Downloads (and caches) the OBR Welfare Trends Report charts and tables workbook and returns the combined incapacity benefit caseload since 2008-09, in both absolute terms (thousands of claimants) and as a share of the working-age population.
Value
An obr_tbl with the standard v0.4.0 schema. The two series
("Claimants" and "Share of working age population") carry different
units: claimants are in thousands and the share is a percentage. After
calling, the caller may want to overwrite unit to "count_k" for the
claimants series, since the heuristic classifier cannot infer the
"thousands" denomination from the series name alone.
See also
Other welfare:
get_incapacity_spending(),
get_welfare_spending()
Examples
# \donttest{
op <- options(obr.cache_dir = tempdir())
cases <- get_incapacity_caseloads()
#> ℹ Downloading welfare_trends.xlsx from OBR...
#> ✔ Saved to cache.
cases[cases$series == "Claimants", ]
#> # obr_tbl: 16 rows x 6 cols
#> # Source: OBR Welfare Trends Report, October 2024
#> # URL: https://obr.uk/download/welfare-trends-report-october-2024-charts-and-tables/
#> # Retrieved: 2026-05-07 21:08:49 UTC
#> # File MD5: c587017c08a1
#> # Package: obr 0.5.0
#>
#> period period_type series metric_type value unit
#> 1 2008-09 fiscal_year Claimants level 2588.000 count_k
#> 2 2009-10 fiscal_year Claimants level 2350.000 count_k
#> 3 2010-11 fiscal_year Claimants level 2253.000 count_k
#> 4 2011-12 fiscal_year Claimants level 2179.000 count_k
#> 5 2012-13 fiscal_year Claimants level 1959.000 count_k
#> 6 2013-14 fiscal_year Claimants level 1864.000 count_k
#> 7 2014-15 fiscal_year Claimants level 1880.001 count_k
#> 8 2015-16 fiscal_year Claimants level 2012.076 count_k
#> 9 2016-17 fiscal_year Claimants level 2047.989 count_k
#> 10 2017-18 fiscal_year Claimants level 2032.168 count_k
#> # ... with 6 more rows
options(op)
# }