§ Mr. Ovendenasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will publish in the Official Report the numbers of children living in families who were (1) estimated to have incomes below the supplementary benefit level at December 1973 (2) estimated to have incomes at no more than 10 per cent. above the supplementary benefit level in December 1973 and (3) estimated to be drawing supplementary benefit on the 6th November 1973.
§ Mr. O'MalleyThe number of dependent children in families with incomes normally (1) below supplementary benefit level is estimated to have been 270,000 at December 1973. The number in families with incomes normally above but within 10 per cent. of supplementary benefit level is estimated to have been 220,000 at December 1973. These estimates are based on the 1973 Family Expenditure Survey (FES) data and are subject to considerable margins of error.
A comparable estimate of children in families normally receiving supplementary benefit is 700,000 (2). This estimate has been made from the Annual Statistical Enquiry of Supplementary Benefit recipients (November 1973).
NOTES. (1) In the FES analysis a family, the head of which is for any reason not employed at the time of interview is, if he 754W had been working in the previous three months, treated as though he were at work in normal circumstances.
(2) The actual number of children in families receiving Supplementary Benefit at November 1973 was 800,000. This number has been adjusted downwards by 100,000 taking out those families where the head had been sick or unemployed for less than three months, in order to make it comparable with the FES analysis above.