Nearly 1m Britons sign up for welfare benefits in two weeks

Around 950,000 people in the United Kingdom have applied for Universal Credit benefits – a monthly welfare payment – in the two weeks since Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked people to stay home to limit the spread of coronavirus, a government official said on Wednesday.

There are normally approximately 100,000 applicants per two-week period. The government has moved 10,000 staff to process the claims and is recruiting more.

“With such a huge increase in claims there are pressures on our services, but the system is standing up well to these and our dedicated staff are working flat-out to get people the support they need,” said a spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions.

The number of Universal Credit claimants is not a proxy for unemployment figures, as it is possible to apply while still in work, but a YouGov survey on March 24 found that one in 20 people in the UK had already lost their job due to coronavirus.

As businesses, shops, restaurants and bars are closed, the government has offered to pay 80 percent of employees’ wages if their company keeps them on – but there is no incentive for an employer to apply for this.

The UK’s five million self-employed people will not hear about whether or not they are eligible for similar aid until June.

The prime minister on Wednesday lamented the latest coronavirus data that showed a record increase of deaths in the UK, saying it was a “sad, sad day”.

Earlier, the government said fatalities rose by 563 to a total of 2,352 by 16:00 GMT on March 31.

“Let’s be in no doubt this has been a sad, sad day,” Johnson said in a video message posted on Twitter.

“But let’s be in no doubt that if we can follow the programme that we are currently set upon, if we can comply with the measures that we’ve embarked on together, then I have absolutely no doubt that we will begin to start to push those numbers down.”