To be shocked that over half a million people under the age of 35 are out of work due to long-term sickness

[puncheur]

I had no idea. These numbers are extraordinary. 560k people between the ages of 16 and 34 economically inactive due to long term illness.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/24/500000-under-35s-out-of-work-long-term-illness-uk?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It’s statistical fact. The majority are now dependent on the state. 54.2% (2023, ONS). Anyone with an ounce of critical thinking would understand that a state which has a majority of dependents is not sustainable long term. In fact, our ever increasing debt pile and borrowing and the stats behind that show we are not self-sufficient. We are borrowing at colossal cost to fund the state. We already spend far more than we take. With the highest burden placed on those who work (PAYE). A whole other host of reasons why that’s not sustainable either. Hence why Starmer is backtracking on higher PAYE tax.

This isn’t sustainable long term. It’s all well and good pretending it’s not because here we are. Already the people who really need support can’t get it. That’s going to get a whole lot worse. The state isn’t funded by the magic money tree down in the garden of the fairies.

What proportion of that is in-work families?

(ie how many would vanish from that figure if the minimum wage meant you did not require top up benefits)

You can be both a tax-payer and receive certain benefits, so of course the headline figure of over 50%, whilst alarming in the way it is presented, does not represent the full picture.

Topping up wages, because companies do not pay enough for their staff to live on, is difficult to unwind, but might be the main thing to be tackled

It is very high, and unsustainable. We may well be going into a period where people expect the state to pay even more. Not sure where it’s coming from though

Princessandthepea0
But that 54% figure is only partially based on people too unwell to work. It will also include pensioners (we know we have an aging society with less youngsters) and plenty of people in full time work who are earning normal full time salaries but get either get UC top ups or use public services like education and healthcare.

The other way to increase tax reciepts is to grow the economy by investing in the right types of industries and even investing in public services so they work and allow people to work and theor employees have money to spend on private services. Austerity isnt the only option. Other countries did different things in response to difficulties and fared better.

@Princessandthepea0 a great deal of this though isn't to do with illness and people not working- large sections are because of housing costs, right to buy, the rise of private rentals due to that , lack of rent controls, buy to lets etc have made it that many people qualify for help towards rent because of low and average earnings. Housing costs are at the root of so many issues in the UK , particularly in the southern half of the country - be that rentals or mortgages - then we have an issue I've mentioned before , the fact some women are getting decent child maintanance and yet now can get full benefit entitlement without factoring that in. This is not because the Torysare hugely benevolent, it's because they couldn't be arsed to actually staff and oversee the system- so you have the person I know actually receiving around £800 a month maintanance, not working and around £1600 including rent allowance from state (her HA rent is £620) She's better off not working and paying associated costs and nor are they hassling her particularly . - and that's the root of other issues such as couples living apart in some cases because they are actually 'better off' (if not working or on low wages)

There are plenty of malingerers yes but also many others who can't get treatment or operations, feel mentally unwell due to it being a bloody slog for most, well paid satisfying work can be elusive for many .

Poor controls, a can't be arsed attitude and generally piss poor priorities and spending by the Tory's in the past 13 years but particularly the last 7 have put is in this position. 400 billion for Brexit as an example to actually put us in a worse economic position- simply to pander to a particular viewpoint.

Other countries pay more tax. As in - everyone pays more tax. Not just a few on PAYE. The problem is in this country - we love to cut a tall poppy down. Earning well? Tax them more. Yes other countries do that too but not to the tune of 70% to over 100% marginals. Basic rate in other countries averages about 30% - everyone is expected to contribute. Our low wage economy can be seeded back to tax credits.

We have a country where dentists and drs are actively reducing work because they are penalised so heavily at 100k. Just like someone won’t work above their 16 hours as it’s not worth it. Same thing applies to skilled people whom we need for a functioning health service.

This country has huge problems right now and the electorate can’t see it. They thinking taxing to oblivion is the way out. From where? Net contributors are going down. Ironically it’s the tax system causing so many issues with productivity. This country is absolutely fucked until it can get out the crabs in a bucket mentality. No-one left to pay for it all.

