The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut

‘The end of welfare?’ is the headline on the current issue of Prospect magazine, illustrated with a celebrated Bert Hardy photograph from the 1950’s – which is appropriate, as the first occurrence of that headline probably dates from the same period.

Bert-Hardy The main story is by Peter Kellner, and is a lot more nuanced. His main argument is that coalition welfare reform is strongly in tune with public opinion.

Drawing on a specially commissioned Yougov poll, he says (£):

‘The public’s verdict is emphatic: We think the current system is too expensive. We asked: In general, do you agree or disagree with this statement ‘The Government pays out too much in benefits; welfare levels overall should be reduced?’ …A huge majority, 74 per cent, agrees; only 17 per cent disagree.’

But however much the public may dislike social security spending in the aggregate, fitting that general attitude to concrete proposals for reform that will yield major savings while still reflecting the detail of public opinion is a different matter. This, to me, is one of the clearer lessons from Yougov’s detailed polling questions.

Thus, while the coalition aims to cut Disability Living Allowance expenditure and caseload by 20 per cent, the poll shows the majority want expenditure to stay where it is or increase – even if that means higher taxes – while only 11 per cent favour cuts.

This is one of the major new findings of this poll, and why Prospect didn’t make more of this glaring mismatch between the coalition’s welfare reform bill and public opinion baffles me.

The poll also showed minorities, ranging from 9 per cent to 23 per cent, in favour of cutting pensioners’ benefits, benefits to the low paid and child benefit for families paying standard rate income tax.

Strong support for cuts was confined to only two of the six types of benefit (or rather of recipient) that Yougov asked about: unemployed people and unmarried single parents, where 42 per cent and 44 per cent favoured cuts.

So the focus of the demand for cuts is not ‘welfare’ as a whole, but out-of-work benefits to non-disabled people.

How much does the UK spend on these benefits, and how much has expenditure increased over time? Kellner cites growth in overall social security expenditure from 5 per cent of GDP in the early 1950’s to 14 per cent today, but this is of little relevance until we know how much of this growth has gone to unpopular as opposed to popular spending.

Answering this question means sorting through the data on social security expenditure and extracting information on the benefits people seem to dislike most – or that go to the people they dislike most - while excluding spending on items (or people) they do like.

The chart below shows expenditure on the main out-of-work income replacement benefits for working age people: unemployment, invalidity and social assistance benefits and tax credits to out of work families.

Note that because this includes invalidity benefits, there is a lot of expenditure on disabled people included here (more than half of recipients of these benefits are currently receiving DLA, which puts them in a category the public favours, as we have seen.)

As of 2009/10, the UK was spending 2.37 per cent of GDP on these benefits. This was almost exactly what the UK was spending thirty years earlier in 1979/80, and a lot less than in most years since then. Bear in mind that this was after the biggest collapse in GDP since the great depression.

Comparisons with years before 1978/9 are less robust because we can’t exclude some payments to pensioners from the data prior to 1978/9 (although this really does not seem to make a huge difference to the trends).

With that caveat in mind, we can say that expenditure on these benefits as a share of GDP prior to the recession probably wasn’t very different to the early 1970’s. The popular notion that the UK has been spending record amounts on these benefits in recent years is the opposite of the truth.

I expect these figures to be greeted with disbelief: three broad points might help with any confusion.

The first is a reminder that expenditure is expressed as a share of GDP: obviously if expressed in cash terms, with or without adjustment for inflation, the trends would be different.

Secondly, as the chart shows, expenditure on these benefits did increase dramatically at various points during the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, and these successive rises were usually only partly reversed during periods of prosperity until the turn of the new century, so the reversion to 1970s levels of spending is a very recent phenomenon .

The third is that housing benefit, one of the few major sources of growth in out-of-work benefit expenditure, is not included in the chart, which is confined to income replacement benefits intended to cover other basic living expenses.

Why has expenditure fallen so much?

Partly it’s because there are a lot fewer people on out-of-work benefits than there were in the mid-1990s (by about 1.2 million).

But that can’t be the whole story because while there may be lower reliance on out-of-work benefits now than in 1995, that doesn’t hold if we compare with the 1970s and 1960s. The key to the puzzle lies in the declining value of these benefits over time, largely due to the fact that from the 1980s they were uprated with prices rather than with earnings or GDP growth.

So these benefits, contrary to what seems to be widely believed, have been falling ever further away from average living standards over time. Alternatively, and this is just the same thing phrased differently, the U.K. got a lot richer and was better able to afford these benefits.

The problem with simplistic calls to cut ‘welfare’ therefore is that the elements that people don’t like represent ony a fraction of expenditure, and one that was in long-term decline until the recession. In fact, the benefits included in the chart account for only 16 per cent of all ‘welfare’ expenditure.

This is what our political classes are in denial about: on all sides, politicians and commentators are desperate to maintain the illusion that there are big savings to be made by cutting payments to claimants who are unpopular with the public when the great bulk of spending is going where the public seems to want it to go.

