London's Poverty Profile 2015 looks at how London has recovered from the recession in terms of unemployment, out-of-work benefit claims and the quality of work available
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It examines how poverty and inequality have changed at a time when average incomes have been flat; how London's housing boom is affecting affordability, tenure patterns and housing benefit claims; and how local authorities have been managing their homelessness duty with reduced funds and restrictions due to welfare reform.
London's Poverty Profile is commissioned by the independent charitable foundation Trust for London and produced by independent think tank, New Policy Institute.
Key findings
Disability and employment
Disability is a large component of worklessness in London. 16% of the working-age population of London are disabled people, but 29% of the workless population are. In London as a whole, 51% of working-age disabled people are workless; 7% are unemployed and 44% are economically inactive (see Figure 7.9). In contrast, 24% of non-disabled people are workless. Disabled people are more likely to be both unemployed and economically inactive than non-disabled people.
Disability and low pay
Split by full-time or part-time and by level of education - In all cases, disabled people are more likely to be low paid: 34% of disabled people compared with 24% of non-disabled people. While only 17% of full-time non-disabled people are low paid, this rises to 24% for full-time disabled employees, with the part-time low pay rate for disabled people four percentage points higher than for non-disabled people.
DLA and PIP
At the end of 2014, 330,000 people in London were in receipt of DLA, 4% of the population compared with 5% across the rest of England, but this small gap is a reflection of London’s younger age profile. DLA is currently being replaced with Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for new claimants and DLA claimants as they are reassessed.
As of January 2015 there were 23,000 new PIP claimants in London and only 50 claimants had been reassessed from DLA.
So far 77% of DLA claimants that have been fully reassessed nationally were entitled to PIP and about half of new claims were assessed as eligible.
DLA components
In London 55,000 DLA claimants (17%) are only entitled to the lower element of DLA. A further 136,000 were entitled to a lower rate for one element of DLA but also to a medium/high element of the other component.
