The number of well-off households drawing disability benefits has nearly doubled in four years, fresh Whitehall figures show, handing ministers an uncomfortable new front in the increasingly fraught argument over the cost of Britain’s welfare state.
Estimates from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) suggest that almost 200,000 households with annual incomes above £100,000 are now receiving Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a benefit designed to help people with long-term physical or mental health conditions meet the extra costs of daily living, and one that is not means-tested.
For an entitlement that takes no account of household wealth, the figures are politically combustible. They are certain to sharpen scrutiny of welfare spending and of just how far-reaching reform will need to be to bring the bill under control.
The number of people claiming PIP has reached a record 3.9 million. The benefit currently costs taxpayers around £26 billion a year, with spending projected to climb to £41 billion by the end of the decade.
Critics accuse Labour of retreating from reform even as the costs mount. Last year, backbench rebels forced Sir Keir Starmer to abandon plans for a tougher line on the PIP bill, a climbdown that has left the Chancellor scrambling to find savings elsewhere.
Mental health is at the heart of the trend that worries officials most. Claims linked to anxiety, depression and ADHD have risen sharply, and psychiatric conditions now account for 39 per cent of all PIP awards, making them by far the largest single category, a shift towards mental-health-related claims that has reshaped the caseload over the past five years.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has introduced welfare changes that lengthen award review periods, in part to reduce the stress of repeated reassessment, while adjusting the strict PIP eligibility threshold following concessions wrung out of the Government in Parliament.
The wealth data emerged in the TaxPayers’ Alliance submission to the Timms Review, the Government-commissioned assessment of the disability benefits system.
According to estimates drawn from the DWP’s annual Family Resources Survey, around 197,000 households with a gross income above £104,000 received PIP in 2024–25. That compares with roughly 98,000 households in 2021–22, the earliest year for which comparable figures exist following changes to the survey’s methodology.
PIP itself is paid to people who have both a long-term physical or mental health condition or disability and difficulty either with everyday tasks or with getting around. It comes in two parts: a daily living component, for those who need help with tasks such as preparing food, washing, dressing, managing medication or money, reading, or socialising; and a mobility component, for those who struggle to plan and follow a route, move around or leave home.
Assessors weigh how difficult a claimant finds each task, whether they can do it safely, how long it takes, and whether they need help from another person or special equipment. More than 3.9 million claimants currently receive between £121.20 and £778.40 every four weeks.
The wider disability benefits bill is rising faster than almost any other area of public spending. The Office for Budget Responsibility expects spending on disability benefits to climb from £39.1 billion in 2023/24 to £58.1 billion in 2028/29, equivalent to roughly 4 per cent of all public spending and 2 per cent of GDP.
Government figures show the caseload has almost doubled in seven years, from 2.05 million in January 2019 to 3.93 million in January 2026. PIP recipients received an average of £6,900 each in 2023–24.
Younger people account for a growing share of the total. Those aged 16 to 29 made up 16.6 per cent of recipients in January, up from 14.6 per cent in 2019.
Ministers argue that the surge in mental-health-related claims has fed a backlog in the assessment system, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of the welfare budget. Official minutes record a warning that, without action, the assessment system could “fall over” if capacity pressures were not addressed.
From this month, new PIP recipients aged 25 and over will generally receive awards lasting four years before a review, up from nine months previously. After a second assessment, some claimants may not face another review for six years.
That relaxation is precisely what alarms the campaigners who unearthed the wealth figures. Shimeon Lee, a spokesman for the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be concerned that ministers appear to be reducing checks and extending awards for longer periods. With the welfare bill already ballooning, fewer reviews risk making it harder to ensure support reflects claimants’ current circumstances.”
The Government’s independent welfare watchdog, the Social Security Advisory Committee, has previously questioned the decision to widen the gap between PIP reviews and asked for a clearer explanation of the policy.
For Reeves, the politics are unforgiving. Having already abandoned one attempt at restraint, she faces a benefit whose cost is climbing towards the size of a mid-ranking Whitehall department, and a steady drip of figures, like these, that make the case for reform impossible to ignore even as the appetite for it across her own benches remains thin. The same fiscal squeeze has already reshaped a decade of welfare policy, redirecting spending towards pensioners and disability claimants while working-age families lost ground. How the Timms Review proposes to square that circle will be among the most closely watched documents in Westminster.
