Nearly one-third of all housing benefits claimants rent privately

Almost one-third of all housing benefits claimants live in the private rented sector and receive on average more benefit than those living in the social sector.

The Department for Work and Pensions has published the latest statistics, showing that 1,492,861 housing benefits claimants are private tenants – representing 31.6% of all 4,731.241 claimants.

There are 3,235,679 claimants in the social rented sector, representing 68.4% of the whole number. Of these, 1,333,955 are in local authority housing and 1,901,720 in other social housing.

The average weekly housing benefit payment in February was £95.77.

In the social rented sector, the average payment was £82.76 for local authority tenants, and £93.72 for other social housing tenants.

The average weekly payment for private rented sector tenants was £109.71.

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One Comment

  1. Woodentop

    And 90% of them seem to be in my town!

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