I can help answer this maybe. My son is autistic. Aged 21. We have never had that much money, and although he is diagnosed since age 4 and his life has been hugely impacted by his autism. But when he was 16 a man came to our house from the DWP and told my son he was autistic and did he want to claim for DLA (it was DLA back then). My son had struggled with the idea of himself as disabled, so he said "no", and turned down the money. The man pressed him and told him he was entitled to it, but my son didn't need it and didn't want it so he never claimed it.
Last year, he started a claim.
And I will explain why.
He is at university now, which is now extremely expensive. His loan is massive, the money they give from the loan doesn't cover his accommodation even which is £900 a month (more than the rent of our actual bloody house). His food bills have gone up, everything costs, costs, costs.
Add to that, his autism impacts him massively at university. To a point that last year he needed an 8 month leave of absence due to autistic burnout that left him suicidal and unable to cope at all. He was in a terrible state and didn't intend to return to university at all because the idea terrified him.
I will add to this, he's exceptionally gifted and was at one of the best universities in the country, which while prestigious was also expensive and very stressful in terms of the workload and expectations.
When he was off for 8 months, he very much wanted to do a job so he could save some money and also get our of the house a bit, but our house has no public transport so he couldn't get anywhere. He tried really, really hard to find some simple WFH work, but he couldn't find it. The only places with jobs nearby are farms and pubs and he applied to them all but got rejected. He doesn't come off well in interviews as he struggles with eye contact and so on.
He contacted the job centre, and what followed was the most useless pointless waste of time that had him literally screaming. He asked for help finding work, but they don't do that. Instead they just have arbitrary, ridiculous suggestions (like suggesting they give him a moped to drive 1.5 hours to a major city for a job, when he is autistic and has mobility and coordination issues). Just totally, utterly bloody USELESS. I even got on the phone to them and said "look we have a really clever person here, 4 A levels at A* and he wants to work - don't you have access to a database of employers for ND people? But they had nothing at all.
So in the end he volunteered locally at a few places which helped his confidence but wasn't an income. And that's when he decided to claim DLA. He wnated to work and would have preferred to work, but he couldn't find anywhere that would take him and the job centre and medical system are not helpful.
So eventually he was well enough to want to return to university and we had to put in place changes which made it possible for him to continue without undue stress.
One step is that we upgraded his accommodation from the already extortionate £900 a month one to a significantly more expensive option which included breakfast and dinner. This enabled him to cope much better with his self care, as the shopping and planning along with cooking in a shared kitchen when he gets very stressed was just beyond him and he was not eating.
Another step is that he was having real difficulty with the bus to uni being too full for him to fit in the mornings, and whereas most young people would just take that in their stride, this was causing him to have a real fit and complete meltdown a few mornings a week. So we instead paid £24 a week for a taxi to take him and ensure he could reliably get to his lectures.
Another step is that he got a private counsellor who he sees every two weeks to help him manage stress.
With these changes, all paid for by his PIP, which he could not afford without them, have enabled him to carry on at university and complete his course and he is on track to do a pdh now. He will become a far more useful and beneficial member of society if he is not hospitalised with a breakdown or unable to live his life normally and complete his studies.
But he would far prefer not to need PIP.
He would far prefer that accommodation at uni was affordable.
He would far prefer that buses were not overcrowded and unreliable.
He would far prefer there were small changes to the world that made like possible for him to navigate without such intense stress.
He would far prefer the environment wasn't as stressful as it is at university, with rabbles of angry protests and people fighting all the time. He was very upset by his close Jewish friend being antisemitically attacked three times in a year.
He would far rather he was safe from crime when he goes out.
He would far rather the job centre helped him find paid work during his leave of absence so he earned his own money.
He is one example, and someone who's autism has always profoundly affected his life, but my point here is that young people would probably not be struggling quite as much if the world was a bit less shit.
And we have been expecting them increasingly to live in a world with crushing financial pressure, negativity surrounding them, danger every time they go anywhere, people nicking phones, accommodation outrageously expensive, educational debt, overcrowded schools, unavailable NHS services, Mums working their backsides off to make ends meet and generally people have become rather horrible.
So I don't think the fix is to cut off the most vulnerable people, but instead to work out how we let life get so much harder and what we can do to meaningfully fix it.