To think there will be many more disabled adults in 20 years?

[Walkyrie]

I’m disabled myself, just to put that out there.

It just seems like the number of people with a disability, usually a psychiatric one, is going through the roof.

40% of disability benefit claimants are claiming for mental health related reasons. The number of anxious children and teens on here, and that I know in my own life and family, is really really high. So many schools refusers and kids in need of extra support, special school placements and so on. It seems there are a lot of unemployed young adults living at home who simply don’t have the mental acuity to get a job, live independently, have a life of their own.

3 children in my family are currently school refusing, one we only found out about today but it was not a surprise as she’s always been very anxious and has selective mutism.

My AIBU is, should we be doing something to prepare for what may be a very high number of adults not working in years to come? How will we sustain them all?

I guess I have always assumed that the people prepared to up sticks and move to another country and make a go of it will tend to be the brightest, bravest, most hardworking and enterprising. Hence their offspring may be the same

I think it’s already becoming an issue. At work we have a lot of people off from burnout. Some make sense due to wider things going on in their lives but a lot are young people a few years in to their careers who just don’t seem to be able to cope with normal working demands/ hours etc. These people are then paid to be off work or on reduced hours for significant lengths of time and i don’t know what happens when that runs out.

Then you know lots of middle aged people with mild to moderate mental health problems, some of which will remain stable, some will improve and some will worsen. Most people with mild-moderate MH needs in middle age will have been healthy young people when they started work.

The difference for young people, even those with mild-moderate MH needs is that the mental health problem has manifested before work so they don’t have work experience, and there are far fewer jobs. I think the ‘disability’ of mild-moderate MH needs is often a red herring and for a long time has masked the failing and changing economy.

Surely that points to really poor management/HR rather than anything else?

Similar here. But I was horrendously bullied throughout my secondary school years and became very withdrawn, never went out, no friends, no hobbies, and ended up leaving school with literally no qualifications (failed all my exams). That was despite starting secondary school as a grade A* student and being top of class at primary. I was in a very dark place. But back then (40 years ago), not working wasn't an option and I was virtually ushered out of the door by my parents to get a job, any job. I'd have happily just stayed in my bedroom 24-7! Parents didn't give me an option to stay home nor talk to the GP about depression etc - it wasn't "a thing" back then. But I did get a job, very low paid menial, making coffees, filing and taking the post in an accountant's office. Slowly I came out of my shell, started trusting people again, and within a few months, I enjoyed the work, the workplace, the other staff, etc and really started to thrive. That was just because it wasn't school, I wasn't being bullied, we had a laugh at work, and I was progressing doing more and more higher level work. I then decided to do self study and evening classes to get my O and A levels, which took a few years, and then went on to study to become a chartered accountant, now been running my own small practice for 25 years! If I hadn't been forced to go out and get a job, I'd probably have had a life of depression, hiding in my bedroom, etc. Even now, I suffer extreme anxiety, am a "people pleaser", still not particularly sociable, so there is long term "damage", but at least I've been functional all my working life, never a day off unemployed always leaving one job Friday and starting the new one Monday. I know lots of people are far worse and wouldn't be able to turn it around, but I'm sure lots are able, and would thrive with a proper daily routine of a job and being forced to work with other people etc - the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Sitting at home in a darkened room playing video games is just going to make you worse.

There's no reason that the prices of everything would go up if employers paid a fair wage. There are too many employees who pay poor wages or have people on very low hour contracts - because staff get a top up and they don't have to pay them certain employee benefits. It should not be up to the benefits system to top up poor wages.

For example morrison are currently employing staff on four hour contracts

I used to work in security. My contracted hours were 8 a week. Sometimes they went to full time but not often. I was also paid min wage which at that point was 7.20 an hour

People should get a decent wage for a days work. In work poverty is horrible (I've been there).

Reduction in population - older population

They'll end up on benefits.

It would probably be worth having a look at less wealthy countries and see if the same happens over there. But it would take some effort.

