HC Deb 17 March 1999 vol 327 cc694-5W
Mr. Field

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what proportion of households below average income receive their main income from(a) paid employment and (b) benefits, indicating the benefits concerned; and if he will provide the same figures from the inception of the relevant survey. [76198]

Angela Eagle

[holding answer 12 March 1999]: The information is in the table.

Percentage of households with below average income (before housing costs) by main source of income
Main source of a household's income (percentage of total population of households)
Year Benefits Employment Other Total
1994–95 55 36 9 100
1995–96 53 38 9 100
1996–97 52 38 10 100

Notes:

  1. 1. 1994–95 is the earliest year for which the FRS based HBAI series is available. 1996–97 is the latest year for which information is available.
  2. 2. For the purposes of this analysis, 'benefits' were taken to be: Family Credit, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Social Fund (all components), State Retirement Pensions, Jobseeker's Allowance/Unemployment Benefit, Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Disability Working Allowance, Invalid Care Allowance, War Pensions, Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, Child Benefit, One Parent Benefit, Windows Benefit, Guardians Allowance, Maternity Allowance, Statutory Sick Pay, Statutory Maternity Benefits, Back to Work Bonuses, Income from Government Training Schemes.
  3. 3. For the purposes of this analysis, 'main source of income' is defined as being the largest of the three sources of income outlined in the table.
  4. 4. The income measure used is weekly net (disposable) equivalised household income (that is to say income which is adjusted to reflect the composition of the household).
  5. 5. It is standard HBAI practice to give results for income both before and after housing costs, in order to allow for the effect of variations in housing costs between households. In this case, the results are only quoted before housing costs, as they were invariant to the use of the two different income measures.

Source: All figures are estimates and are taken from the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data set which are based on the Family Resources Survey (FRS). The FRS does not include Northern Ireland.