Households in Britain without workers dropped in Q2

The percentage of British households with at least one person aged 16 to 64 and no one working fell to a record low in the second quarter, the government said. The record applies to the years 1996 to the present day, when comparable data was collected, the Office of National Statistics said Wednesday. Data shows that among households with at least one member at a traditional working age, 17.1 percent were homes with no one working in the April through June quarter, a drop from 17.9 percent in the second quarter of 2012, ONS sai In the quarter, there were 3.5 million households with working-age members with none employed, a drop of 182,000 from a year earlier, ONS said. ONS said the change was partly due to households that moved out of the statistical category, as the members of the household this year included only persons age 65 or older "and therefor [they were] not included in the analysis." The percentage of households in which no member has ever worked, despite having at least one member of a traditional working age, also fell in the quarter, dropping to 297,000 households, ONS said. Nearly half – 48 percent – of these households were comprised of students, while 18 percent were comprised of persons sick or disabled. Another 14 percent indicated they were caring for a family member and 10 percent indicated they were unemployed, ONS said.