Are You 'Anxious &/Or Depressed Or Maybe Have Acne' ?

[Khandro]

Britons with acne, constipation and those who abused alcohol and drugs are claiming almost £10,000-a-year each in disability benefits from a welfare system that experts warn is no longer fit for purpose.

The cost of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is set to rise from £15bn before the pandemic to £37bn in real terms by the end of the decade, while the overall cost of sickness and disability benefits is on course to climb to £100bn.

PIP provides cash payments for those with extra care or mobility needs, allowing people to spend it on everything from taxis to mobility scooters and cars. Roughly 1.3m people are eligible for the maximum of £9,500 a year to help them cope with a “main disabling condition” that ranges from drug abuse to obesity to long Covid.

Claims linked to some form of anxiety and depression account for one of the biggest sub-category of PIP, with over 800,000 payments now supporting the anxious and depressed.

Today's Telegraph.

 

[Untitled]

weak, naomi. very weak. 

[naomi24]

It is.

[Untitled]

glad you admit it. perhaps you'll try better next time but i won't hold my breath. 
 

off you go now. 

[naomi24]

Me going, untitled?   No. You're imagining things again.

[newmodarmy]

We've seen untitled mention before these excess deaths.  Apparently excess deaths rose during the Tories/ Lib Dem austerity years and then shot up again due to covid.

And yet life expectancy has been on an upward trend. I smell a rat 

We know those with an agenda who commissioned the analysis have ways of getting the results they want.the surveys not giving the hoped for results disappear without trace.

But the proposed changes, which are actually pretty insignificant but a promising  step in the right direction are not austerity driven... they are designed to get people into work where possible, support those who really need it and reduce the scams and game playing

 

[Untitled]

"And yet life expectancy has been on an upward trend. I smell a rat"

improvements in life expectancy have slowed enormously in the uk since 2010

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/epidemiology-health-care/news/2017/jul/life-expectancy-rises-grinding-halt

 

[Untitled]

Life expectancy at birth in england 2000-2022

https://ibb.co/1wf8qCH
 

 

[Khandro]

Hey, I've got news for Sir Michael Marmot, and Untitled:

Life expectancy cannot exponentialy increase indefinitely.

Can I have my Nobel Prize now please? 

[Untitled]

michael marmot knows that khandro. try to read what he actually says.

[Untitled]

but i am pleased to see that you acknowledge that life expectancy suddenly stopped improving after 2010

[sandyRoe]

I'm sometimes depressed but not to such an extent I could claim payments for it.

[New Judge]

“…my priority is that such damaging policies are halted and reversed, not extended.”

I don’t think you need worry about that one bit (not as a consequence of Ms Kendall’s announcement, anyway).

Her proposals (which have not been fleshed out in enough detail for anyone to know how many deaths they might cause) are said to provide savings of £5bn in five years’ time. This is on a budget of £100bn at today’s prices. As I said earlier, just noise and rounding. 

One thing is sure – whatever you say about those genuinely in need of assistance because they cannot work, there are tens or more probably hundreds of thousands of people who are not working who very obviously could.

There are households in which three generations exist where nobody has ever worked. Are we to believe that three generations of the same family are all so ill that none of them can work? Over 20% of people aged between 16 and 24 are said to be too ill to work. It is preposterous to be expected to believe this. 

There should be a default expectation that people who can work will do so. In the case of people who don’t want to work but can, this default seems to be reversed. It is far too easy for them to concoct some physiological problem, which often means they simply don’t cope with life too well, and for them to be unconditionally declared unfit for work. Ms Kendall’s speech was very telling when she announced that her measures might encourage claimants to “give work  try”, as if it was some sort of optional activity that they might enjoy and get used to rather than something that, except for those in very exceptional circumsances, is an absolute necessity.

Unless and until that changes, the sickness benefits bill will continue to rise exponentially and the burden on those working will become so great until they see so much of their hard-earned confiscated that they will simply consider it not worth the bother. There needs to be a rigorous examination of every claim before any benefits are granted. The claimant simply saying “I can’t cope with a job” or “work is not something I can contemplate” will not do.

[dave50]

Well said newjudge. I don't know why those on the left think every benefit claim is telling the truth and is an honest upstanding citizen. Are they deluded?

[Untitled]

pip is not an out of work benefit. many of the people who receive it are in work. 

for those that aren't... the number of vacancies in the uk economy is shrinking. even highly qualified and able-bodied people are struggling to find work. where are all these jobs that you want more disabled people to take up? 

[Khandro]

My dad didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work

Norman Tebbit

[Quenched]

Mental illness is the most common excuse people use to claim benefits as its impossible to accurately detect. And its risen a lot in the last 20 years. 

 

I actually blame schools for a lot of unnecessary anxiety because the poor children are being forced to grow up way too fast these days. Far too much is expected from them. 

 

I remember my parents saying Children are no longer allowed to be children. 

[Quenched]

But why would you need to claim pip if your working? 

[New Judge]

There are still more than 800,000 job vacancies across the UK.

I don't want (necessarily) disabled people to take them up. I want those who are claiming disability benefits and who are not working but who are perfectly able to work to take them up.

At the very least they should be removed from the register of disbled people and so qualify only for  the much less generous unemployment benefit (and be subject to the rigours that go with that).

It is simply inconceivable that so many people – particularly more than 20% of 16-24 year olds -  are so ill or disabled that they cannot work. I simply don’t believe it and nor should the people doling out my cash to so many freeloaders. 

Genuinely sick or disabled people who really cannot work should be given all the help and support they need. And there would be much more of both available if only the government would weed out the malingerers and freeloaders who have simply decided that work is only for other people.

[New Judge]

"But why would you need to claim pip if your working?" 

Have  look at nma's answer at  8:17 yesterday. He tells you about "Emily" who gets £400 per month to help her get up in time for her work as a flight attendant. And she uses it to pay her bills.

[Untitled]

People in work claim pip because being disabled is (or can be) expensive. lots of people in work claim benefits of some sort... i remember ten years or so ago that a majority of benefits claimants were in work but i don't know if that is still true. 
 

"It is simply inconceivable that so many people – particularly more than 20% of 16-24 year olds -  are so ill or disabled that they cannot work."

you are misrepresenting this statistic. 20% of 16-24 year olds report having a disability which is a bit less than the general population. this does not mean that 20% of 16-24 year olds are in receipt of disability benefits. most people who report disabilities do not take disability benefits. 
 

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9602/CBP-9602.pdf