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 know huge numbers of disabled people who work.

And I know huge numbers who do not.
The ones who do work, are in skilled jobs where they are valued, and get their accommodations met.

I don’t think more people being diagnosed with SEND means that less people will be working in the future. I do think there seems to be a general mental health crisis with teens but it’s isn’t just down to diagnosis; many of whom will survive better now than in the past because they are getting more support.

Maybe it will be better in 20 years. Because people are more understanding now.

No but it didn’t have an impact on the number of people born disabled did it? We’re talking about people born disabled, not people who lose a limb in a workplace accident aren’t we?

No..

Your poor mum. And poor you too - I have always found it worse when people were unpleasant to my parents, rather than just unpleasant to me. And I know - some people take the piss. Those lanyards 'not every disability is visible' were offered until recently in my local branch of NationWide (I kid you not) - they were simply asking - do you want one. They were asking everyone literally.

This did exist at one point, Remploy for example (which still does exist) had contracts with major food retailers and it worked well. I managed really diverse teams including people with physical an/or intellectual disabilities. I don’t think those people, if they were teens/young adults now would have the same chance of getting those jobs because said line of work has wholesale cut back on the workforce, so actually each person now employed is doing the work of three people 15 years ago.

Okay well then I’m not sure what you’re getting at really.

I think benefits will juts continue to be harder to claim or will reduce. We've just seen the LCWRA element of Universal credit halved for new claimants which will mean anyone most new claimants will receive this lower rate, people with severe autism etc will likely continue to qualify for the higher rate but most won't. We'll likely see PIP becoming harder to be awarded over time.
I do worry for people in their fifties and sixties who become too unwell to work and don't have private pensions to fall back on and the state pension age continues to rise. We are going to see a lot more living in poverty long term.

Does someone have to have a solution if they are worried about it?

Look at immigration.

Well, yes. Let's.

Surely the obvious thing to do is encourage more immigration if we need a larger workforce of able bodied people to support an aging and increasingly disabled indigenous population.

In my family, 4 in the generation under mine. The youngest is 20, oldest 40. Out of these 4,

1 is in full-time, very functional employment, living independently (had to be forced into moving out).

1 in part-time employment, living with parents, not paying their way.

1 in sporadic employment, living independently BUT funded by parents.

1 unemployed (unemployable?), living with and funded by parents.

I think it is no coincidence that the one that is employed and independent had the strictest parent. This individual is ND, diagnosed in childhood.

The other 3 are also ND to varying degrees. But had permissive parents. 1 of these 3 was allowed to drop out of school. Officially home schooled. In reality did very little educationally. Another 1 of them was allowed to drop out of FE college (there WAS a traumatic family experience that contributed to this).

The child who dropped out of school is probably the cleverest of all of the 4 of that them. A life wasted, because without any education, they are stuck in insecure, entry level jobs. We had such high hopes for them when they were small. All that ability wasted.

I think the common factor is not the ND. I'm pretty sure ND runs through our whole family, not just the one that was diagnosed. I think the key factor is parental expectation that education is mandatory. Also parental willingness to have a firm boundary over what is acceptable and what isn't. Unkind? Probably. Practical? Also probably.

Parents have to take responsibility. If you want a functional child, you have to force them to become functional. This doesn't apply to 100% of children. There will always be a proportion who can't achieve it. But most can. And allowing them to think they can opt out hobbles them before they begin.

These threads always end up at "We can't afford the Triple Lock". Those millionaire boomers, blah balh.

The bigger question is why people especially young people have more recorded levels of disability. Some is likely due to better recognition, some may be due to parental age at conception (research is ongoing on this), some is due to better nicu in hospitals, but these don’t explain everything … lots of things are suggested eg screens, gentle parenting etc and time is likely to get answers.

I hope myself there is a swing back to having children a bit younger as this may help a bit, apparently age of father matters too

I saw a horror film on streaming, Purge something or other - where the government legalised murder for a 24 hour period so in effect all those people who couldn't protect themselves were culled. It was justified as a way to keep taxes low so the population just accepted it.

It was quite horrific, because I could see something like that happening in the future.

I wasn't aware that this is what they did in Germany in the 30s, euthanise the infirm, disabled and unemployed because they were a drain on society. I think they did this before they even started on the Jews. That part of the Holocaust is often overlooked.

Global warming, migration, less resources, - all terrifying.

I've read about governments introducing UBI but it is never clear how or who funds that?

Well I didn’t expect an Annual Purge to be raised as a plausible outcome!

I think a huge issue is the closure of SEN schools. There simply are not enough. One of my older cousins went to a SEN school in the 80’s/90’s. Now in her mid 40’s, she has been able to work her entire adult life. She is not very severely intellectually disabled but she is impacted to a not insignificant degree.

Children have for some time now, been put through an education that overwhelms them right from the get go. A mainstream school doesn’t and will never have the time to spend teaching children with disabilities whether they’re physical, intellectual or both, the skills they need to feel confident in becoming part of the workforce. So they are not becoming part of it.

The rise of mental health issues in the anxiety space I think are separate and related to screens/social media.

It's already too late.

Anybody who will be alive in 20 years time is already fucked...

(I admit some people find me a tad pessimistic)

Here we go. Another benefits bashing thread calling everyone with mental health issues not really disabled

The definition of 'disabled' needs to be clarified. A person with mild ADHD is not disabled. A person with eg. mobility issues due to arthritis, is. A person who doesn't want to leave their house is not disabled. A person with MND, is.

People don't like it but I'm sorry get used to it, and get used to it because in future, governments will have no choice but to go down that path.

@Nothingl3ft: how does it work that employers can pay a tiny amount more for your time (which is usually offset by the costs associated with working) and own you?

I would say largely because everyone is so desperate to pay the least they can get away with for anything, which means employers can only afford to pay staff the bare minimum to avoid going under.

But while most people are only willing to pay the minimum for anything, they still want so much of it. The number of times DPD or Evri drivers drive down our street on an average week is ridiculous, and I'm sure 90% is not remotely essential.

But isn't that also the problem that people are living longer? State pensions have to be paid out for longer.

I know its over simplified but part of the answer is right here.. the online world. Excessive screen time, less face to face interactions, online forums that become echo chambers, algorithms that increase your exposure to the same stuff, click bait bots designed to make readers angry and therefore engaged... it goes on and on. Not to mention the tik tok diagnoses when normal life stresses occur. I would put my life on it that if the young folk today were not exposed to the Internet at all, the numbers of electively unemployable people would drop dramatically.

I just read this article which touches on some of your points, particularly the increase in anxiety

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/psychology-asserts-that-children-of-the-1960s-and-1970s-did-not-become-emotionally-strong-thanks-to-better-parenting-but-because-they-grew-up-with-enough-daily-neglect-to-learn-self-regulate-solv/30948/

If they want to run a trial I could suggest a few names..... 🤔