To Think Rishi is Delusional

I don't actually know any friends/ relatives who don't work though. Most are in their fifties and all work more or less full time. The only ones who don't are ones who have decent private pensions and chose to retire mid fifties after years of being higher rate tax payers and had no kids so took very little in the way of public funds. One does have quite significant health issues meaning he could die young but claims no benefits/ PIP. DH works full time despite two chronic health conditions, refuses to claim PIP or anything, just soldiers on.
The ones I see as work customers who can't work/ don't work are generally late fifties/ early sixties and have become too unwell to carry on doing a physical job and have no computer skills etc so are kind of a bit stuck. There needs to be more help to make that group employable again, they are just claiming benefits biding their time until they can get their state pension and to be honest they either use some kind of minor health issue to say they can't work or they say they are a carer for an elderly parent to avoid being hassled by the job centre.
Work wise I help a lot of people to claim PIP, they mostly seem to be awarded it fairly easily for MH issues, long covid, ME and fibro. These are certainly the conditions that seem prevalent at the moment. Also COPD, usually heavy smokers in their fifties having to give up work for lung conditions. I am worried they are going to make it harder to claim, we will no doubt be inundated with calls from worried people next week with all these proposal's of Rishi's in the press this week !
Not sure what is going on with all these young people allegedly out of work. My ds is at Uni and says he can't find a job, seems a bit depressed and thinks he has adhd. Lots of friends are paying for private adhd assessments for their kids, not sure if I should be doing the same.

hmmm with the changes Rishi the tax evading millionaire or billionaire (I mean how many noughts are needed) wants when my husband became unwell (after working with hardly a day off for over two decades) we would have lost our home and probably him. I would prefer him to sort out wealth disparity, the excessive costs of housing and provide support for struggling families and to reinstate sure start centres. As if.

Same here, everything has been downhill since 50.

Pay has not been keeping up with things like inflation, the housing market etc. In-work poverty is at an extremely high level. As for pensions, the system is collapsing and there are already discussions that state pension age may need to be pushed until 70. I'm a Millennial, several decades away from retirement, and I'm pretty sure I will not get there ever, as the goalpost will keep moving. So it's you who needs to get a grip, actually.

The rewards have been stripped away? Did I miss the news that people no longer get paid to work? I've been around a long time, and when I was young there were a lot of people who didn't own their home, or ever expect to, and I imagine that was an even greater number in previous generations. As for retiring, of course people will be able to retire - get a grip!

Amazing isn't it, how so many people think that working for a living is something that only their generation has had to do. Not to mention that the work they have to do is so much harder than what previous generations did. 😦

Love the anecdote.

Personally I don't know anyone with health issues after covid. I'm not denying there aren't people with long covid, but I've not met, or heard about, them.

It's electioneering. Nothing else.

This is not about "fit and healthy" people in case you missed the point of the conversation. It's about people who are suffering physical or mental health conditions. Also, nobody has ever worked as an "ethos", they worked for the rewards: money, security. These rewards have been stripped away for many. A lot of people will never be able to buy a home or retire. Many can't afford to raise families. So what's the point?

robot ri$hi has no empathy function, as evidenced by his 'are you in business' attempt to connect with a homeless man

I don't think he's delusional. I think his playing election games and will say whatever he thinks will keep the right wing of the party in line and get a certain part of the electorate frothing at poor people because it's a useful distraction.

The overton window in the UK has moved to the right in the last 10 years sadly. We need the adults back in the room to get some moderate centrist policies that benefit normal people.

Work can be beneficial for "some" MH issues but that comes with some caveats.

You need an understanding employer. Flexibility. Some investment in what you're doing. We won't all get jobs we love but if you actively hate it, well that won't help your MH. A reliable (not 0 hours contract) wage that makes a tangible difference to living your life on benefits.

My adult DS has ASD. He was on disability benefits but was desperate to work. But didn't come across great in interviews. And of course the longer he was unemployed, the more unemployable he became.

He actually got a job in the end through my contacts. He loves earning a wage and the depression he had when unemployed has lifted. So I have seen it can be beneficial. But no employer wanted to take him on. Which is a barrier a huge amount of people are going to face. He also had a degree so wasn't coming in with zero qualifications, which many others will be.

I don't agree with the idea of having some private company dealing with signing people off though. Look at the mess they've made of pip assessments! It's going to be more of the same. Vulnerable people who can't work will be told they are fit to work and will end up in worse poverty than they are now. Sadly I think suicides will increase.

Are we also really going to just let people become homeless and starve if they can't prove they've done enough to find work in a year??? Is that who we are? That's shameful.

In the course of my job I've seen lot's of people really try to stay in work, but they just can't stay well enough. It's really sad. Punishing them isn't the answer.

After a pretty healthy life into my mid 50s I've had a host of health problems since having Covid in March 2020, including long covid, more than one autoimmune disease (never had any before covid) and cancer.

I’m glad it’s working for you.

Rishi knows exactly what he's doing.

He knows his government is largely responsible for creating a problem where more people are finding it hard to access employment BUT he's not creative or in touch enough to think of a solution that would actually work so instead he wants to publish people while simultaneously chronically funding the community and statutory services that would normally help people find work.

Because its not just about finding a job - it's about sustaining it. It's about being able to access a job that pays you enough to cover the cost of housing which has doubled in the last 4 years. It's also about having good enough transport links and the infrastructure to help people in rural areas travel to find work without having to pay so much out of their wage to do it. It's about addressing waiting lists so people who need support can actually access it to manage their mental health and keep well and improve their resilience. In my area of the UK we get no help for childcare and we pay £12k a year towards it, what's a single parent supposed to do when that's what it costs just to go to work. What about women who are more likely to be carers?

Rishis policy will target the most vulnerable, those who are homeless, those with trouble accessing childcare, those in need of but unable to access healthcare, young people leaving care.

We already know from the changeover in dla to pip that it's hard to assess mental health sufficiently to give a fair service and I've worked with so many people who lost their benefits in that changeover who for very genuine reasons are not well and should in my opinion be given those benefits.

And for context this last year the employability service I work alongside took a 40% funding cut. He can't have it both ways.

I think there's something to be said about people learning to live with moderate mental health issues. It's part of the human condition; life can be hard. Living off the state shouldn't be an option unless you're genuinely seriously incapacitated.

I think there is just the ethos of fit and healthy people working from leaving education until pension age.

As previous generations did. 🙄

@HappyEater I have had neuro problems ever since. Migraines, neck pain, sore dry eyes . I am ok still working but it certainly did a number on my nervous system- could be covid, could be vaccine- I couldn't say as had close together

Working From Home has also opened up work to a huge number of people that would otherwise not be able to do the jobs they now do from home, me included. I’d have to get signed off if I was still five days per week in the office. As it is, I have a more restful three days with no commute and two exhausting days with a commute tacked on.

My sister in law has long covid, she is really struggling

dd has ME (pre covid) and they are very similar

Dear little Rishi is a billionaire who is married to a billionaire. I don’t think he knows much about real people

So three separate people who are in long term sick leave have confided in you that it's all a big con and they just "don't want to work"? If that's true, get better friends.

This in a a nut shell.