§ Paul HolmesTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of incapacity benefit claimants between the age of 50 and state pension age are in each decile of overall income distribution; and if he will make a statement. [172536]
§ Maria EagleThe information is in the tables. It is presented both before housing costs (BHC) and after housing costs (AHC) have been taken into account.
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The number of incapacity benefit claimants between the age of 50 and state pension age in each decile of the equivalised income distribution Decile BHC AHC 1 130,000 120,000 2 130,000 150,000 3 130,000 110,000 4 110,000 130,000 5 120,000 100,000 6 100,000 90,000 7 70,000 70,000 8 40,000 50,000 9 and 10 50,000 60,000
The proportion of incapacity benefit claimants between the age of 50 and state pension age in each decile of the equivalised income distribution Percentage Decile BHC AHC 1 15 13 2 15 17 3 15 12 4 13 15 5 13 12 6 11 10 7 8 8 8 4 6 9 and 10 6 6 Notes: 1. Figures are for the financial year 2002–03, the latest date for which data are available. 2. Estimates are for Great Britain. 3. Estimates relate to the status of individuals at the time they were interviewed for the FRS. 4. The estimates are based on sample counts, which have been adjusted for non-response using multipurpose grossing factors that control for tenure, council tax band and a number of other variables. Estimates are subject to sampling error, and to remaining variability in non-response which is not corrected by the grossing regime. 5. The income measure used is weekly net (disposable) equivalised household income (that is to say income that is adjusted to reflect the composition of the household). 6. The Households Below Average Income series presents analysis of income of two bases: Before Housing Costs (BHC) and After Housing Costs (AHC). This is principally to take into account variations in housing costs that themselves do not correspond to comparable variations in the quality of housing. 7. Proportions are presented to the nearest per cent, and numbers to the nearest 10,000. Rounding numbers in this way means that compared to other rounding conventions, the distribution is smoother at this level of rounding for the small subset of the population. 8. Deciles nine and 10 have been combined as individually, these deciles contained too few households to provide robust estimates. Source: Family Resources Survey (FRS).