And that simple, inconvenient truth explains why the burden of coalition welfare reforms is falling so heavily on the disabled and on people in work as well as on the out-of-work claimants for whom the public, the politicians and most of the commentators show so little sympathy.

See also:

• Look Left – The human cost of the government’s inhumane welfare reforms – Shamik Das, January 20th 2012

• As Lords debates DLA reforms, charities call for pause to welfare reform bill – Helen Sampson, January 17th 2012

• Employment minister Chris Grayling does not appear to understand his own disability reforms – Daniel Elton, January 13th 2012

• The government’s replacement for DLA is not fit for purpose – Anjuli Veall, January 18th 2012

• Welfare reform bill in tatters after Lords defeats – Shamik Das, January 12th 2012

Benefits included in this analysis: Social assistance benefits: national assistance, supplementary benefit (excluding pensioners from 1978/9), income support for those below pension age (including Income Support for unemployed from 1991/2-1996/7), one parent benefit. Invalidity benefits: Industrial injuries benefit, sickness benefit, invalidity benefit, statutory sick pay, severe disablement allowance, incapacity benefit, employment support allowance. Unemployment benefit includes jobseeker’s allowance from 1996/7. Tax credits include family credit and child tax credit to non-working households. Data is from DWP benefit expenditure tables and HMRC tax credit take-up estimates. GDP is from ONS, GDP at current basic prices (ABML series).

Redisbleu

I keep getting the feeling this is what is actually happening – people assume the welfare cuts are hitting the “lifetime claimants” of housing benefit and so forth, and completely miss that these aren’t the only people this is hitting; some of the most brutal cuts are happening to disabled people. There is no option for them, they won’t just suddenly leap up and not be disabled anymore if their benefits are cut – they’ll die, plain and simple. When it’s put into that context, people’s opinions seem to backpedal rapidly into the “Oh, no, I don’t mean YOU…” sorts of statements so they continue their anti-housing-benefit diatribes.

No one is saying protect the scroungers – but I think people don’t quite understand the extent of the cuts to people other than the typical “scroungers” we’re been marinated in thanks to the media. People I actually tell the extents of cuts to are invariably shocked and then horrified. It would be better if they were apologetic and angry, but I’ll take horrified for now.
Anonymous

Thus, while the coalition aims to cut Disability Living Allowance expenditure and caseload by 20 per cent, the poll shows the majority want expenditure to stay where it is or increase – even if that means higher taxes – while only 11 per cent favour cuts.

===========

You forgot to ask.

Should DLA go to people who aren’t disabled?
Anonymous

So why has the number of disabled gone from 1 million to 2.5 million?

It’s not that some people are living longer, that is a minority. It’s not that more women are entitled.

Answer, hidden unemployment to use the jargon.

I see no reason why the criteria shouldn’t be tightened up so that only those that need it get help.

So what should the criteria be in your books?
Arecbalrin

You need to first provide some evidence that there is a significant problem with this. The government has pulled out all the stops to try and all they could come up with is some faulty cherry-picked data from a seven-year old review. They naturally didn’t want to commission a new one with some quality controls to get up-to-date and accurate data.
Arecbalrin

The point has been addressed before, you just keep choosing not to listen or you really are here to do nothing but troll.

The rise you speak of happened almost entirely in a few short years between 1991 and 1995, when it was the Invalidity Benefit. It followed two major explanatory events: Care in The Community and the introduction of Disability Living Allowance.

One thing that needs to be remembered about spending on benefits per GDP is that some of it displaced expenditure from other budgets; in the case of the introduction of Care in The Community, residential units were closed to save money. Some of those savings were transferred to benefits. At the time DLA was introduced, the government was worried it wasn’t being taken up quickly enough and there was a campaign to promote it. Many who claimed it were also eligible for Invalidity Benefit.

The rise was expected, but the government feigned panic anyway and called it ‘inexplicable’ when they knew the rise would be temporary and would stop soon. They decided to do some reforms anyway because of bad headlines. Invalidity Benefit was replaced by Incapacity Benefit in 1995 just as the rise in claims peaked.

By the way, the number of disabled people is ten million(around four million of them being pensioners). DLA and IB conditionality was always so tight that few of them qualified.

If you want to assert the ‘hidden unemployment’ nonsense, then you’d have to show a correlating statistical signature in unemployment figures. But believe me, there isn’t one and don’t think a lot of people smarter than you haven’t tried producing one.
rideout

Why is being a single parent classed as non-working claimant? I seem to remember it involving a lot more work than most people do in a paid job!
Redisbleu

Because the easiest scapegoats out there are and have always been single mothers as apparently we all choose to end up in the situation we’re in. Apparently I missed the crystal ball they were handing out when I got married which would predict it wasn’t going to last. It’s galling, but it’s a fallback for all society’s complaints. And I could rant At Length on that alone.
Redisbleu

I’ll point you to Arec’s response – responses which have been answered repeatedly – but actually what I’d like to know is why you think 2.5 million people DON’T actually need it when there are 10 million people in the UK who are disabled? Hidden unemployment my foot – as Arec points out this was done during the early 90′s with middle aged miners and working class folk, people who probably are in their 70s by now and therefore aren’t even GETTING DLA – if they’re even alive.

