So, who is going to employ all these disabled people the government wants to wean of welfare

[Jimisnotmyname]

Really wondering. Not saying it is necessarily a bad thing to encourage those who can work, to work but as a carer for 2 disabled family members, I am hugely struggling to find another job as nobody is willing to give me any flexibility (which I need as a carer) and there are always candidates who do not need the same accomodations I do. I would imagine that many of those currently not in work because of disability or a health condition, will often need a similar level of flexibility. I just wonder who on the the government think will offer jobs galore on these circumstances??

Do you agree with forcing people without disabilities into jobs they don't want to do?

So, people with disabilities should be able to pick and choose? And if they don't like the idea of working in a shop on minimum wage they shouldn't have to? Even though they are capable?
And the tax payer should therefore fund them instead?
With respect I think it's these attitudes that have landed the Country in the shit state it's in. And why they're having to make these cuts.

Here's an idea. Why not make it mandatory for employers with over a certain number of employees to employ a percentage of workers with a disability. The government could actually give a person with a disability a card, maybe green, to show employers.😁

If you don't get the sarcasm above, maybe ask your parents or grandparents?

I think the gist of it on here is people like you and I could work in a supermarket ... 🙄

I can barely sit at all due to having a shattered pelvis that never mended properly, I can't stand up for long as only 1 foot works. I need a job I can lie down on, I also have the same illness Celine Dion has, I'd be sorted if I could sing like her lol

Perhaps the government should start providing driving licences to get the unemployed into work as part of any "return to work" drive. Same with any other skills where there is a shortage of qualified workers, such as the manual/construction trades. We desperately need a return to the World leading adult education sector, especially for upskilling/retraining that we used to have before Blair's obsession with 18-21 year olds!

Why should it be means tested. Imagine if we said that all of those without a disability should pay an extra10% of their take home pay just because they don’t have a disability.

Would you think that was fair

What happens if after paying for the extra stuff needed for someone to actually do their job it sends them below the NMW

This is a very emotive subject and one I relate to.
Nobody has it on their bucket list to develop a debilitating health condition before they are 40/50 etc. Unfortunately some of us find ourselves in that very position.

I'm lucky and have a great employer who has reasonable adjustments I'm place for me. I work full time and it's reviewed with my line manager every 6 months to check in to make sure it doesn't need tweaking etc.
Does that mean that my conditions are magically fixed....nope I am in pain every day and working if I'm not careful does make some of them worse such as the fatigue and headaches. But I manage and I love my work. It was however very daunting to return to work after being ill for 5 months so I can see how for some people it might seem like a mountain.

With anything in life there are those who genuinely need PIP and there are a small minority who play the system and know how to do so.

The biggest step which needs to go alongside this is employers understanding reasonable adjustments and why they need to be put in place and actually that means everyone gets balance.

I'm not supported as it is. I get £409 a month PIP. That's it. No UC, no ESA, no housing, nothing. Because I have a husband who works. I can't pay half the housing, let alone anything else. That £409 is supposed to be for costs related to my disabilities. It goes on my half of the rent. I can't afford carers, therapy, adaptations, aids. I literally lie in a bed all day, every day and I don't think people really understand how little support there is.

So then you are absolutely not the kind of person that will have their benefits taken away or be told you have to work. I’m sorry you’re suffering like this but I don’t see the relevance of your post? This sort of narrative is adding to the hysteria. You are not the type of person being targeted by these changes and if anything may be given even greater security as the need for reassessment may be removed

The war on poor continues with a different set of wimps at the helm too afraid to go after the unpaid taxes from big businesses. They'd hate to put their friends out by making them pay their way, so they go after nibbles at pretty small pies.

I would have been institutionalised just a few decades ago. I wouldn't be able to do a normal job. I've found something that is incredibly flexible, but its a very unusual job (in the arts). I wouldn't have even been able to do this ten years ago.

Sometimes mental illness is completely debilitating. Sometimes people simply can't function.

Depression isn't just feeling sad or self pity. If it's bad enough, people can lose their grip on reality.

BTW I know a woman with long COVID. She had to give up her job. She had worked her entire adult life, and didn't just wake up one day and decide she could't be arsed working.

If there was a scheme to enable me to learn to drive I would take it up in a heartbeat. But actually purchasing/insuring/filling up a car isn’t something I am able to afford either.

I'm always amazed at the lack of imagination and empathy on threads like these. Not only the missing capacity to understand what it might be like to live with certain conditions, but the glib dismissal of the difficulty of job roles. Get a nice little job in a library. They'll surely just want someone quiet who has a working knowledge of the alphabet. Checkout work, sure, that's as comfy as your sofa and you can push things along with your little finger. If you can post on MN, you'll walk into a WFH admin role easily. Gobshittery, all of it.

Have you had an adult social care assessment?