@Princessandthepea0 and that I agree on- having lived in Denmark it was a very different mentality - high tax, high services (but no national insurance, council tax etc ) higher pensions and cheap childcare- and both in a couple tended to work. Massive use of nurseries, I didn't know one stay at home mum-

Agree. We’ve just had a period of huge state expenditure and about to head towards demands for higher state pay. Where from?

Hit high tax payers too hard and it breaks down in terms of behaviour. Then what.. huge dependency and fewer people to pay into it

@Charlie2121

''I work in an environment where most people earn 100k+.

I don’t know a single person in the last 20 years who has had to leave such a role due to ill health.

I also don’t see anyone attending work who is clearly unfit to do so.

This leads me to believe that huge swathes of sickness from work is not genuine.

It’d be interesting to see the stats on average lifetime annual salary vs average time absent from work. If sickness was random then no correlation should exists however I’d wager it is heavily related.''

Gosh, I see that earning 100k+ does not equate to having any kind of common sense...

There are so many holes in your 'theory' that it is almost laughable.

-People who have had disabilities/have long term health conditions from birth will have some limits and/or barriers on how well they do at schools/in the education system and what careers they take on

-They are more likely to look at careers they can manage to cope with, work part-time or from home which again limits what they can do and how much they can earn and what sectors they will go in

-employers do often discriminate on applicants that declare disabilities and health conditions in their job applications.

So one the reasons why you don't see people in your workplace/industry who are struggling with mental and physical health is because they are not represented there either by self-selection (they don't apply for this job/careers in the first place) or they are not actively recruited by the type of employer you work for.

Also some they are sectors (the NHS, education, social care) that are so understaffed and stressful that you are more likely to see people needing time off for ill health.

If you are on high salary you can afford private medical insurance and get treatment much faster than someone who is stuck on waiting lists for months if not years.

I have worked in the charity sector for years and I have seen many people struggle with health conditions during that time. Cancer, bipolar disorder, depression, mobility issues. We just had someone who had to quit her job after a combination of losing a close relative and some ill health meant she could not continue working at that stage.

Unless you are all robots I find it very hard to believe that everyone you work with has perfect health...

I also never understand people who think that their own experience of life by default apply to anyone else. It is illogical and bizarre thinking.

I didnt say anything whatsoever about raising taxes for high earners. I actually feel very strongly that the personal allowance shouldnt be lost. I agree the tax system is one of the things that affects productivty but there are plenty of other things hampering productivity too.

I said an alternative to fiddling about with individual tax bands was to have a bigger economy as that would naturally mean more tax reciepts. Austerity is making a smaller economy.

On the subject of the NHS, having worked in the system for 25 years, with a DH who is a hospital consultant with 27 years service (in another area), we are both firmly of the opinion that the health service is well funded but very poorly managed.

Nobody wants to have a conversation about how to improve matters. Because that would involve admitting that certain staff groups climb the management pole without any management acumen (but they quite fancy the higher pay). Expensive computer systems slow things down, many admin processes are archaic and admin staff refuse to change the way they work.

This is before you get started on what the NHS should/ should not fund.

it would not be diffucult to improve the NHS by going ‘back to basics’ but it’s impossible to do that when the culture is more hell bent on ‘proving’ equality and diversity than it is on healthcare, for example.

Healthcare ought to be at the very core of what a health service delivers and I’d vote for any party who would step up to the plate and ask frontline clinicians how to improve things - and then do it.

What are the comparable figures for other developed countries? What is Canada’s percentage, or NZ and Australia.

@Princessandthepea0 'The state isn’t funded by the magic money tree down in the garden of the fairies.'

And yet the magic money tree is alive and well when the state wastes billions on a useless track and trace system (what did good old Dido do with that money?), dodgy PPE contracts (Mone anyone?), giving MPs a plump pay rise, paying Boris Johnson legal expenses, giving useless people like Liz Truss a fat pension for life or on spending millions on a useless immigration scheme to secure a few Daily Mail headlines.

