FOI reference: FOI-2026-3611
You asked
Please provide:
1. The average annual income of a severely disabled person receiving Personal Independence Payment and Employment Support Allowance in 2025-2026.
2. The proportion of severely disabled people in the UK whose only source of income is a pension or pension annuity.
3. Published data on the financial vulnerability of severely disabled people dependent on pension income in the UK.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Unfortunately we do not hold the information you have requested on severely disabled individuals' income or their financial vulnerability.
We regularly produce estimates of household income in our Average Household Income, UK bulletin and our Effects of taxes and benefits on UK household income dataset publications. These estimates are derived from the Household Finances Survey (HFS) and are currently available up to the financial year ending 2024.
The published data tables include estimates of average household income from Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Pension Credit, state pension, and private pensions (including annuities). These are averaged across all UK households including those which did not receive the payment. As this analysis uses household survey data, estimates are produced at the household level, and we do not produce person-level estimates of income.
Unfortunately, we do not hold analysis using the HFS showing income by disability status or severity in a recorded form. Disability status is captured on the HFS using questions aligned with the Government Statistical Service (GSS) harmonised standard for disability, incorporating both the long lasting health conditions and illness harmonised standard and the activity restriction harmonised standard. However, we have not created analysis showing income estimates broken down by disability status using the HFS. Furthermore, disability severity is not captured as part of this survey, so even if we had created HFS analysis showing disability status, this would not answer your request.
For income analysis by disability status, you may wish to refer to the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) Households Below Average Income statistics, which include some breakdowns by disability. Please contact DWP directly if you have any queries about this data.
We also provide pensions wealth estimates drawn from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) which include estimates for those receiving private pensions in payment. You can find the latest data tables on our website, Applying updated pension methodology to household total wealth in Great Britain estimates: April 2018 to March 2020. While disability status is collected as part of the survey up to round 7 (covering the period April 2018 to March 2020), we do not hold pensions wealth estimates by this breakdown within these tables.
Please note that questions which collect disability status on WAS up to round 7 are not aligned with GSS guidance referenced above and therefore do not match those on the HFS. Round 8 of WAS, covering the period 2020 to 2022, did not collect disability status from respondents — this was due to limitations on questionnaire length during the Covid-19 pandemic. The questions used within WAS are found within questionnaire documentation published on the UK Data Service.
Whilst we do not hold any data on the financial vulnerability of severely disabled people dependent on pension income in the UK, we have released some findings drawn from WAS round 7 data covering the period March 2018 to April 2020, which look at financial resilience within households by disability status. Financial resilience here is defined as having the formal financial assets to cover a 25, 50, 75 and 100% reduction in household income over a three-month period. A more detailed definition can be found in the glossary of our Impact of increased cost of living on adults across Great Britain - Office for National Statistics article.
Table 6 of our Financial resilience of households across Great Britain dataset, shows the proportion of households that are financially resilient by disability status of the household head; also Table 3 within our Financial resilience of households by the Household Reference Person's age band and other personal and household characteristics: Wealth and Assets Survey, England only, April 2018 to March 2020 tables, show the proportion of households that are financially resilient by disability status and age of the household head. Please note the results here are for England only and the thresholds for this analysis do not show a capacity to cover a 100% reduction in income.
If you have any further questions about this analysis please contact Wealth.And.Assets.Survey@ons.gov.uk
The Department for Work and Pensions may also be able to assist with your request as they regularly publish benefit statistics and can be contacted for FOI at freedom-of-information-request@dwp.gov.uk.