Coronavirus: New universal credit claims point to economic need

More than the population of Leeds, more than the population of Glasgow, more than double the population of Bristol.

In the last fortnight, more than 900,000 - more than the number of people who live in some of our great British cities - have signed up to receive universal credit.

That's more than nine times the normal number of people who might register on the system to help them through a rough patch when they lose some income, or to top it up if they are earning less than they need to live on.

The numbers on Universal Credit do not, at any time, match exactly with the number of people who can't find any work.

The levels of payment vary according to circumstances. And it's worth remembering, in fact, that the benefit, which had a troubled start, was designed specifically to try to make work pay.

Long waits have always caused concern. Claimants can now access cash within days but there is a wait of weeks to get the payments properly up and running and the initial emergency money has to be paid back.

But the sudden and vast increase in those signing up is powerful evidence that the coronavirus crisis is an economic emergency for a very significant portion of the public, losing work and losing income in ways they could never have anticipated a few short weeks ago.

We know that many people have found it extremely hard to get through to the Department for Work and Pensions to access the support they need, although they say they have moved 10,000 staff to try to help.

The numbers of people losing out on work could therefore be higher even than this significant level. But given the numbers who have managed to register, there are obviously very significant efforts going on at the DWP to expand the service to try to meet the scale of the need.

The government has already stepped in with support for the economy and for workers in ways that have no modern parallel.

In time, there may be questions about whether the country can really afford to support new legions of workers through hard times for more than a short emergency period.

But right now, these figures provide urgent evidence that only a fortnight after the country was told to shut up shop, there are many, many thousands, already in economic need.