Last autumn the Trust for London's poverty profile suggested that the nation's economic grief was gripping London ever more tightly. Today's unemployment figures confirm it. As statistics for claimants of jobseeker's allowance (JSA) assembled by the Guardian's datablog show, our year-on-year increase of 8.8% is the highest of any region in the country.
At 4.4% the percentage of Londoners claiming JSA is the fourth worst in the land, behind the North-East, Yorkshire and Humberside and the North-West. Note that the figures for JSA claimants will be considerably lower than for all unemployed people, but they have the advantage of being completely up to date and can be broken down by parliamentary constituency.
Scroll down to item 328 and see that London has a total of 235,177 JSA claimants (its total number of unemployed is around 425,000). In some constituencies the percentage of the population claiming JSA is over 6%: Barking; Bethnal Green and Bow; Camberwell and Peckham; Croydon North; East Ham; Hackney North and Stoke Newington (home, sweet home); Poplar and Limehouse. In four it is over 7%: Brent Central; Edmonton; Hackney South and Shoreditch; Walthamstow. In one, it's over 8%: Tottenham.
Read those names again and think of our unequal city. Is any further commentary required?
