A record proportion of people out of work due to sickness or disability has driven the number of jobless households to over three million under Labour, new figures show.
Almost 40 per cent of people living in a house where not a single adult family member is employed is now out of work because they are sick or disabled.
Meanwhile the proportion of working-age adults not in a job because they were unemployed, retired early or because they were studying full time fell last year.
The proportion of people in a jobless household not working because they are sick or disabled has ballooned since the Covid pandemic and is now at its highest level since records began in 2006.
New figures that lay bare Britain’s worklessness crisis show the total number of jobless households increased by 129,000 in the year to December 2024.
