Governments Have Been Peddling Lies On The Number Of PIP Claimants!

Don't forget that some past claimants of DLA will no longer be claiming PIP (on transfer - some don't meet the criteria threshold) - but first time claimants of PIP will be added to the total.

We also have to take into account in 2015 scotish claimants were included in the total whereas now they are not

✅ Around 2025

• As at 30 April 2025, there were about 3.7 million claimants “entitled to PIP” in England & Wales. GOV.UK+1
• Of those, 37 % were receiving the highest level of award (enhanced for both components). GOV.UK+1

🕰️ Around 2015

• The rollout of PIP was still in early stages. For example, in August 2015, there were ~551,224 PIP claimants in Great Britain. Research Briefings
• A combined figure for May 2015 shows ~3.55 million claimants of “PIP and DLA” together. GOV.UK+1
• Specific for PIP alone, as at end of April 2015 there were ~460,000 PIP claims “in payment” (i.e., with entitlement) in England & Wales. GOV.UK+1

📊 What this means

• From April 2015 (~0.46 million PIP claimants) to April 2025 (~3.7 million), the number of people with PIP entitlement has increased massively (though note that in 2015 many people were still on DLA).
• The 2015 figures are not fully comparable, because PIP was replacing DLA for working-age adults over that period; so many disability benefit claimants were still under DLA then.
• The fact that the combined PIP + DLA caseload in 2015 was ~3.55 million means the disability benefit claimant population was already large and has grown further under PIP.

Must admit I was shocked about a benefits stat I saw in the news last week, but it wasn't for PIP. It was saying 1 in 5 (20%) working age people were not in work or looking for work. That mostly means LCWRA. I am one of those people, as are many on here, but when I considered just the number of houses in my local area, 1 in 5 suddenly seems like a huge number!

I tried to find the percentage for 10 years ago, but couldn't see a reliable figure. (I do not count Google AI as reliable!) Does anyone know the figure for back then?

this 1 in 5 figure, was it working age population? Were dis you hear it?

there are **** million people in the UK and 43 million working age.

If it’s 1in5 of 43 million, that’s nearly 9 million people not in work nor looking for work

That seems not true

Wonder how they calculated the figures

That is a huge number/percentage and bigger than I thought! I can't see it anywhere else, is it of a particular age group?? I can only see the overall unemployment rate at 4.4%

I understand that the 1 in 5 figure includes not just those who have been found too ill to work but also individuals who do not work for other reasons including students, carers and people who have taken early retirement.

I can't remember where I saw it unfortunately.

I have since found this graph of economic activity within 16-64 year olds. It looks like it's always been around 20-30% interestingly.

As mentioned above, this isn't purely LCWRA, as it will include carers and early retirement for example but it is still a much larger figure than I thought. To put it in perspective, PIP claimants are only around 5% (1 in 20).

LFS: Economic inactivity rate: UK: All: Aged 16-64: %: SA - Office for National Statistics