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?

I think it is something that needs to be looked at. As an OT, in the last two years we have seen weekly self referrals from people with ADHD looking for assessment mainly to get a report to help back up their PIP claim which most of them are quite open about. In the 10 years prior to this I don’t remember us receiving a single referral into our service for this.
We are also seeing huge increases in FND, elhers danlos and POTS which interestingly are getting a lot of awareness on social media at the moment.
There is also a culture where if you are diagnosed with something it’s almost seen as compensation as PIP is not means tested so you may as well apply.
There’s a lot of Facebook groups who will advise on how to complete forms and always tell you to complete them as “if it’s your worst day ever” and I’ve seen this advised on mumsnet too. Theres no doubt the application process is difficult however there’s a lot more resources on how to be successful with your application than ever before.

While many people genuinely need these benefits, the huge increase in applicants is just not sustainable for the economy so it is something they are going to have to look at.

And fixing all the ultra processed junk food. An overhaul of the nations health ( not referring to anyone that wouldn't help, but food is medicine for alot of ailments)

Thing is how are employers going to keep people who are unwell and have more sickness?
Mine thankfully is understanding but I have roughly a day a month off work and I'm not even unwell enough to get PIP

I have lost all my jobs due to performance or sickness. And I never got anywhere after an interview once they found out about my sickness record in previous jobs.

Nope...
Didn't mention disabled people once!!! 🤷🏼‍♀️
You've missed my point!
Enjoy your fruit! 🍎🍊

This thread is about the disabled though.... so that is why I assumed that is who you were on about.

In reference to the increased amount of claims and diagnises, I found this recent article very interesting.https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/01/the-number-of-people-with-chronic-conditions-is-soaring-are-we-less-healthy-than-we-used-to-be-or-overdiagnosing-illness

It is worth noting that reviews for esa and sickness element of uc were stopped during the pandemic and have not restarted. So people who are now well will not move off those benefits unless they close their claims. Probably in part why the numbers just keep increasing.

I’m just conscious these threads can involve all sorts of generalisations about disabled people or people with illnesses and it’s very difficult for those people to read some of the assumptions which are made about why people can’t work.

You can’t be paid less than minimum wage. It’s illegal. If benefits pay more than the minimum wage they need to be cut by a lot. Benefits should pay significantly less than work.

Yea another illness that has no proper diagnosis. How handy.

OP you can see from the many ableist responses on this thread why Reeves is doing this.

The ignorance and spite is appalling and it has become acceptable to state that disabled people are scroungers and that people with mental health issues fake it.

There are many reasons why ill health has increased:

• NHS waiting list
• Lack of social care
• Poor provision of mental health services. For example it takes 5 years (5 years!) on a waiting list where I live to be assessed for conditions like autism if you are an adult
• Long Covid
• People having to leave their jobs to care for sick, disabled and elderly relatives
• Increase in homelessness
• Existing high level of poverty which increases the likelihood of people having poor diet and abusing drugs and alcohol.

But I guess it is much easier for this lazy, Tory 2.0 government to choose to penalise the disabled and the sick rather than fix the wider causes.

The thing is it’s all very well wanting people with disabilities to work but on multiple occasions I’ve seen situations where there’s no patience for anyone eg in a coffee shop of a server is being slow etc. I’ve seen someone get frustrated with a barista with a hearing difference. People are in a rush and dont have time and are quite frankly not considerate of anyone other than themselves. Imagine that on top of illness and struggling having to feel under more pressure.

some screening processes for jobs have these multiple choice scenarios which weed out people who answer ’wrong’ so it’s hugely difficult for ND applicants .

There’s no point cutting welfare and telling disabled people they need to work when the work environment and attitude towards those with disabilities is so toxic. The nhs isn’t up to standard either so it’s not as if anyone with a health concern is on top of their symptoms .Sickness benefits are often used for private care due to this so what happens then if they are cut back and there’s no nhs alternative.

And I’ve seen threads on here people whinging that a colleague gets more breaks etc if they have illness or disability. It’s almost as if everyone wants disabled people to act like they aren’t disabled . They want them off benefits and in work yet in work they get jealous if they have any reasonable adjustments made

I see what your saying.

But then let’s do both sides of the coin at the same time. Or the work one first. This way they are just doing the benefit side and the genuine claimants who should get support will just suffer.

Ah you mean tax more the ones who actually contribute to pay for public services? The issue we have is that 40% pay to support the other 60% and that isn't economically sustainable. By keeping on taxing net contributors you only end up pushing them out of the country, that's why RR had to scale back nom dom tax because many more than expected left. The rough calculation is that, for every higher tax payer who leaves the UK, we need over 100K lower tax workers to contribute the same amount of money as that 1 x higher earner.

I would like to see the personal allowance increased but everyone paying more tax on everything above that. Not just the rich.

It will work out far, far cheaper for most of us to pay more tax than it will for us to pay to go private for all the services that are no longer fully functioning.

To add - it is one of the (many) failings of this government that they have made no attempt to communicate that, and just meekly gone along with the narrative set by the tories and reform around taxes.

UC reviews have stopped, but ESA haven't. I have a friend on ESA who recently had a reassessment. She is now being moved to UC.

The current system is clearly flawed and needs evaluating and every claimant reassessed to stop the handouts to tge fraudulent claims, but support genuine cases.
The sheer number of claimants is unsustainable.

Im sûre the rapid growth of those needing disability benefits will be partly because they can't get NHS treatment promptly/at all. So what wouldn't have been disabling a few years ago becomes disabling now as it's left untreated long enough to stop a person working.

I've waited over two years with nerve issues to even get refferals to the appropriate department. I'm told they can slow the progress not stop it. Had I been seen when I first had agonising pain and falls and temporarily incontenant I'd have sorted the pain and still have a functional bladder but instead I have to use a catheter and the nerve issues have progressed to the point I struggle to open jars, I drop things, fall over. Can't feel large parts of my body- including one had which is very challenging to live with. I would not have been disabled had I not been dismissed and sat in waiting lists while I degenerated. I'm not at the point of claiming disability benefits yet although I'm sure I would qualify. But how is it ok to let someone be left without healthcare because "Covid" then blame them for the increasing benifits claimants.

But it will never be enough with these shocking statistics:

The number of people claiming long-term sickness benefits with no requirement to work has increased by 50% since 2020.
The number of weekly applications from under 40s has gone from 4500 to 11500 over the same period.
1 in 10 adults of working age claims some form of sickness benefits.
The cost of funding this will grow by >50% by 2028.
The numbers of people and cost have accelerated very quickly - and these are more ‘valuable’ benefits ie cost the state a lot.

There is not enough tax payers to support all the people with their hands out.

The idea isn’t to pay more tax so we can indefinitely provide ever-increasing numbers of claimants with sickness benefits.

It’s to invest in services that will improve people’s health and access to work. That is the only long-term way to reduce the number of claimants.

Pip needs massively slimming down. I know they are considering removing some diagnosis’ from it already. But it’s costing billions.

I find the proposals to help people write a CV, prepare for interviews etc really presumptuous and shows their ignorance of how sick and disabled many people actually are. It's not that they lack the skills to find work or obtain a job, it's that - astonishingly - they are just too sick or disabled to look for work!