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

@Simplynotsimple ”And neurodivergence is going to become more prevalent, it’s hereditary and the traits become more apparent with every generation. So unless ND people stop having children, this is the future we’re facing and education/economic structures needs to change very quickly to adapt. You cannot force those with disabilities to fit the typical expectations of education and work with simple threats of taking away their means of living.”

What do you propose exactly?

Is the thesis that the country needs the to fund growing numbers of neurodivergent people to have alternative education and work to the mainstream?

This seems unsustainable - I would also query the ide of a parallel society of neurodivergent people who need high levels of support throughout life, but are able to eg raise their own families and so on. They can’t be that impaired if able to have and raise their own children independently.

The reason no one is mentioning covid is that this huge increase in sickness benefit claiming hasn’t been seen in literally any other country in. The world. Even ones like Italy which had very bad pandemics. Suggests it’s a problem with our system uniquely

Well Covid and screens messed up the mental health of the under 25s so now we just have to pay for it. Bashing them further probably won’t help in the long run.

Wow. I have never heard a story like that before. Very original.

If the government are serious about wanting to change these numbers they need to look at contributing factors and address those instead - for example
— Poverty - we know there’s a link to ill health.
— Unhealthy lifestyles (in general) - sedentary, too much screen time, crap food.
— Long waits and inadequate treatment on the NHS. I have a member of staff who can’t return to work until they’ve had surgery and a recovery period- they’ve been waiting over 12m already and can’t afford to fund it privately.
— Employers who don’t make reasonable adjustments or just pay lip service to being supportive and inclusive. I’ve worked with too many businesses who say all the right things and put a lot of effort into ensuring they have the right image re disability (disability confident employer etc) but when it comes down to it, managers complain and treat disabled employees pretty poorly if they can’t do the job or hours in exactly the same way as other staff- far too much focus on what people can’t do rather than what they can. For example I’ve got one manager at the moment moaning that one of his team works from home more than others and it’s ‘not fair’ and ‘not good for team morale’ - this is an agreed reasonable adjustment to help her manage her health, the job and team engagement can quite easily be done from home and she does a fab job (as I reminded him).

See this:

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england

18.4% of children get SEN support/an EHC plan in schools - those with EHC plans are likely to be the most severe. There is a table further down, with a breakdown by need. These are only the children, who have been identified. There are likely to be more children, especially girls, who have significant hidden needs due to autism, ADHD, dyslexia and speech, language and communication needs, who haven’t been identified, because they sit quietly in classrooms and don’t cause any disruption, until their mental health falls apart, due to struggling to cope.

Some children are born with disabilities; and there will be some, whose SEN have arisen due to trauma, neglect and/or abuse.

Some of the mental health problems in adults, and especially women could have been prevented by better identification and support in the education system.

Apart from child benefit and a very small proportion of the childcare element of tax credits, I have never claimed benefits.

When my DC were small I was so skint after paying my childcare and mortgage costs I couldn’t even meet a friend for a £1.50 coffee from the local greasy spoon. I had other single parent friends 100% reliant on benefits who were also poor but definitely had more disposable income than me. I definitely would have been better off on benefits. That’s bonkers. I can see why people who are broke, stressed by work, stressed by juggling work/childcare/home, finding a car unaffordable to maintain or public transport unaffordable/inaccessible/unreliable find it overwhelming and give up.

The only thing that prevented me from doing just that was that I didn’t want to lose my house and I knew it was only temporary - until the childcare costs came down and the DC were less reliant so I could focus on my career. If you’re in a NMW job, renting, no prospect of being able to afford/have time to retrain, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel - poverty is utterly exhausting and grinds you down after a while. People who haven’t lived it have no idea what it does to you mentally.

However, the problem is not that benefits are too generous (try living on them); it’s that incomes are too low for the cost of living in this country.

