To be confused by benefits cuts to the disabled and ill?

[AllyHayHay]

As luck would have it, I have not been in this position, but I do know of one disabled lady who has struggled. She was incredibly fortunate to already own her own home prior to her accident.

I am not what you'd call politically astute, but I have been reading about the proposed spring benefits cuts and wonder why people always discuss this ONLY affecting the sick and disabled.
I am also aware that there are many, many rough areas with families who have never worked, people who are struggling with addiction, prison sentences (their kids, spouse, etc) and these people never seem to be included in the Guardian articles and opinion pieces online.

Why would a system wish to make the life of a disabled person worse, yet ignore the growing issues of illiteracy, generational poverty and other issues which are going on in most urban areas just out of sight of the comfortably off?
Why not address the reasons that great swathes of people are living on benefits across the UK who are NOT disabled? I imagine this would drag up questions of why those issues persist - and no one in government wants to address that.

Since benefits claimants who are not in work of on the pension are a minority, are these cuts more of a populist tendency?

30 years is absolutely nothing when people can typically live into their 80s. It's completely unsustainable for anyone to work less than half their life because they're not contributing enough if working less than half their life. It's simple Maths, especially for those earning less than average wages as they'll be taking out more than they put in even during their working lives.

I think we really need to move towards a contribution based benefit system for all but the most seriously disabled who will never work in any capacity. Benefits based on how many years you've worked and how much you've earned. Other countries have that kind of system. Also things like unemployment benefit time limited, so your benefits stop after, say, 2 years, if you're able, but unwilling to take employment.

We need to get tough on those who can work but choose not to. At the same time, we need to really tackle the black economy of undeclared income, benefit fraud, etc - i.e. people claiming benefits but working on the side "cash in hand".

The whole benefit lifestyle culture has gone on too long and it's now a massive problem and will bring down the entire country if we don't start to tackle it.

Agree. Way too many people contributing little and taking huge amounts for years on end. Completely unsustainable.

Another huge issue which is less discussed than benefits is the pensions of the future. If we are struggling with pensions now, we will be truly fucked in 30/40 years when the NEETs and long term unemployed head towards old age. I have numerous friends who, in our mid 30s, have made minimal contributions. They seem to just think the state will take care of it all.

This is exactly why the entire "welfare state" needs a radical shake up NOW before it's too late. For far too long, the inevitable problems have been kicked into the long grass, but the inherent problems with the NHS, benefits, and public sector in general need to be tackled and the sooner we start making fundamental changes, the less extreme they'll need to be.

The issue there @ChilliLips is that many people today, simply can’t afford to contribute to a pension. They are living hand to mouth as it is. Unaffordable rent, increasing food prices, stagnant wages, rising mortgage costs. Pension doesn’t come into the radar.

It is all punitive and pointless.
There isn’t evidence of hordes of work shy people turning down dozens of solid job offers.

The evidence that is there is we have an aging and increasingly Ill population that is having to wait YEARS for medical treatment on the NHS. Our economy has flatlined and jobs are being CUT across the board in the tens of thousands.

Slashing the budget for NHS and benefits- especially the disabled who cannot work- isn’t going to create jobs for those who can work- in fact they’ve cut 9,000 NHS jobs just this week and told the rest of it to find 15-20% “savings” - yipee so more ill people will wait even longer for treatment while more NHS workers find themselves unemployed. That 9,000 more unemployed that will be filing their UC applications today unless they have a gold plated redundancy package where we are paying their salary for no work for a year…

The whole “welfare state” rhetoric is scapegoating the poor for the mismanagement of the country by the elites. They were warned that Brexit would make Britain poorer, a back water with too few jobs.

@Badbadbunny agree completely!

There seems to be a weird belief on Mumsnet that if you've worked a few decades and contributed some tax during this time that this should entitle you to claim as many benefits as you think you need as well as gold standard health care and a decent pension. So many people pay such a small amount of tax that I genuinely can't believe that this covers them in the way they think it does.

I also see so many on MN claim 'nobody would claim benefits if they didn't have to' or 'people would love to work but can't'. I sometimes feel like I live on another planet. Work is often difficult and hard. It can take a massive toll on your life and cause huge stress. This is actually all quite normal and isn't even a function of capitalism but more the nature of being human. There has never been a period of human history that has allowed humans en masse to opt out of the hard work associated with survival until now. There will always be loads of people in the grey area of not being entirely fit and healthy but not unable to work either. These are the ones that need to be targeted.

@Badbadbunny Yes, people living into their 80’s with dementia, cancer and in pain! The human body isn’t designed to just keep going. Women living with horrific menopause symptoms; senior women, earning the 6 figure salary, dragging themselves to work each day on little to no sleep. If you have paid into the system, worked your arse off since 16/18/20, whatever, then by god, you deserve a break by the time you hit the fifties ( IF that is what you want and need to do). There are no prizes for struggling on, in ill health.

What do you mean that you 'deserve' a break by the time you hit the fifties? So by your reckoning someone only needs to work 30 out of 80+ years that they are alive. They better be earning a hell of a lot of money in those three decades so that they can support themselves through the rest of their life. Except you don't mean that do you? You think that the rest of us should be paying for them through taxation. What happens if the rest of us decide that working beyond fifty is difficult and hard too? Can't you see that this is completely unsustainable to expect those aged between 20 and 50 to earn enough to actually forge a life of their own and pay such an extortionate level of tax that would be needed to fund this crazy welfare dependency.