I kind of agree and I know working was the best thing for me.
BUT, I can also see that for some people it's just too hard to get up and out: I can totally see that.
I can also see now how true grief can destroy your life to such an extent you can't work again. I remember the overwhelming feelings of terror that were debilitating.
What I don't agree with is the automatic offering of medication and the offering of being signed off for months on end.
I think there should be frank discussion that work is often the best thing and people should be encouraged to try, like really try to get out in the world.
Having said that , if you can't, then you can't.
I also agree that grief is a normal process which is why I'm against precribing drugs automatically.
I felt I had to really experience it in all it's raw,unmedicated way in order to come out the other side if that makes sense?
Anyway, sorry, I'm waffling I'll shut up!!

I'm 'deluded' in your opinion which I don't think much of. Great talking to you.

Agree. A big issue here appears to be a lack of resilience. It seems many young people are not being raised to be resilient, and can't seem to cope with regular life events.
Partners leave, people die - these are normal life events that some people seem unable to cope with. I've known people in their 40's/ 50's who have had a week/ 2 weeks plus off work when a parent has died.....

I am the type of person being targeted. As I've already said, when I applied for PIP, I was initially awarded zero points. I was lied about, had evidence destroyed by the assessor, and if I hadn't had someone to fight for me, would be getting £409 a month less than what I get now.

I absolutely am the kind of person who could have their benefits taken away, because they've tried in the past.

Do not ever accuse me of "adding to the hysteria". There should be hysteria. Why don't you run along and be ableist somewhere else?

My disabled brother has worked since he left school. Full time until he was mid 40s and then part time as his conditions worsened. He's early 60s and will hopefully work until his state retirement pension kicks in. As far as my mum was concerned, there was no choice in this. He needed to work and he could work.

He gets the enhanced rates of both daily living and mobility in PIP and scored enough points on his limited capability for work and work related activity to get the extra money in his Universal Credit (he was switched last year from Tax Credit with the disability element).

He is genuinely disabled and has pretty restricted mobility but owns his own home outright (mortgage was paid off about 10 years ago). Many, many people with disabilities can and do work. They just need the right support to do it - my brother has been lucky as his employer has been brilliant (same employer since he was 16) and we as a family also give a lot of support. PIP helps to pay for his taxis to work which is literally the definition of what it's for - to allow a person with disabilities to lead an independent and fulfilling life.

I've had many 😂

Ikea have a strong disability inclusion programme. My local Ikea employs people with apparently quite severe disabilities as well as quite a few Down syndrome employees. So does my local John Lewis and Tesco branch. A policy to make inclusivity programmes mandatory would be a good start.

@Jimisnotmyname YANBU

Once again politicians, their special advisers and civil servants, who have likely no personal experience of getting a job with disabilities, let alone one that fits in with being an unpaid carer to others with disabilities, thinking it’s really easy to find flexible employment. I’d love to see most Ministers and MP do a shift on their feet all day in an Amazon dark store, supermarket or building site.

Keep going. I’m sure you’ll get something eventually. It does knock your confidence though.

Maybe if the NHS wasn't totally fucked and people actually got treatment for mental health conditions in a reasonable time frame (a matter of a couple of weeks, not a couple of YEARS as it currently is) we wouldn't have so many people out of work as a result of depression/anxiety etc.

I can't think of a job that would employ me full time - I am subcontracted to a company that I work for part time, and that work is very flexible because the rest of the team are able to cover me if I am unwell or can't work, and I have been able to choose my shift patterns to suit me.

However I cannot think of (and in two decades of being this disabled, have not come across) anywhere else that could or would do this.

Between my medication side effects and my disabilities, it takes me hours to get up and ready, I can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and am regularly needing to have 20 minute naps (or ideally, three hour naps), will often just fall asleep at my desk.
I sometimes spend days when I balls up the medication timings, dozing on and off in and out of a dreaming state where I genuinely struggle to know whats real and whats not!

I can be in excruciating pain suddenly, without warning and I never know how capable ill be when i get up each day.

If I had to just work from home (because out of the house would be impossible, by the time I am ready to leave the house, I am knackered and need to sleep) 9 to 5 every day, I could not do it.

As it is, it requires my DP to be my full time carer so that I can work part time from home and fit in other freelance stuff around my health and work shifts.

The only reason I have the job I do is years of self study, putting myself through assessments and courses to get the skills and knowledge I have - if I'd been forced into some work at that point, I would never have gained those skills that now see me in viable self employment. It would have been an endless round of failures, time off sick, being sacked, being stressed into finding another unsuitable job... over and over.

The statistics for disabled people claiming 'unfit to work' benefits are also not giving an accurate picture, as theres many of us, like me, who ARE working, but we're all down as unfit to work, not working.

If the government wants to change this, they need to look at employers and at significantly altering how work 'works'.

Ooh fabulous. I am disabled. I can work, but my quality of life would be much better if I could spend my days not working. So it would be ok for me to quit my job as I am disabled?.
Or is it ok for me to work and my tax to be spent supporting other people, perhaps even less disabled than me, who just don't want to work?

But, whilst grief is a terrible, awful thing, surely getting out to work every day, contributing, earning money, is actually a very healthy approach? Life goes on, and whilst it’s awful, and yes of course have some time off work in the immediate aftermath, sitting at home on benefits grieving is the worst thing you could do for your mental health.