Britain is rife with welfare ghettos where more than half of the working-age population is dependent on unemployment benefits, a new report claims.

In a study titled Signed Off, Written Off, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) says as many as 6.8 million people and 1.8 million children in the UK are trapped into long-term poverty.

Christian Guy, CSJ Managing Director, said: "The welfare ghettos trapping as many as 6.8 million people are a national disgrace.

"They represent years of tragic failure and indifference from the political class. People in these neighbourhoods have been consistently written off as incapable and their poverty plight inevitable.

"Their lives have been limited by a fatalistic assumption that they have little prospect of anything better."

Some British towns and cities contain welfare ghettos where more than half of working-age residents depend on out-of-work benefits, according to the report.

Nearly one in every five children (1.8 million) is growing up in a workless household – the second- highest level in Europe behind the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The CSJ, a think-tank founded by Iain Duncan Smith before he became Work & Pensions Secretary, is working on a follow-up report that will set out proposals for the second phase of what it calls the "welfare revolution".