- Last year saw the fastest increase on record in children without a parent in work, rising by one third in some regions
- 1.2 million children with parents jobless for over a year in 2024
- Child Poverty Taskforce urged to focus on work not welfare as children of workless families over twice as likely to be in relative poverty
More children are growing up with long-term workless parents than at any time since 2015, new figures reveal.
In 2024 there were 1.2 million children in households where no parent worked for over twelve months, up by 160,000 on the previous year, according to statistics published today by the Office for National Statistics.
Analysis of the data by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found that 2024 saw the fastest annual rise in children with long-term jobless parents on record, rising from 8.2 to 9.4 per cent.
The total number of children in households including shorter-term worklessness in 2024 was almost 1.5 million – up by 180,000.
The think tank found one in six children (16.6 per cent) living in the North East were growing up in long-term workless households, a rise of over a third since 2023. This is more than twice the rate for those living in London (8.1 per cent).
The findings come as Britain is in the grip of the worst worklessness crisis for a generation.
Over 750,000 out of work Brits have started claiming Universal Credit since the start of 2025. Meanwhile, the sickness benefit system is exploding with claims for conditions including anxiety and depression, set to hit £100 billion by 2030.
The CSJ is calling on ministers leading the Child Poverty Taskforce to consider measures focused on tackling worklessness to transform the life chances of young people – and to boost support for families in the early years.
The think tank warns against an assumption that abolishing the two-child limit, reportedly to be announced at the Autumn Budget, will on its own tackle the “root causes” of poverty.
The CSJ find that children growing up in workless families are twice as likely to fail at all stages of their education and over twice as likely to be in relative poverty as those where at least one adult is working.
They are four times as likely to be “materially deprived”, defined by the government as going without basic goods or services such having more than one pair of shoes, owning a bicycle, or having friends round for tea.
Earlier research from the think tank found combined benefits saw almost one million claimants taking home £2,500 more than a full-time worker on the national living wage after tax.
The CSJ recommends:
- Boosting support in the early years: Give parents the option to “frontload” child benefit and combine other childcare subsidies to expand financial support when families need it most.
- Putting family at the heart of the tax system: Help children get the best start in life by moving away from an individualised tax code to a system recognising the full household, as seen in France and the US.
- Reforming mental health benefits: Targeting mental health benefits to more severe cases would save £7 billion by 2029, free up £1 billion to invest in NHS Talking Therapies and back to work support.
- Building a new Work and Health Service: Funded by £300m in welfare savings, this would expand the ongoing WorkWell pilots to help more people with workplace adjustments, shifting the responsibility for fit notes away from overstretched GPs.
Dan Lilley, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Justice, said:
“The problem of worklessness is resurfacing, having retreated in the decade leading up to the pandemic. Last year’s record rise marks a worrying turn for the worse.
“It is ultimately children who bear the brunt of this, not seeing stable work in the home and growing up with a chronic lack of household income, ambition and purpose as a result.
“Work remains the best route out of poverty. The Child Poverty Taskforce must focus on this if it is truly change lives.”
A new paper, Child Poverty: Putting work and family first, is available here.
Methodology: The CSJ analysed data released by the Office for National Statistics based on the Annual Population Survey, which showed that 1.2 million children lived in a household with no one in work for over 12 months in 2024. Long-term worklessness accounted for more than eight in ten cases of children in workless households.
The increase in out-of-work Universal Credit claimants since December 2024, of around 750,000, is drawn from DWP Stat-Xplore data on People on Universal Credit by employment indicator.