The real scroungers and criminals are not benefit claimants and/or disabled people. The majority are perfectly entitled to what they receive.

The real scroungers are at the moment are politicians, their dodgy mates and big corporate companies who find clever ways to avoid paying a fair amount of tax.

There should always be a safety net for the elderly and sick/disabled and vulnerable people of all ages. That's what decent societies do.

I can provide some anecdata. Dd has always been a bit odd, difficult if you will but we ploughed on through life.

when I switched to wfh during covid and she was home from school for months and months on end we spent so much more time together than we ever had since she was a baby and it became patently clear to me she was autistic.

partly as a result of that change in how much I saw her but also how lockdown exacerbated some of her particular issues i guess similar may have happened to lots of people during that time. Kids who were hanging on, following the routine, keeping their heads down at school moved from being “a bit odd” to a label or a statistic.

Mine too.

Just got an EHCP for her last week. She was just a normal kid until lockdown.

It’s not a safety net anymore. It’s a way of life.

Also I would draw attention to the responses on this thread as to why some people with additional needs may find it difficult to remain in the workplace

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4965780-would-you-resent-a-colleague-who-has-this-privilege?reply=131542958

The big problem here is that a vast number of people who work are still reliant on state help because of low wages and high living costs.

If people can’t earn a living wage then they’re going to be reliant on help. That’s a simple thing that government seems to have no interest in fixing - because it would involve cost for businesses, especially big ones that use low wages add zero hours contracts

@YetMoreNewBeginnings my NDN/friend’s adult son lives and works in Surrey I think, in a flat in a nice village. He did try to live locally in a flat but didn’t like the area (which is very nice) and rents are expensive here. He’s ND but on the spectrum. So he gets housing benefit and whatever else he’s entitled to, his DM helps him with this plus bills. She has no idea what he’ll do if the woman who owns the flat sells it as she has a mortgage and a new husband.

I don’t begrudge him that at all but the last time he visited me in my house he kept on looking round it saying “how do you afford all this by yourself?”. I was very tempted to say “I work hard for all this” (unlike you), but would never say that.

I think it is obvious that the reasons behind this are complex. I think all of us know a person or two with a collection of mysterious illnesses that are all self-certified, and don't prevent them from doing anything, but work seems to be an odd exception. And equally everyone probably knows a person or two who were utterly failed by the healthcare system, with completely solvable health needs, who are stuck in year-long queues.

Most People earning that much can afford private health care and probably get it with their job anyway. That makes a huge difference. When I needed to see a specialist urgently I saw them two weeks later because I could afford to go private. Without that I would have easily been off work so long I would have lost my job.

I can also afford decent private counselling as often as I wish, which enables me to keep my mental health in a place where I can work. When I had much less money and was suicidal all the GP could offer was some crappy telephone counselling where a woman spouted platitudes and made me feel worse.

Plus, my illness is invisible and beyond my boss noone knows about it. In a fairly high powered career I don't want people to know about my health battles.

If (more likely when) I do feel to ill to keep going, I will have made an exit plan and it won't be obvious that it was illness that made me leave.

We have far more choices because we have money. It doesn't make us better or stronger than those with more limited options

I know what you are driving at and in some cases I am sure you are right.

But on the other hand having been diagnosed with a largely invisible condition that I now suspect I had for at least two decades, and which lead to me losing a job at least once during that time, i'm not so sure. Unfortunately GPs tend not to realise that it doesn't always show up in blood tests, so people can battle for years being made to feel it is all in their heads

With my condition it probably "looks like" I can do a lot, but only because of all the invisible (to others) time I spend resting to enable me to do that.

My theory is similar.

NHS has lots of perfectly competent managers. But no leaders.

Instead they keep appointing ever more senior managers to positions where leadership matters. And its absence really shows.

Sums it up perfectly.

I’m not sure my nd dd will ever be able to work