There are 1.6 million asylum seekers on long term benefits.
This is false. As of June 2024 there were 224,742 asylum cases in the system and asylum seekers aren’t eligible for mainstream benefits. This may be referring to ONS data showing 1.68 million people born outside of the UK are either unemployed or ‘economically inactive’. But this is not the total figure of asylum seekers, and we don’t know how many are on benefits.
Posts being shared on social media falsely claim that 1.6 million asylum seekers are on benefits.
The posts say: “It's a strange world where 1.6 million asylum seekers on long term benefits are fine but elderly people who have worked all their lives are a problem financially.” Some versions are also accompanied by an image of Sir Keir Starmer.
A similarly worded claim has over 2,000 shares on X, formerly Twitter.
However, the posts significantly overstate the number of asylum seekers in the UK.
They may be referring to reports of Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, that were covered in the press, showing that from April to June 2024 in the UK, there were almost 1.7 million people born outside of the country who were either unemployed or ‘economically inactive’, not including students.
Of these, 1.25 million people aged 16 to 64 were ‘economically inactive’ (not including students), and 441,000 aged 16 or over were unemployed.
Economic inactivity is defined by the ONS as “people not in employment who have not been seeking work within the last four weeks and/or are unable to start work within the next two weeks”. These figures include those who are temporarily or long-term sick, disabled, caring or looking after family and home, and retired.
There were 5.6 million people born in the UK recorded as economically inactive in the same period, not including students.
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As of June 2024, there were 224,742 asylum cases being processed in the system. Of these, around 88,000 were awaiting an initial decision and around 138,000 were post decision, either awaiting the outcome of an appeal or subject to removal action.
Initial decisions include grants of refugee status or humanitarian protection, other forms of leave to remain in the UK, and refusals. In the UK, an asylum seeker becomes a refugee once they have been officially recognised by the government as someone who meets the definition in the Refugee Convention. Those granted refugee status are given permission to stay in the UK for five years minimum as a refugee, and then must apply for further leave.
A total of 67,978 people were granted refugee status or other leave following an asylum application in the year ending June 2024.
Additionally, a total of 93,342 people were offered a “safe and legal” route to the UK that year, which includes refugees resettled to the UK and family members of refugees. The majority relates to individuals on visa routes for Ukrainian nationals and British National Overseas passport holders coming from Hong Kong.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there were 448,620 refugees in the UK in 2023, which is calculated by adding together the last 10 years of successful applications.
Another figure from the Migration Observatory’s analysis of the annual population survey, puts the figure at an estimated 387,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2022 who said they originally came to the UK to seek asylum.
These figures are all significantly below the 1.6 million claimed in the post. We’ve written an explainer on the UK asylum backlog outlining how it compares to previous years.
Asylum seekers are not eligible for mainstream benefits, and can only receive a set amount of statutory support. They are also generally not allowed to work.
The Home Office has a statutory duty to provide accommodation for asylum seekers who do not have the means to obtain it themselves or cannot meet their essential living needs. But asylum seekers are not able to choose where they are based or the type of accommodation they are placed in.
Asylum seekers currently receive £49.18 per week if they are living in accommodation where meals are not provided. When meals are provided, the cash allowance falls to £8.86 per person per week.
The money is loaded onto a dedicated debit card which can be used to make payments directly or to withdraw funds from a cash machine.
Additional payments are available for pregnant women and mothers of children aged under three.
People who have been refused asylum but are still eligible for support will be given somewhere to live and the same amount on a payment card, but will not get any money without accepting the offer of somewhere to live.
As we’ve previously stated, the Department for Work and Pensions does not hold figures showing the number of immigrants receiving benefits or pension payments.
However, analysis by the Migration Observatory found that in 2022, migrants were less likely to claim unemployment benefits than people born in the UK.
Misleading claims about the amount immigrants receive in state support regularly circulate on social media, and we’ve written about several such posts previously.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because there aren’t 1.6 million asylum seekers in the UK, and they are not eligible for mainstream benefits.
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