1 in 5 new entrants still on DPB after ten years

Here's an interesting table which reveals quite a lot about who and how long people stay on the DPB:

1 in 5 of those single parents who went on the DPB in the year to June 1998 was still on it (or back on it) ten years later. Almost one in three of those who'd had their first child under 18 were still dependent.

(If you look back from a point-in-time, the proportion that are long-term is much greater as they accumulate.)

Earlier 1998 research looking at entry (to any main benefit) in 1993 found,

35% of the 1993 entrants overall and 57% of the DPB entrants were in receipt of benefit on the five-year anniversary of their 1993 grant.......

If we could identify the long duration group early in their benefit history and turn that history around, the benefit savings would be great, possibly sufficient to support a greater up-front investment in assisting people to secure sufficient incomes to become and remain independent of the benefit system than has been contemplated in the past.

That's what the later research does and why National's reforms have targeted very young entrants.