristics of DWP benefit claimants as well as average amounts awarded. In addition, experimental statistics on combinations of DWP benefits[footnote 2] paid or administered to benefit claimants are available each quarter.
HMRC publish:
Benefit up-rating affects a wide range of benefits, including both DWP and HMRC-administered benefits. However, there is no overarching publication that captures this information as a whole. For some benefits, information on family members is also not always collected.
This release uses a combination of survey data and caseload forecasts to estimate how many and what type of families and individuals living in families are affected by benefit up-rating and will therefore either have an increase in their benefit amounts or be living with someone who has an increase in their benefit amounts from April 2023.
Although HMRC-administered benefits are paid UK-wide, this release is restricted to Great Britain only; this ensures coverage is consistent and populations are comparable across the 2 departments. Northern Ireland social security benefits are devolved to the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland and are therefore not in-scope for this release. The release also does not include benefits which have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, such as Personal Independence Payment. Because the figures presented here are estimated they are subject to a degree of uncertainty.
Examples are also provided to show how up-rating will affect benefit amounts for specific family types.
Families in-scope for benefit up-rating next year
These statistics provide an estimate of the number of families in Great Britain that are in receipt of at least one DWP-administered or HMRC-administered benefit which will be subject to up-rating in April 2023. They also include an estimate of the number of individuals that live in these families, broken down by type of individual.
An estimated 19.2 million families and 39.8 million individuals in families in Great Britain in receipt of DWP and HMRC benefits will see an increase in their benefits next year.
Estimated number of families with DWP and HMRC benefits up-rated in 2023 to 2024
| Number of families | |
|---|---|
| GB Total | 19,200,000 |
| Pensioner – single | 4,400,000 |
| Pensioner – couple | 3,100,000 |
| Working-Age and Pensioner couple | 1,000,000 |
| Working-Age couple with children | 4,300,000 |
| Working-Age single with children | 2,300,000 |
| Working-Age couple without children | 700,000 |
| Working-Age single without children | 3,300,000 |
Estimated number of individuals living in families with DWP and HMRC benefits up-rated in 2023 to 2024
| Number of individuals in families | |
|---|---|
| GB Total | 39,800,000 |
| Pensioners | 11,800,000 |
| Working-Age | 16,600,000 |
| Children | 11,300,000 |
Estimated number of working-age individuals living in families with benefits up-rated in 2023 to 2024, by benefit type
| Number of working-age individuals in families | |
|---|---|
| GB Total | 16,600,000 |
| Child Benefit only | 5,900,000 |
| Child Benefit and other benefits | 5,100,000 |
| Other benefits only | 5,700,000 |
Estimated number of children living in families with benefits up-rated in 2023 to 2024, by benefit type
| Number of children in families | |
|---|---|
| GB Total | 11,300,000 |
| Child Benefit only | 4,700,000 |
| Child Benefit and other benefits | 6,700,000 |
Notes:
- number of families and individuals in families is rounded to the nearest 100,000. Figures may not sum due to rounding
- a family is defined as a single adult or a married or cohabiting couple and any dependent children or young people in full-time advanced education
- individuals in families includes all individuals within the specified group (for example, Working-Age) that are living in a family which is affected by benefit uprating
- social security is a transferred matter in Northern Ireland and State Pensions are also up-rated in countries outside the UK where there is a legal obligation to do so but these figures exclude such cases. They also exclude child benefit and tax credit paid to families in Northern Ireland, and benefits such as Personal Independence Payment in Scotland which have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament
- Child Benefit receipt refers to cases in payment. Recipients may have to pay the High Income Child Benefit Charge if the claimant or their partner has an individual income that is above £50,000
- these figures were based on the latest models and forecasts at the time of analysis and therefore will not be fully consistent and should not be compared with final forecast benefit caseload data due to be published later this year at Benefit expenditure and caseload tables. The “Benefit expenditure and caseload tables” will reflect the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR’s) final Autumn Statement position
Example benefit amounts
The following are examples of how up-rating will impact benefit amounts.