'Deserve' implies that you have earned something. You only deserve to retire at 50 something if your can privately fund early retirement. The welfare state may step in and cover those who are unable to work due to ill health or disability but this is through compassion and not because they 'deserve' this assistance.

The ONS keeps publishing rot like “819,000 job vacancies” for Feb 2025. Vacancies are defined as positions for which employers are actively seeking recruits from outside of their business or organisation. But the figure is an estimate “based on our Vacancy Survey, a survey of employers designed to provide estimates of the stock of vacancies across the economy,” (wondering here how many of these vacancies are being recruited from outside the U.K. on worker visas?)

While at the same time, there are barely more than 100,000 jobs in the U.K. being advertised online in the U.K. for U.K. workers.

The ONS even helpfully remarks that there are 1.9 unemployed people per estimated 1 vacancy. But it’s also 15 unemployed per 1 job vacancy currently advertised in the U.K..

So, let’s attack those who are old and ill but still capable of a bit of work, they’re going to be competing with 15 perfectly healthy, young unemployed for each job advertised. Are employers going to hire the sick, old and disabled over the healthy, young and abled? Studies say no. Not a chance in hell.

But Ofc to this labour government, it’s your fault if you don’t get hired so you don’t deserve to be able to eat and heat your mould riddled hovel while languishing on an NHS waitlist for basic healthcare.

It is an abject myth there is no lack of jobs, when quite plainly there is a massive lack of jobs. And isn’t that how MPs and CEOs justify their mahoosive salaries and expense perks? We EARN these hundreds of thousands of £ to millions of £ because we create jobs, we are those extra special better people that keep the economy afloat and keep you in clover. They’ve failed and they are scapegoating the victims of their own failures- the most poor and the sick and disabled.

This pitting of the older generation vs younger generation thing is useless. There are lots of older people claiming for mental health, and lots of younger people claiming for physical disabilities.

I got my ADHD diagnosis at 22 because I'd struggled to hold down a job and was desperate to stick at a career. I got diagnosed, got medicated and ended up in a career for 7 years - then I was diagnosed with a brain tumour at 29. ADHD is mentioned in my PIP report because it's part of my medical evidence but I do not receive PIP for anything to do with ADHD - still, I bet I'm counted in the official figures of people claiming for "mental health and neurodivergence".

Same here. I have claimed PIP since suffering a traumatic brain injury that severely affects me. But because you have to list everything my form also lists Asthma, ADHD, PTSD- conditions that I overcame and kept on working through until the near fatal head injury.

So these are listed FIRST on my form as you have to list diagnosed health conditions from oldest to newest.

I sometimes wonder how DWP determines the “primary condition” that people claim for. We aren’t ever asked which condition is our primary condition causing the most difficulties.

They probably won’t get people back to work. I’m guessing they know this. They will probably just reduce,remove or make it harder to get the benefits though.

Yes they know it, they just have to be seen to try to do something in a bleak situation I guess.

It is not accurate to say that people on LCWRA do not work
The L in LCWRA means limited. Some people on LCWRA do work. It is encouraged, and there is a work allowance, the amount of which is based on if you claim the housing element or not. It is the UC version of permitted hours with ESA.
However, some people in this group fear that trying out work with a little PT job, would mean they are then reassessed and made to get a full time job, which will then make them more poorly and not working at all again.

I do think more people would test the waters with a bit of work if there was not a threat of their money being taken away.

👏@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice

Where are all these jobs that the people being pushed off of benefits are meant to get?

Everywhere.

Indeed is showing 100 hospitality jobs in our local area, a browse shows about half of these are suitable for entry level.

I live in a small town, and entered a 10 mile radius.

It’s impossible for two reasons

1. because there aren’t enough jobs for even the unemployed and looking for work cohort.

2. Those too sick or disabled to look for work aren’t going to be healed through economic duress and coercion into seeking a nonexistant job. In fact, they will get sicker and at least a few thousand will die horrific deaths in very deprived circumstances.

The economic problem we have with people not in work is due to the lack of jobs.

The economic problem we have with more unemployed people also claiming sickness/disability benefits is due to the decades of austerity and defunding of the NHS. Wes Streeting is not reversing this, but cutting deeper. So the health of working age people will continue to decline.

Reeves, being a customer rep and not an economist, is too underqualified and undereducated to understand that you can’t welfare cut your way out of this economic fiasco. Her self imposed fiscal rule of have the annual outgoings not exceed the annual income is the budgetary equivalent of a comfortably off housewife balancing her household budget. It’s not how you run a country that needs some public debt to finance investment into the economy.

We desperately need investment into the NHS and other initiatives that will create jobs.

Hospitality wont be suitable for everyone.

Also, are they full time jobs with proper contracts? Sick pay and leave? Or this zero hour crap that means people still claim UC anyway.

Doesn’t matter. Work is work. If you’re able bodied, and able to socialise/do hobbies/go on holiday, you should be applying.

lol, and your village is representative of the entire country?

There are just over 100,000 jobs being advertised in the UK, while there are at least 1.5 million unemployed able people actively looking for work.

thats 15 unemployed to 1 job.

So do you think that if we hit 25 people looking for work per 1 job, that the market will magic up more jobs?

Ok, give me a location, any location, and we’ll look together.

I just did, the United Kingdom.
That is the location.

The government arent proposing these draconian measures for hot spots of lots of jobs and a few unemployed choosing not to work. They are proposing it for the entire country, so the U.K. is the location.

We must be contacting each other from parallel universes.

It is ok, you will get told that you should have to be prepared to move, uphaul your whole life, for a zero hour NMW job.