jobseekers allowance

How unemployment sanctions are driving down the claimant count

Hundreds of thousands of sanction decisions last year have resulted in unemployed people being knocked off the claimant count. There were almost 320,000 decisions to stop a person’s Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) benefit for “not actively seeking employment” in 2013. And in the first six months of 2014 a further 125,000 sanctions have been applied, according to the latest […]

What are benefit sanctions? Explainer

In October 2012 the government made the rules stricter for people out of work and claiming benefits. Since the new rules came into effect more people than ever before have been sanctioned. What does it mean if someone is ‘sanctioned’? Being sanctioned means your money is stopped. People out of work and looking for a job […]

The invisible unemployed: “half of unemployed do not claim benefits” – so who are they?

Originally posted at NatalieLeal.Blogspot.co.uk This chart from a report by Inclusion tells a story. Actually, it poses a lot of questions. At the last count just under half of all unemployed people in the UK were not claiming benefits. That’s almost one million people and it’s going up all the time. But where are these people? How are […]

Benefit sanctions data to be released for first time on DWP stats site

The Department for Work and Pensions statistics site Stat-Xplore will publish data on sanctions  for the first time next month The data,  for Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) sanction decisions, will be released on the site on Wednesday 19 February, according to an email sent to users of the service. The new data […]

Benefit sanctions data to be released for first time on DWP stats site

The Department for Work and Pensions statistics site Stat-Xplore will publish data on sanctions  for the first time next month The data,  for Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) sanction decisions, will be released on the site on Wednesday 19 February, according to an email sent to users of the service. The new data […]