The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith recently told the Work and Pensions committee that an estimated half a million people could be judged as “fit to work” and subsequently moved off of Incapacity Benefit (IB)/ Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and on to Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) over the next few years.
Approximately 23 per cent of the country’s 2.2 million claimants could be judged as fit to work under the government’s new employment criteria, which could significantly increase the number of people receiving JSA by 500,000, after all those on incapacity benefits have been assessed by 2014.
Despite the possibility of the JSA claimant count rising by 500,000 if all those transferred onto this form of benefit were not able to obtain employment, the government would still save a considerable amount of money as JSA pays £65 per week, whilst the two levels of Employment Support Allowance (ESA) pay over £90 a week.
