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?

Look at all the Science Fiction that was once fantasy and is now being adopted, including AI - robots to replace people & jobs.

I'm still none the clearer how this UBI will be funded? Or does the government just print more money and hand it out?

Parents in poverty have a greater risk (on average) of having children with special needs, more than older parents. If income keeps falling, then this will be exacerbated (according to your interpretation of statistics). Older parents tend to have the funds to push more for a diagnosis and go privately so that’s attributed to the higher diagnosis of SEN.

People surviving where they have not been able to do so before the invention of medicine isn’t new. More babies just means a higher population, I’m not sure what you are trying to say here?

No idea where to start picking apart the premise of this thread, so I'll jump in with one facet of the "why is mental health so poor" arguments which perfectly illustrates the Paradox of modern life - the opining that it's down largely to screens and Internet, which should be curbed....

What, the very technology that underpins every facet of human existence and upon which we are dependent for all the basics, such as banking, bill payment, accessing health care (if you're lucky and don't get caught in "computer says no" loops. The technology that is used in schools to teach? The technology that every employer depends on, and requires employees to be proficient in? The technology that is evolving in terms of AI so quickly that chunks of white collar work, and some blue collar roles will soon be obsolete?

It's something of an irony that everyone's mental health would allegedly be improved by its removal, yet everyone is being encouraged to embrace AI in order to be in any way employable, which will require an increase in screen time... and round and round we go.

Yes I think there will be. Especially if the new SEND reforms go ahead, the Gov continue to bury their head in the sand around how unfit for purpose our current education system is and don't heavily invest in MH support.

@MistressoftheDarkSide

No employer requires an employee to be proficient in pro eating disorder TikToks. Microsoft Excel yes, mental health damaging bilge, no.

Yet in my experience only 1 in 5 I shortlist for interview turns up. Are they actually job seekers, or just trying to convince UC they want to work?

Us tax payers should be demanding we see it from our office window. /S

Older parents as an issue? What a peculiar view. We are normally much tougher parents, and funnily enough even when our kids do have issues they are shown resilience and how to get on with life despite their issues. I personally think that gentle (ie no) parenting is to blame for much of this. We simply as a society can no longer to afford to support adults who choose not to contribute.

It's an answer no one wants to say.

But people even if disabled will need to work if they can.

That means if you're missing a leg or an arm. Can't see. Or are deaf. If you're able to do work you still need to work.

The other thing is people need to take more responsibility in taking care of their health.

The amount for young people I see smoking weed - this is a leading cause of irreversible mental health problems. Nitrous/ ketamine abuse etc.

I see kids aged 14 smoking weed. And know they will end up with irreversible mental health problems and never work again.

Social media also is a leading cause of mental health issues.

There lots that could be done by the government but they're too scared to do anything about social media and the effect it's having on young kids.

Obviously people who cant work at all won't be working but everyone else will need to try.

Because a lot of these young adults have already seen that if they claim pip they don't have to work, they're better off sitting on benefits. Whilst mental health isn't made up is sitting about not working really helping the issue? There's so many adults now claiming pip for mental health, drug and alcohol addiction etc. they don't want to get off drink/drugs etc because they know that if they're rehabilitated they have no reason to not work and come off the handouts that DWP give to them for not having to lift a finger and actually work for what they want. A family member of mine was dangerously overweight and had weight loss surgery then moaned that he lost some of his disability benefits because the weight he lost meant that physically he could go out and get a job

Good luck with trying to separate one from the other, especially given how income can be extracted from the latter. For younger generations, the online world is all encompassing.

I watched "Grayson Perry has seen the future" this morning. I'm still boggling at the San Francisco business woman who is married to her ChatBot husband.

You mean all the lovely care and NHS staff who are immigrants currently caring for the disabled people in the UK?

Another vote for an utterly pointless goady post...

If anyone really cares ...comment and contribute to the Timms Review

Is it lost on you that immigrants also need care and will get old or do you expect them to work like robots until they drop

Do we really have more disabled people or is it just that disabled people are more visible than they were before?

With the de-funding of mental health services and education, yes.

If FaRage gets in it’ll be 10x worse, remember he’s published he wants to privatise the NHS to an American model. It’s clear he wants to run the UK like Trump runs the US for his own profit.

My disabled son wouldn't have survived 30+ years ago but did due to advances in medicine. I think that's definitely a big part of it.

I’m sure this is unpopular but think for a minute…

Who are the biggest net users of NHS? The elderly. As well as state pensions which were never expected to be funded for as long as they are, more and more money is being spent on pensioners to keep them alive, to the develop another health issue requiring further interventions to keep them alive. Add in the pensions being paid, and other support. Those that contribute the least are taking the most out! And there’s more of them!

I honestly think heroic life-prolonging procedures for those of state pension age is a luxury we can no longer afford. The wealthy don’t want to pay any (more) tax,, the middle class is disappearing thanks to the cost of living and not receiving any support whilst their income has stagnated, and the working class need benefit support because low/no income opportunities/childcare costs.

I watch some of the medical fly on the wall stuff, and there are so many 80+ having extensive surgery to remove a cancer to give them a few more years.

I get the emotional aspect, but at this stage I honestly think it’s a luxury the public can’t fund. This would also extend to keeping those with dementia and other terminal diagnoses. Once state pension is hit then medicine needs to be considered On a cost/benefit basis.

Income can only be extracted from social media because it is given the absolute free rein it is currently.

The internet cannot continue to be governed by the rules it was in its infancy, when it was a ‘place’ we went to (the home computer, the work computer) when it has evolved into an all encompassing 24/7 omnipotent presence.

@Charlize43 as far as I know eugenics and the practise of sterilising genetically undesirable people was way more widespread that Nazi Germany and was going on all over the world including the US. The Nazis took it too far and everyone likes to pretend they were the only ones. The US had a programme and targeted not just intellectually disabled but the poor, criminal men, promiscuous women and unsurprisingly had a massive bias towards non whites. The UK had a programme too but I don't know if it ever actually carried out procedures without consent. I read a book on it years ago but can't recall. I just googled it now and apparently 14 EU countries still legalise the practice but I don't know if that's just a legal loophole or if it actually happens. Unbelievable stuff.

Maybe we should just switch the internet off, where's the plug?

But seriously, maybe introduced eco therapy and instead of having these youngsters with MH issues sitting at home looking at Tik Tok, we could get them growing food, weeding and useful gardening.

I do think that secretly a scarily large number of people think that eugenics in its more extreme forms might be a solution. There is a dehumanising zeitgeist aimed at anyone who is "costing too much money". It's all couched very cleverly of course, and designed to divert attention from things like the biggest wealth transfer upwards to already "rich" people which really got going during the pandemic.

It's why I am extremely conflicted about Assisted Dying, especially given a couple of recent cases in the news.

But it appears the vast majority are more concerned about immigration than the accumulation and hiding of vast wealth, and consider policies to redress the latter ‘madness/nonsense/barmy left’.

Adults with high functioning neurodiversity have always had children.

Nor is life more stressful