Weekly amounts
| Benefit Type | 2022 to 2023 amount | 2023 to 2024 amount | Increase in benefit amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full Basic State Pension | £141.85 | £156.20 | £14.35 |
| Full New State Pension | £185.15 | £203.85 | £18.70 |
| Pension Credit Standard Minimum Guarantee, Single | £182.60 | £201.05 | £18.45 |
| Pension Credit Standards Minimum Guarantee, Couple | £278.70 | £306.85 | £28.15 |
| Child Benefit, two children | £36.25 | £39.90 | £3.65 |
Monthly amounts
| Benefit Type | 2022 to 2023 amount | 2023 to 2024 amount | Increase in benefit amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Universal Credit, single, aged 25+ | £334.91 | £368.74 | £33.83 |
| Universal Credit, single, aged 25+ with limited capability for work and work-related activity | £689.19 | £758.80 | £69.61 |
| Universal Credit, single, aged 25+ and one child | £579.49 | £638.32 | £58.83 |
| Universal Credit, couple, at least one adult 25+ and two children | £1,014.88 | £1,117.98 | £103.10 |
Data and Methodology
This analysis uses DWP’s Policy Simulation Model (PSM) of the UK tax and benefit system to estimate the number of families and individuals[footnote 3] in families that would be eligible for the up-rating of DWP benefits, tax credit elements and benefits administered by HMRC. The PSM is a static microsimulation model based on a snapshot of the UK population from the Family Resources Survey (FRS)[footnote 4], currently for the financial year 2019 to 2020[footnote 5]. It uses caseload forecasts alongside the benefit rules to simulate results for each year, currently up to and including 2027 to 2028.
In this analysis, the PSM is used to model the average number of families over the financial year 2023 to 2024 that would be eligible for benefit up-rating. The number of people living in families that would benefit from up-rating was also modelled. This includes those who indirectly benefit from up-rating, for example a couple where one partner is in receipt of a disability benefit, but the other partner is not would be counted as two people. Individuals and families may also receive multiple benefits, as such these figures should not be considered a count of benefit caseloads.
For Child Benefit claimants and for pensioner families and individuals, off-model adjustments have been made to align with benefit forecasts. The advantage of using the model compared with administrative data for this purpose is that it models both DWP and HMRC benefits; it allows us to estimate all gainers in families, not just those captured in the admin data; it also allows analysis of beneficiaries by family type.
These figures were based on the latest models and forecasts at the time of analysis and therefore will not be fully consistent and should not be compared with final forecast benefit caseload data due to be published later this year at benefit expenditure and caseload tables. The “Benefit expenditure and caseload tables” will reflect OBR’s final Autumn Statement position.
Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics
The Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code) is built around 3 main concepts, or pillars:
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trustworthiness – having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics
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quality – using data and methods that produce statistics
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value – publishing statistics that support society’s needs
The following explains how we have applied the pillars of the Code in a proportionate way in this analysis.
Trustworthiness
The figures were created following interest from DWP ministers, HM Treasury and the Members of Parliament. They are being published now in order to give equal access to all those with an interest in them and better support understanding of the impact of up-rating.
Quality
The data that underpins this information is taken from DWP’s Policy Simulation Model and includes caseload forecasts taken from DWP and HMRC data, with some off-model adjustments.
The information used refers to families and individuals in families who will be affected by benefit up-rating, as above.
Value
Releasing this information serves the increased public interest in how the government is supporting the public through cost of living challenges. The figures also help reduce the administrative burden of answering Parliamentary questions, Freedom of Information requests and other forms of ad hoc enquiry.
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This was a government commitment to increase pensions by the highest of earnings, prices or 2.5%. ↩
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Attendance Allowance (AA), Bereavement Benefit (BB), Bereavement Support Payment (BSP), Carer’s Allowance (CA), Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Housing Benefit (HB), Incapacity benefit (IB), Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB), Income Support (IS), Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Pension Credit (PC), Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA), State Pension (SP), Universal Credit (UC), Widow’s Benefit (WB). ↩
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A family is defined as a single adult or a married or cohabiting couple and any dependent children. ↩
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The FRS is a continuous household survey which collects information on a representative sample of private households in the Family Resources Survey. ↩
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The latest published data is for 2020 to 2021, however this given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the size and quality of sample data, DWP statisticians concluded that it was not possible to make meaningful assessments of trends and changes in 2020 to 2021 compared with the pre-COVID position and therefore detailed breakdowns were not published. In the same manner, the PSM uses the latest robust FRS data for 2019 to 2020. ↩