I don't think this is true. From what I understand, the tories looked into it and found that very few people disabled enough for disability benefits would stand any chance of holding down much if any work at all. The criteria have become much stricter over the years as the level of disability in society has got higher. And yet it suits their voting base to keep claiming that people are just exaggerating their mild conditions or making it all up completely. All but one person that I know on disability benefits tried for years to make work work (and some of us disabled ourselves further by doing so) but we all got progressively worse to the point it wasn't possible. The only one that doesn't have this long history of working through ill health had a life changing health even that disabled them overnight. Before that they worked full time without issue as far as I'm aware.

I don’t agree here as this was not such a problem in the past yet support and focus on well being has improved.

It's not about targeting/bashing pensioners, it's simply about pointing out that eventually you run out of taxpayer's money when the real value of salaries is less than that of pensions.

Very few pensioners were net contributors when they were earning and paying taxes, and very few current taxpayers are net contributors. Retirement is also much, much longer and more expensive than it used to be. There are too few net contributors and people are retiring for much longer - recipe for disaster. Add to that that a good chunk of the current working age population will never get a state pension, so it will never be their turn. What are they supposed to do?

Quite - it doesn't matter how much a disabled person wants to work if employers won't hire them or keep them on. I'm sure others have seen the news stories about the guys with LD&A whose singular obsessions are helping the binmen or helping out in the supermarket, and yet they aren't offered paid positions.

I always say it: if you wouldn't hire them, you should be content for them to live on benefits.

Add to that that a good chunk of the current working age population will never get a state pension, so it will never be their turn

And you know this how?

I couldn't agree more. A lot of people are naive about the possible consequences of legalising assisted dying imo. Especially as we're living in a time when people's resentment of anyone they perceive as a 'burden', or who has something they don't have due to being less fortunate than they are, seems to be reaching new levels. I think it's really frightening.

I mean I knew hardly any at my own school as a kid, or when I was a teacher for twenty years or in my own family.

It’s a very tinny risk still and as I said it’s made up
for better conditions . Children to older parents do better in school and jobs and have less probability of using the welfare system .

Build more prisons. The answer is not letting a rapist out after 5 years, or letting a murderer out after 15.

Another one in agreement. We really need to stop valuing people by their economic value/contribution alone and allowing disabled people to be dehumanised, stigmatised and to be viewed as nothing more than a burden. It's a very slippery and dangerous slope, and the reason why I don't support assisted dying as I fear it could in time be misused and abused.

Agree - most people are really clueless and really sheltered. They tell themselves that disability and hardship are things that happen to other people who must have somehow invited their own misfortune and not been resourceful enough. I work full-time (even though I probably shouldn't, but I have to) and I'm bloody glad of social safety nets because I'm not delusional enough to think that you can bootstraps your way out of incapacity.

Based on your post though it obviously hasn’t. Young workers with burnout are either being worked to the bone or are unsuitable for the role. Putting them on long term paid leave solves neither issue.

I was actually kept awake night by the reference to The Purge and the reminder that the sick and disabled were first in line for culling under Nazi Germany.

“Pregnancies being propped up” is an interesting phrase. My second pregnancy was heavily “propped up” and DS2 is a healthy, capable young man who has been through mainstream school and is about to go to uni. My first pregnancy, in contrast, was not remotely “propped up” and DS1 has multiple complex disabilities as a result.

A few months ago there was a thread on here about disabled people not working. I mentioned that I was about to have an assessment for DS1’s eligibility for LCWRA. A poster replied who claimed to be a benefits assessor. They were incredibly condescending and demanded to know why it was me doing the assessment when DS1 is an adult. Clearly they hadn’t heard of the role of Legal Appointee so I very much doubt they were a benefits assessor of any sort. They informed me that “happily” it wasn’t up to me to decide if my son is eligible for LCWRA. It turned out they’d made up a whole little story in their head about my son. In their version, he had a mainstream life at mainstream school, did A levels, and then decided he was anxious and was going to sit in his room forever and not work. Nothing could be further from the truth. I probably should have congratulated them for their vivid imagination. I do wonder though how well assessors are actually trained. And if there are young people out there fitting the description she gave my son, I hope help is provided to support them into work.