DPB - how we compare to the UK, Australia and US

In the United Kingdom single parents qualify for a Lone Parent benefit. Its availability pretty much matches ours. The government is proposing reforms as follows;

Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain revealed that from October next year, the Government intends to require that single parents seek work when their youngest child reaches 12 - rather than the current 16.

The age limit will fall to seven in October 2010, by which time it will affect 40 per cent of the 776,000 single parents in the UK.

Very timid. I explained why here when criticising National's proposals.

But look at the number of sole parents on that particular benefit - 776,000

Without going into detailed demographic analysis, based purely on the total population, divide that number by 15 and you get 51,733.

Using the same formula Australia (now work-testing their Parenting Payment when youngest is six) has around 86,000.

The US has just under 1,000,000 adults receiving their DPB replacement (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) which would equate to only 13,000 after adjusting for population size.

New Zealand currently has 96,000 on the DPB. Most are single parents and many single parents are dependent on other benefits.

I reiterate these are not highly specific calculations but I think you'll get the picture.

I believe I can safely say we lead the world in single parent state dependency. I guess that coincides with being a leading feminist state.