Nearly half the working age population of one district in Cardiff is claiming out-of-work benefits
Martin Shipton
A district of Cardiff just two miles from the city centre has been identified as the community with the highest proportion of unemployed benefit claimants in Wales.
As many as 47% of the working age population of Ely East, on the capital’s western fringe, are claiming out-of-work benefits.
The Scottish journalist Fraser Nelson, who edited The Spectator magazine until 2024, has analysed figures for the whole of Britain released by the Department for Work and Pensions and expressed alarm at the high proportion of claimants.
Claimants
The top 10 districts, which are smaller than local government wards, in terms of sickness benefit claimants and all out-of-work benefit claimants are:
Ely East
Sickness Benefit: 28%
All Out-Of Work Benefits: 47%
Rhyl North, Denbighshire
Sickness Benefit: 28%
All Out-Of Work Benefits 44%
Penderry, Swansea
Sickness Benefit: 27%
All Out-Of Work Benefits 42%
Townhill, Swansea
Sickness Benefit: 26%
All Out-Of Work Benefits 43%
Neath Town, Neath Port Talbot
Sickness Benefit: 25%
All Out-Of Work Benefits 35%
Caerau, Bridgend
Sickness Benefit: 24%
All Out-Of Work Benefits 36%
Tylorstown, Rhondda Cynon Taf
Sickness Benefit: 23%
All Out-Of Work Benefits 33%
Caia Park, Wrexham
Sickness Benefit: 23%
All Out-Of Work Benefits 40%
St Mellons West, Cardiff
Sickness Benefit: 23%
All Out-Of Work Benefits 40%
Writing on Substack, Nelson said: The [figures] would be an economic catastrophe if the UK was not able to import workers to take the place of those signed off on benefits. This is my critique of mass immigration: economically, it works too well. It allows us to cover up the cracks in our economy and ignore those who have fallen through.”
New towers
In Wales, Nerys Lloyd-Pierce, who chairs Cardiff Civic Society, said: “While the centre of Cardiff is shimmering with shiny new towers, and developers are rubbing their hands together with glee, the plight of residents a couple of miles away has been totally ignored.
“These shocking figures show beyond any shadow of a doubt that the theory of ‘trickle-down economics’ is a myth, and a cruel, disingenuous one at that, as it enables us to look the other way. What is even more shameful, however, is that all of this has taken place on Labour’s watch.”
One of the three Labour councillors representing Ely is Cllr Russell Goodway, the cabinet member for investment and development.
Asked by Nation.Cymru about the statistics that put his ward at the top of the Welsh league table for out-of-work benefit claimants, he said: “The figures are shocking but not surprising. We’re aware that if you had a local authority based on the southern arc of Cardiff, taking in districts like Ely and Trowbridge it would be the poorest local authority in Wales.
“There are a number of reasons for that. Some of it is that you have generational unemployment, with families out of work for two or three generations and with no role models to encourage them.
“There is also a public transport issue. Although there’s a good bus service into the centre of Cardiff, there are still problems for people doing early shifts that start at 6 or 7.
“While I’m sure there are people on sickness benefits who could be helped back into work, I wish the UK Government had concentrated more on their health and wellbeing, rather than adopting a punitive approach.
“There are initiatives in England that we could look at to improve adult education and help create more employment opportunities.”
Construction workers
Asked whether the high rise buildings in Cardiff city centre were helping people living in poor areas of the city like Ely, Cllr Goodway said: “They create jobs for construction workers and provide apprenticeships.
“Although solving problems like this will take time, we must never adopt the attitude that nothing can be done. I’d like to see the issues raised by the report you sent me examined by Cardiff council’s economy and culture scrutiny committee.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “These figures are yet more evidence of the broken welfare system we inherited that is denying people in Wales and across the country the support they need to get into work and get on at work.
