Families with three or more children cost taxpayers some £2.3billion in housing benefits. The government has vowed to cut this back by imposing a cap on the maximum amount that can be claimed in welfare to £26,000 a year.
Cabinet ministers have also triggered controversy by urging welfare recipients to consider whether they can afford to have more children.
Official figures show that families with nine children receive more than £11,000 a year in housing benefit, or £925 a month.
The average family spends £606 a month on rent or mortgage payments, a third less than is being paid out in housing benefit to these large families. The payments also go to families or individuals in work but on low incomes.
| No of children | Families receiving out of work benefits | Jobseekers' allowance | Incapacity Benefit/Severe Disablement Allowance | Income Support | Employment and Support Allowance | Pension Credit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 25,980 | 4,610 | 4,750 | 18,340 | 2,020 | 240 |
| 6 | 8,780 | 1,620 | 1,690 | 6,230 | 630 | 100 |
| 7 | 3,200 | 570 | 680 | 2,290 | 240 | 40 |
| 8 | 1,080 | 180 | 270 | 770 | 90 | 10 |
| 9 | 360 | 60 | 90 | 240 | 40 | 10 |
| 10 | 130 | 30 | 30 | 90 | 10 | |
| 11 | 30 | 10 | 30 | |||
| 12 | 10 | 10 | 10 | |||
| 13 | 10 |
The overall burden on the state of super-size families where one parent is on a jobless or sickness benefit is at least £350million – not counting housing benefit.
Some 180 families on jobless benefits have ten or more children, and ten families have an astonishing 13 or more.
The figures were released by the Department for Work and Pensions under a Freedom of Information request from the Sun newspaper.
They cover families where at least one person is claiming jobseeker’s allowance, incapacity benefit, severe disablement allowance, income support, employment and support allowance or pension credit.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith warned in October that families where no one is working could face benefit cuts if they chose to have more children.
George Osborne has ordered that the welfare bill be cut by a further £10billion, on top of the £18billion reductions already under way. The Chancellor warned that parents claiming unemployment benefit could lose child benefit, income support or tax credits if they had another child.
The move triggered controversy but Mr Osborne insisted that working families had to make choices, so the same should apply to those on out-of-work welfare.
He said: ‘When you are in work and you want another child, you consider the financial cost. When you are on benefits you automatically get extra money.’
