Benefit cuts will cost the economy.

That not seriously how you arrive at your opinion on national policy issues?

Everybody working in the disability sector and the poverty reduction sector can, of course, see up close how the system and the economics really function and what the effect is on clients.

Why would you not take that more seriously?

That’s exactly what’s happening.

In fairness, the huge class of people who work for NMW are keeping the country going, and arguably we should be treating them better. But putting groups against each other is all just a very convenient distraction from what's really going on.

Helen Barnard, the director of policy, research and impact at Trussell, said: “Slashing support for disabled people who most need our collective protection from hunger is cruel, irresponsible, and out of touch with what the public wants.”

I wonder what backs this assertion up. The polling after the announcement showed the public largely support the changes.

In what jobs? There are more people looking for jobs than there are jobs available already.

It’s telling that people aren’t actively opting to become disabled to access this purported gravy train, though.

You can call it emotional blackmail to point it out, but if I disability was that much of a golden ticket we would see people voluntarily opting in, wouldn’t we? As it is, the only group anybody can point to are some NEETs, who aren’t actively disabling themselves. They are just saying they feel sad.

If it’s really true that NEETs are being given disability benefits en masse for being a bit down and anxious, even while amputees and cancer patients are regularly turned down, isn’t that the thing we should be looking at?

You can call it emotional blackmail but the actual fact that many many people are utterly dependent on their benefits to survive won't go away.

Calling it emotional blackmail is misdirection away from the fact that either you don't care or you're woefully misinformed.

I don't care - if you can't come to a compassionate response on your own, why should I waste my time trying to turn you into a decent human being?

The people you claim are earning the same amount of money on NMW have to spend around £12000 a year extra just on their disability.

This sort of emotional blackmail won’t work on me any more

And no, no single adult is going to get rich on benefits.

But if you are claiming UC, DLA for a couple of kids (as seems to be quite normal round here), carers, and PIP for one of the parents, yep that’s a very comfortable life indeed - around £50k, if not more.

With the greatest of respect for Access to Work, not a single employer has ever taken on a person with disabilities because they could acess this scheme. That is why there is still such a large percentage of people with disabilities out of work. To be fair, I neither want nor expect employers to take people on out of compassion or charity, but we are a very long way off that when employers simply assume lack of competance or reliability when they see the word "disability".

Many PIP claimants are in work. Many people with disabilities are in work because they receive PIP. Others are in work because they receive Universal Credit to allow them to work to their capacity. Contrary to what many of this and other threads think, it is not black and white - not disabled = unemployed.

The issue is, as this and other threads like it, that there is no nuanced thinking at any level. People on "benefits" don't work (many actually do). People who don't work are lazy (undoubtedly that is true of some, but not most). People who claim to be unable to work are liars / scroungers (yet our health care system is in shambles, people are not getting the health care they need, and that is making thgeir conditions worse). People who don't work shouldn't expect a decent standard of living (but does that actually mean that people who can't work deserve to live in poverty, and what kind of human being are you if you think that?). Labour say they will get more people into work, but on the news this morning we are told that vacancies are at an all time low and graduates can't even get supermarket warehouse jobs. And whilst being no fan of Labour, the last lot said the same and then presided over the rise in claimants.

I doubt this thread will change anyone's mind about anything. It will simply serve to reinforce what is already well-known - many voters will vote for the people who promise them simple answers, despite the fact that simple answers have never provided one iota of change and people will continue to apportion blame to the government and "other people" rather than accept the simple fact that this is what they voted for, they are getting it, and it was never going to work. A politically inept electorate gives you politically inept government, whateer their purported "colour".

Agree. We can’t keep going as is so what’s the alternative? The only solution at this point is to make a lot of people work through necessity. It won’t be pretty for 10 years but it’ll eventually turn things round a bit.

Very well said.

Every single time politicians institute one of these new bogey-man campaigns, people line up to fall for it.

Can you please point out where I said you get more money by being disabled?

What I’m pointing out clearly and with the numbers is that actually for lots of people there is very little difference financially between claiming & working full time, whereas you claimed wages to be significantly higher than claiming. Your other point was that you didn’t get an increase in April, neither did most people who earn a wage, that’s not specific to you or those on benefits- we’re all essentially worse off every year due to cost of living, I don’t know many people who get a payrise every April to cover the increase in costs.

And all of those people still have to pay for food, utilities, etc, they aren’t getting discounts either.

Which “people”?

A large slice of disability claimants, for example, are those with profound learning disabilities. Do you see many of that group in retail jobs or similar where you are? Where I live, there’s a project with a shop that trains profoundly disabled special- school leavers for retail and gardening jobs, but I don’t often see that reflected in other businesses locally.

Or are you talking about the mobility impaired? Do you see many employees using mobility aids in your organisation, your town? It’s not even that common to see wheelchair users out and about in town, but that’s not because they don’t exist.

Or are you talking about people with ADHD? How would any of us recognise that group if we saw them at work?

Etc, Etc. It’s a lot of different subgroups,

All these disabled people exist, but I know where I come across those with visible disabilities, and they’re not evenly sprinkled across the jobs market. Do you really think employers are offering them all jobs and the disabled are turning them down?

That is an extraordinarily naive statement.

69% of appeals for PIP are successful. That means a LOT of wrong decisions are being made - and the whole claiming and appeals process are so difficult that many, perhaps most, people don't get what they are entitled to in the first place.

Yes because there's endless jobs out there at the moment

If you think you'll get more money if you're disabled, you can always ask someone to run your legs and arms over so you can be rolling in it too.

Exactly and working people have all those extra costs of actually working too, like travel costs, clothing, paying for parking etc which can hugely add up. I honestly don't know how single people live independently on nmw, they often have to take on second jobs or live with family to get by.

It's reasonably rare so it would be outing. But it's a degenerative disease that has been diagnosed by a specialist. It's very painful and limits my life significantly.

I just want people to know that it isn't some teenager with anxiety they're proposing starving into good health so they can get a job. It's older people like me who will never get better they think they can starve into work. I'm already going hungry most days and it hasn't cured me yet.

It's actually made me more ill because now I have digestive issues and vitamin deficiencies to boot.

And all those who were whinging about disabled people who didn’t work will then be whinging about their disabled Co workers getting more breaks/more time off/ questioning any reasonable adjustments……

If 90% of people lose their daily living award then we'll see a lot more families having to help out. Many on PIP do have working spouses/ partners and will likely be ok although obviously on a lower household income. Many will have savings, assets and will be ok. Many currently claiming PIP will be working also and whilst losing PIP will de a drop in income they will still work, Hopefully if they rely on a mobility vehicle to work then that will not be affected. many scenarios that I see through my work are people getting PIP themselves whilst also caring for another so have other benefits coming in too. the ones who will be drastically affected are single people getting both PIP and LCWRA and they lose them both plunging them into poverty with no safety net to fall back on.