A record 96,000 households have received rent support from the government due to falling incomes amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, welfare ministry data showed Thursday.

About 109,000 applications for rent support were submitted between April and August, of which around 96,000, or 88%, were approved, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

The number of approvals in the five months was already 2.6 times the fiscal 2010 total of 37,151, seen in the wake of the global financial crisis triggered by the 2008 collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.