7.4 million people claim some form of disability or incapacity benefits

[MidnightPatrol]

Given the various back and forth of discussion on the reduction in disability and incapacity benefits, not much data on the debate has been shared - it’s a mainly emotional debate.

So for context, the figures:

• 7.4 million people claim sickness benefits of some kind
• The total number of claimants has increased by a third in five years (up 1.8 million)
• 1 in 10 working age adults claims, and 1 in 12 school aged children
• 1.2 million people aged under 25 claim sickness benefits, a rise of two thirds in 5 years - 1 in 15 claiming something
• 4 million adults claim sickness benefit of some kind, up from 2.8 million in 2019. Two thirds of that increase is people under 50.
• 2.5 million people claim UC health benefits, up 500k people this year alone - in 2019 less than 500k people claimed this
• 1.8 million have no requirement to look for work
• Sickness benefits for working age adults are expected to cost £70b by 2030 - a third of the cost of the NHS

When one is working it's hard to find the time to pester doctors with our 'conditions'.

It’s a direct correlation. The nhs decline is probably the same rate as the increase in sickness and disability claims

Interesting. Do you think the same about child benefit being paid to working parents?

Do you think that you are immune to sickness or disability? If that ever happened to you, would you expect support?

Nobody plans to have a disability.

This is a ridiculous statement. Knee jerk comments like this are why we can never have a sensible conversation about the huge cost of the benefit system.

This 👏

I am and have always been a tax payer. In a decently paid job.

Please let me know how I can atone for my sin of also claiming benefits for my severely disabled child, so that I may become a superior being like you.

After not claiming DLA for years for my child I felt forced to apply due to everywhere asking for dla letter all the time

No, the reason we can never have a sensible conversation about the benefits system is that 90% of people have no bleeding idea what they’re talking about.

And yet those of us with disabilities HAVE to manage it, yes I work FT 40hrs per week
I can’t wait for antibiotics if I get an infection, it’s not an option to not find the time
i didn’t choose to have these health issues, they appeared in my thirties

People don’t care. I think that everyone feels the effects of Brexit and the cost of living crisis, and we have reached a point where disabled people have become the brunt of everyone’s resentment. it’s much easier to bully people who can’t fight back, isn’t it?

In spite of the cruelty inflicted on them by the Tories for the entire time they were in office.

Of course they would expect support. At the core of such people is a selfishness too deep for most of us to fathom. So yes they would bloody well expect support, and be outraged - OUTRAGED - by the state of the support available to them. Them, of all people!

and they don't seem to realise that these cuts are absolutely going to affect genuine people who claim, they always do.

It's terrifying when you rely on that money because you are either disabled yourself or care for your disabled child.

I don't think people in the UK understand how much other populations look after their own health first, before expecting the NHS to magically fix everything.

Fair play to the Labour government for attempting to sort this nonsense out. More power to their elbow.

Not all parents are qualified speech therapists, psychologists, physiotherapists or occupational therapists. Professional input is needed
That's not the therapy I was referring to but therapy for anxiety and depression, which is seeing the biggest growth in applications. Coping with day to day anxiety IS a parental matter.

Why do we always look to the bottom to find those "playing the system", rather than those at the top who truly game the system?

I'm guessing if we restructured the system, so that wealth was more evenly distributed (taxing wealth more & work less) and spent money on public services we'd more than half that figure.

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disability-inequality-is-widening-and-risks-becoming-entrenched-says-ehrc/

'@SinkToTheBottomWithYou · Today 13:05
Posters keep stressing out that people in receipt of some benefits do also pay taxes. True, but paying taxes with one hand to then receive money is not the same thing as paying taxes and receiving no money back!
They are justified in thinking that their taxes are paying for other people’s benefits.'

You can't pick and choose what your taxes are going to fund though.

I don't have kids but my taxes are used to pay for schools and child benefits.

Should I resent kids and their parents because of that?

Anxiety needs professional input especially in children. For example exposure therapy may be indicated and work for NT children but is not recommended for ND children.

Completely agree. There is a ridiculous sentimentality attached to ‘our NHS’. Anyone rem net the cringeworthy stuff at the 2012 Olympic Opening ceremony?
Tjise of us who gave experience of other heath care systems can see just how appalling the NH ‘service is’

They realise but they don’t care because they resent genuine claimants too. They just know they can’t admit that.

I now pay premiums for my adult children to have private health I dura car because no way would they get acceptable treatmr y on the NHS.

There isn't enough money in the pot to keep paying out for disability. It needs to be severely cut back.

Exactly. You never hear people complaining that their taxes fund up to 85% of UC claimants childcare either - seems that’s it’s acceptable to fund those who are well and working but not the sick and disabled.

I go into my local Tesco or Co-op and it's just 50% shit snacks and instafood. No wonder everyone is sick with all of that rubbish.

The number of claiming anything is wildly high.

People who help you to fill the forms in will advise you to use legal definitions to describe how a condition affects you but they are not advising you to actually lie
Of course they are not going to tell people to lie! I gave an example of how you can write a factual circumstances that leads to believe that there is a need due to disability when it isn't.

It's similar to applying to jobs. You can always write to convince a new employer that you have experience in something without lying but ultimately inflating how that experience makes you a good match to the job. That's what job coaches teach applicants.