18 million South Africans now apply for the R370 grant, more than the number of people with jobs

Eighteen million people applied for the R370 Social Relief of Distress grant in the first six months of this year, according to a South African Social Security Agency report on unemployment, which puts the number of applicants about 10% above the 16.7 million South Africans in work.

As The South African reported on 7 October, the agency’s COVID-19 unemployment report shows applications rose by 309 387 in a year, from 17.7 million at the end of June 2025 to 18 million at the end of June 2026. The same report shows the agency approved a smaller share of the applications it processed over that period, down from 49.6% in June 2025 to 46.1% in June 2026. In real terms that is 361 107 fewer approvals.

The gap between the two figures is the part that matters most for a South African reader. Statistics South Africa data in the same report shows only 68 000 people lost work between June 2025 and June 2026, so the queue at the grant office grew roughly four and a half times faster than the number of people who actually left employment. The R370 grant is a means-tested payment for people who are not working and who are not drawing Unemployment Insurance Fund benefits. Its applicant count is therefore closer to a live register of destitution than any single labour force survey, because it includes people who have stopped looking for work and people who never entered the formal labour market at all.

The report gives a clear picture of who is standing in that queue. Women make up the largest share, at 9.69 million applicants against 8.32 million men. Sixty-two percent of all applicants are under 35, rising to 81% for applicants under 44. The 20 to 24 age band is the single biggest at 4 017 110 applicants, followed by the 30 to 35 band at 3 037 060 and the 25 to 29 band at 3 017 569. Applications from people under 20 and over 50 both fell.

Education is not the shield it is often assumed to be. Forty-five percent of applicants hold matric, and 5% hold a tertiary qualification. That is two percentage points fewer than the share with no schooling at all and one percentage point fewer than those with primary schooling only.

The report also records that at least 7.9 million South Africans were living on less than R34 a day as of June 2026. To be approved for the grant, an applicant must earn under R624 a month and must not be receiving UIF payments, so everyone approved is unemployed at the time of applying.

What the numbers do not yet show is whether the fall in the approval rate reflects tighter screening, a change in the mix of applications, or administrative capacity at the agency. The report does not say, and the agency has not offered an explanation in the material available. The honest position is that the reason for the decline cannot be established from this document alone.

The grant’s scale is what makes it politically and economically load-bearing. It is the only cash payment in the system that reaches people with no formal work history and no UIF record, and it is the reason a household with no wage earner can still buy electricity and maize meal in a month when nothing else comes in. When the applicant pool grows by 309 387 in a year while the employed population grows not at all in the same report, the grant is absorbing the difference.

Source: The South African, 18 million South Africans applied for a R370 SASSA grant.