Housing Benefits Claimants Rent Privately

The latest statistics published by The Department for Work and Pensions report that 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 report shows that 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.