We need to address the housing crisis. We need to address energy costs, we need to address business. Years of government subsidy have allowed many businesses to artificially maintain low wages. Our economic model is outdated and needs to modernise sharpish.

The other thing is we need to look at public health. In today’s time-poor, always-on culture, we have a reliance on convenience food and little time for exercise. Outside of cities, we don’t even walk to bus stops or train stations anymore as public transport is too awful to consider it a viable alternative to a car (my local city is 35 mins in a car or over 1.5 hours on a bus, for example). Without healthy eating and regular exercise being a routine element we are storing up health issues without even considering the huge amount of good luck that comes into maintaining good health through a lifetime, yet so many people literally do not have time to fit it in. I know the only reason I manage it is because I only sleep 5 hours every night (which works for me but isn’t sustainable for most people)

Then let’s look at workplace stress. There’s a thread currently about people crying at work. It’s clear workloads are not comparable to years ago (something my own stint in the public sector showed me). These are contributing to a rise in poor physical and mental health.

we need to address these things before we start pulling the rug out from people.

I would be shocked if any of the governors know my child’s name, let alone knew about their disability. How would you have known?

Agreed @Resilience - the other elephant in the room is that expecting children to be mini adults and in busy childcare and then school settings from 7.30-6pm most days just does not work for the mental health of many children. Many of the elderly folk and adults with autism themselves would have had a parent who worked part time or not at all and would have had some regular down time at home, daily.

That's just government spin, though: claiming that the taxpayer can't afford it.

We can apparently afford wars, Trident and any number of other things that may (or may not) be 'nice to have' but which are nowhere near as important as health, wellbeing, looking after our most vulnerable folk and people's ability to live their lives with some semblance of dignity and without having to lose sleep at night because they face essential costs whilst having no money whatsoever to pay for them.

If I started a thread looking for sympathy and a full house of YANBUs because, now I have the monthly payments and huge insurance bill for my brand new Ferrari, feeding and clothing my children is simply unaffordable, how do you think that would play out?

@BlueandWhitePorcelain but that just leads back to the question - 18.4% of all children have a disability or SEN that then requires additional funding from the government.

Thats a huge number, and growing every year. U til 2016, the numbers of people in this group were apparently relatively stable.

Your link suggests the majority of these pupils have an autism spectrum disorder.

More data there that shows the challenge of finding:

• 80% increase in EHCPs since 2016
• 27% increase in pupils with SEN since 2016

It feeds back to the core question IMO, which is about what actually needs funding, and what does not.

We have a dwindling number of taxpayers trying to fund a growing welfare and benefits bill.

If it is not understood (and growth curbed), more than just the welfare system is at risk of collapsing.

To those in genuine need, I feel for you and I’m glad it’s not me. To those jumping on the bandwagon as a lifestyle choice, you’re lazy piss takers who contribute nothing yet take the most. This country needs an industrial base where people can work, be paid a living wage and find some pride

Me too. Bedbound 18 months. It’s a miserable life. I’m on full PIP. No one knows what to do with people with severe Long Covid.

Reading the news these days, I'd prefer Trident and the country being property defended so my kids dont have to fight in a war to paying vast sums of benefits to people (1 million of whom are low skilled immigrants) who may be able to work.

If the country is invaded I suspect the invaders won't give a crap about "health and welbeing"

@BlossomTrees24 @madamweb I'm so sorry this has happened to you. I don't understand why people are so thoughtless about the terrible impact covid had on so many.

I don't think people in the UK understand how terrible health care is in this country compared to many other European countries.

Agree @Resilience I know a disabled person who has been so harrassed by their manager that they developed a MH problem on top of their disability. The manager in question likes to pretend they're disability inclusive but in reality makes no adjustments whatsoever. And the person in question can't afford to take it further plus they're intimidated by the process of putting in a complaint. Its been shocking listening to this young man's experiences in his first job.

It is insanity to bring people over from other countries who can’t work, then pay them disability benefits. Surely this doesn’t happen and those posts are wrong?