“That’s why we are rebalancing the rate of Universal Credit to increase work incentives, while also investing £3.8bn over this parliament to genuinely help sick or disabled people into jobs, while ensuring there is always a safety net for the most vulnerable.”
The Welsh Government said: “We offer a range of employability and skills support programmes to help people into decent, well-paid jobs, and during 2023-2024 our Employability Programmes supported over 20,000 out-of-work adults.
“Earlier this year we launched our Economic Inactivity Trailblazer pilots in Wales, providing up to £10 million in funding to trial new interventions to support people who are economically inactive into work. Work has also begun to develop an Employability Support Programme in Wales that will bring our key employability programmes (ReAct +, Jobs Growth Wales + and Communities for Work) together.”
Barrier
The Welsh Government’s view is that the sickness benefit system can act as a barrier to employment and actively discourage people from thinking about finding a job. It welcomes the draft ‘right to try work’ regulations recently introduced by the UK Government, which explicitly exclude starting paid work as a circumstance that could trigger a new work capability assessment or review of Personal Independence Payment entitlement.
The initiative Communities for Work Plus (CfW+) has engaged with more than 4,000 participants since April 2025 and supported 1,800 into jobs of 16 hours or more. Since 2018, CFW+ has worked with over 70,000 participants and helped more than 30,000 secure employment.
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Welsh Labour (or just Labour) have committed to eradicating poverty… by taking more money away from the poorest. I assume they’re just going to say that if they’re not allowed to claim benefits then they don’t count as in poverty, which would greatly reduce the welfare costs… it would also reduce future pension bills and healthcare costs because they’d be… uh… dead. Generating opportunities in Wales is currently not possible. The Welsh Government has actually tried everything already and nothing is frankly working because the tools that the Welsh Senedd (Senedd Cymru?) have not yet been devolved to it. This… Read more »
Did you really say this “Generating opportunities in Wales is currently not possible. The Welsh Government has actually tried everything”, and said on the day they didn’t relent in any meaningful way on the 180 days required for holiday let’s? Many Welsh people I know have these – some as a sideline that’s brilliantl for their family – but have been torpedoed for their entrepreurialism and enterprise. I get why changes were required bit, as ever with WL, it’s fingers in ears to chase headlines via dogmatic agendas with ill thought out policies that bring many of us down emotionally… Read more »
Poverty makes people unwell (physically and mentally) which in turn inevitably impacts their ability to work. Furthermore no british (or welsh) govt has properly addressed the generational poverty which exists in communities such as these. Indeed the sad truth of the matter is the ‘left behinds’ have been getting left further and further behind the rest of society since 1979.
It would be interesting to know if the figure for “out of work benefits “ includes everyone in receipt of Universal Credit as the right wing press often lump everyone in receipt of UC as unemployed even though 50% of people getting UC are in work, they could be carers, looking after young children etc and no just on the dole.
Absolutely, many people included in the out of work figures will be single mothers caring for children.
It’s incredibly hard to find employment which fits in with caring duties. It’s also exhausting trying to be bothered mainly provider and care giver.
Any earnings received is taken away from any benefit and families are no better off.
It’s a vicious circle.
Expectations are low and unemployment is part of the culture.
I feel sad to see so much lost potential in Ely.
Please note an auto correct error.
The word above should be BOTH not bothered.
Diolch.
Delivering state pension benefits through UC would help change this perception.
All pretty deprived areas.
Lloyd-Pierce spouting Politics of Envy is not the best career advice for the choices people need to make, if we are to ever achieve the independent nation of Cymru. Instead we need to follow Ireland into successful independence and accept that inward investors may find ‘shiny new towers’ to accommodate them more enticing than areas where police are petrol bombed for merely attempting to maintain law and order. Fortunately these once leafy suburbs are actually 5 to 6 miles from the city centre towers, rather than the ‘couple of miles’ stated. But as with the other escapes from reality, never… Read more »
Some people just don’t like working within an organised context. “Moonlighting” with a bit of benefits to top up, or vice versa, works well for them……but not for the wider tax paying population who foot the bills.
