UK paid over $1 billion in benefits to dead people – Telegraph

Britain’s welfare department has paid out £850 million (over $1.1 billion) in benefits to dead people over the past four years in a massive government blunder, The Telegraph has reported.

Since 2021, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) made approximately 2.6 million erroneous payments to deceased claimants, the newspaper found. The errors reportedly stemmed from death notifications arriving too late to stop automated payouts, or being processed just as a payment was about to be sent.

Official figures show that total benefit overpayments in 2025 alone reached £9.5 billion ($12.6 billion), with the vast majority being due to fraud or claimant mistakes. The newly revealed £850 million figure represents official administrative error related specifically to deceased recipients. Less than half of that sum has been recovered, adding to the UK’s spiraling welfare bill, which already sets British taxpayers back roughly £300 billion ($398 billion) each year.

The Telegraph noted that the cost of recovering the money in some cases may exceed the amount overpaid, which typically runs to just a few hundred pounds per claim. The DWP has said it will only pursue recovery when it is “reasonable and cost effective.”