I have already said what needs to be done, a complete restructuring of the education and workforce to adapt with a society that has and will only have an increased number of people with recognised disabilities. You want a society that means the highest possible majority of people work? Then everyone has to change, your children’s education has to change, how your offices and management has to change. Just expecting those with disabilities to crack on with the typical isn’t going to fly anymore.

As for ‘well if ND people can have children then evidently they’re fine to crack on’. This is laughably ignorant, I could list endlessly why. ND people (especially now aging or undiagnosed) are more likely to have children in unsuitable circumstances. They’re more likely to have substance abuse issues if undiagnosed, or mental health issues because the traits become more difficult to cope with as the person ages. This is far more likely when bringing in the stresses of having a family, something that is almost impossible to comprehend the changes and challenges it brings until you’re in the situation itself.

I’ll give you an example of my ex partner. In his 20s when we got together, I knew he was a bit ‘eccentric’ and socially awkward but it wasn’t an impact on our life. He was self employed (I worked as well) so whilst we didn’t have much spare money, there was no stressed about going out to work every day and the impact working outside the home would have on sensory issues and such. Then his area of work dried up just as we had our first child, he had to go out to work. Slowly but surely he started to cope less with day to day life. Suddenly the bills in his name weren’t being paid because he couldn’t cope with day to day work and life admin. He stopped almost all self care, I had to remind him to wash, brush his teeth - not because of depression but because in his mind of life priorities, it was being pushed down the list. It was simply work then stop everything else. He didn’t want to do anything outside of his ‘routine’, everything that wasn’t going to work or sitting at home became a source of irritation. This didn’t happen overnight, it was a slow burn over a few years until we split as I was becoming his carer on top of caring for our diagnosed ASD children. I can see he’s heading for a full breakdown/burnout without me to make sure his life is managed in every way, but he’s not been diagnosed himself and there is zero help for someone like him for outside sources. So what do you expect will happen to people like him in the future if there is no safety net and no ongoing social support?

This is far from an untypical story. It used to be that people (especially women) had to stay in relationships so the increasing struggles an ASD person (especially men) had weren’t seen outside the home. Now women like me know we do not have to be unpaid carers as well as spouses, but sadly it means those who are left will cope far less and therefore an increase in what seems like full breakdowns/burnout. It is far more complicated than ‘well they seem like they’ve coped so far and they managed to have a family so it’s fine’, it’s like expecting someone with another cognitive decline disabilities to crack on because they always managed before.

If you don’t understand that ND conditions get more difficult to manage with age (and in some cases always have high support needs) then perhaps don’t jump in and question why it’s suddenly becoming more noticeable. The world changed, autism didn’t.

I think anyone who has had medical care abroad does understand. And the NHS is not "free" really. Not to anyone who pays tax. We are just a health care system with a country attached.

I think this is a bit naive.

The entire function of the state isn’t to provide welfare.

National security is an issue too, and that needs to be funded somehow.

You assume defence spending is the Ferrari in your example - others might regard the increasingly disability and sickness bill the Ferrari.

In any case - the issue is the growing numbers of applicants and so growing cost, in an environment where there are a smaller number of taxpayers and growing overall cohort needing support (in particular an ageing population).

Sadly it's true. Boris started it unfortunately with indefinite leave to remain

Point is - are all these people really sick.

The most important function of the State is defence.

I work with clients in deprived and 'hard to reach' communities. The migration from tax credits to UC has seen a very substantial rise in those claiming PIP. It was relatively easy not to work under TC, or be 'self employed'. There are people who don't intend to work, those with little education and/or english language, those who believe they should be able to stay at home and raise children as "I didn't have them for someone else to raise". Many of these are now suffering from 'mental health', which can be very hard to disprove, as waiting lists for primary MH assessments can be years long. I suspect we aren't becoming more disabled as a society, but for some it's a necessary means of getting out of work commitments.