Correct, but is ‘organised context’ a polite description for legitimate law-abiding endeavour. Rather than what some do to supplement their benefits.
Beneath those ‘shiny new towers’ I was recently approached by a stranger asking if I wanted anything from a well known retailer? Rather than hard work for tight margins, this individuals endeavour would bring a quick 100% profit that would then be spent in the local narcotics industry.
JJ, I was not referring to “organised crime” although that will be an avenue of interest to those who find moonlighting too much like hard work !
Crime is hard work too, it’s just typically far more lucrative. Risky sure, but very lucrative. I mean I dunno about you but breaking and entering into a bank vault makes me sweat.
Crime isn’t hard work these days. Low quantity shoplifting has now been replaced by large scale looting, using the store’s own baskets or ideally trolleys. Staff are told not to get involved and another conviction onto the previous 500 is not a problem.
My worry about this “do nothing” approach is that the losses will eventually count against individual stores when HQ is looking to close a few to improve their quarterly numbers and small communities will eventually lose their only local shop because it’s been seen as a soft target by professional thieves from outside the area.
Caia park is interesting, it’s within a bike ride of one of the largest industrial estates in Europe. A number of companies have expanded there in the last 18 months, in excess of 500 new jobs created. I suppose it underlines how complex it is and how the numbers make it difficult to assess the root cause of the problem
Considering many of these people are probably single mothers, a bike ride is just not practical in terms of time, getting kids to school, travelling to stand getting back to pick kids up.
Fair point. I go back to Caia park fairly regularly we don’t have not 40% of the population single mothers! I think the thing that makes the issue so challenging is how you can’t really group people; these issues are complex on an individual basis
People claiming dole should be made to carry out community work to qualify for payments with the potential of better pay for certain jobs ,this would encourage a work ethic and make them want to improve the lives of their families.
If you want someone to work, pay them at least minimum wage. For awareness, ‘dole’ does not cover minimum wage. So if you want to increase their payment to cover the work done, then I’m wholeheartedly in support.
No one should be made to work for less than the minimum wage.
I’m genuinely baffled by Lloyd-Pierce’s comments. Cardiff has the same sized economy as Sheffield when it should be aiming for the GDP of Auckland. Higher GDP means more jobs and better paying jobs. You don’t get there by sneering at people investing in the city.
A new Cardiff West station on the mainline would bring city centre jobs within 5 minutes of Ely.
Nelson? That means pinch of salt in lorry quantities required.
I would be interested in seeing a greater breakdown of these figures.
What is the proportion of fit, working age adults without caring duties who are unemployed?
I note in this discussion that the emphasis is getting those claiming health related benefits into work.
Surely the priority is to get fit adults into work first.
Better incentives, better education and post school support.
I’m afraid the whole culture needs changing.
I live in an affluent Rural area of Wales now but I used to live in Ely. I grew up there and for half their childhood, raised my kids there. Ely was and probably still is, one of the most deprived areas of Cardiff. There was a point when it was trying to drag its self out of deprevation. There was massive community cohesion as we tried to repair a poor reputation. It took years and then, one-by-one, in a devastatingly short period, every youthclub closed, the library was closed to be merged with the hub. At one time, the… Read more »
As an ex teacher in a deprived area, it’s obvious that some parents are workshy. It’s so easy to say, “I’m stressed, can’t work, give me money” and “puff!” they get money! Lee Anderson was a staunch Labour MP, who then turned Conservative. He said that after fighting to help all these people, with benefits etc, 20 years later, their kids were turning up with the same stories. He realised they need help to break the cycle, not feed it!
I agree and this is total fact according to my experience too. This cant be addressed in a practical way whilst mentioning it is still frowned upon by some in power, with their head in sand. Its just denial and moves nothing on, to all our cost.