Please, try and keep up.
http://twitter.com/britishroses1 BevR

AWESOME!
Suey2y

I am such a poll geek. Declan, you read my mind and somehow, psychicly, transcribed it onto a page!!! But with better statsYAY! that’s, like, 1000 words I owe you xxxxx
Suey2y

I’m hugely ****’d-off by that finding. Time single parents got a bit more bloody heard I think. You only have to think for 10 seconds to have a friend who is a “single parent” for absolutely no fault of their own for a million different reasons. Outrageous.
Suey2y

Horrified is a good start. I think your comment is spot on.
Suey2y

I invent a teleporter.

On the first day a million people have already signed up for a teleporter.

For the next few years, everyone that needs a teleporter, get’s one. In the end, 2.5 million people own teleporters.

Then forever-more, about the same amount of people think “Right, I need a teleporter now”

Does that make it easier for your poor little brain to grasp?
Anonymous

Well, there has been an increase from 1 million to 2.5 million on Disability benefits.

Do you think that’s a problem or not? It’s a problem in two way.

1. The cost. It’s vast. It’s far more than DLA, since it invariably includes things like pensions, housing benefits, and other costs on top. That runs, not into the tens, but the hundreds of thousands of pounds. All paid for, in part, by some poor bugger on min wage.

2. Or it could be that there are that number who are disabled. In which case something has drastically changed and has crippled well over 1.5 million (people come and off the benefit). Perhaps the NHS is causing vastly more damage that is being admitted too?

So what’s the evidence that there are lots.

The primary evidence is the increase in number, whilst there has been a drop in industrialised and dangerous jobs. eg. Mining. Those with long term disabilities resulting from those industries have died off, sadly.

The assessments. Lots don’t even go to be assessed. I’d contend that these are a large group that have realized the game is up. Lots still fail.

What’s then proposed as counter evidence to this is that 40% win on appeals, and the conclusion is that the total error rate is 40%. However that’s an argument that doesn’t stack up. Are those that appeal representative of the 2.5 million? The answer is no. The correct answer for the failure rate is number succeeding on appeal divided by the number assessed. It’s a small failure rate.

Now there are problems with the assessment. The problems are with people’s who conditions are intermittent. Lets take an example. 2 months out of 12, they aren’t able to work. Assessed on one of those days, and they get DLA until the next assessment, say a year. Assessed on one of the good days, they don’t. They get ordinary benefits. People are up in arms about this, but they can’t state what the test should be. The nearest is that their GP should sign them off. However, since all 2.5 million have already been signed off by GPs, and we know from the retesting, they don’t pass. The conclusion is that the GPs have signed then off for other reasons. Sympathy, because the patient has pestered them and they want a quite life or to treat other patients, … GPs should be treating their illnesses, not deciding on their finances.

There is a lot of research too to show that its hidden unemployment. Do a bit of googling around.
Blarg1987

I think part of the reason is what is classed as disabled, with an ageing population such as people with mental disabilities as they get older require more care, this may be classed as a disability rather then old age care and since the goverment has been focusing on more care for the elderly at home this may have been a large contributer to the disability bill.
Anonymous

The very latest government figures show there is a fraud level of 0.5% for DLA, meaning 199 people out of 200 are entitled claimants, so I suggest you look somewhere else for an easy scapegot, you lazy coward.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/02/26/new-figures-show-low-level-of-benefit-fraud/#comment-360288
Timbo

There is a problem of unemployment of disabled people. This affects people whose neighbours see them out and about and not looking particularly unwell or disabled.

But they have fluctuating conditions. Some days they can work, others they are too incapacitated.

Funnily enough, Lord Blagger, there seem to be very few employers keen to take on people who may be sick perhaps 20%, 30% or even more of the time, and on a sporadic basis.

So Lord Blagger, what to do?

Do you want to mandate employers to take them on and retain them despite the amount of time they spend off sick?

Do you want to scrap their IB/ESA because their incapacitation is sporadic and not permanent and leave them starving?

It seems to me you have plenty of opinions, but few answers.
Anonymous

The difference is, that if people need a teleporter, they go out, earn money and buy one.

Here the difference is that at least 1.5 million are being provided with a teleporter when there is no disability requiring it.

Does that make it clear for you?

After all, I need a fleet of Ferraris and Aston Martins. Are you going to provide it free for me? I think not, and quite rightly. [You still get forced to do this for MPs]

So why won’t you address the issue of the increase? What’s been causing the epidemic of disability?
Arecbalrin

Obviously you couldn’t be arsed reading my earlier response because you’re just repeating the same old crap you’ve said dozens of times before and been corrected on. You trip over the facts and then carry on as if nothing had happened.

Some of us do more than just google.
Arecbalrin

Because everytime that issue gets addressed, you ignore it. You’re not here for a debate in good faith, just to drag your mess over the carpet.
http://twitter.com/sueworld/status/174635126792269824 sueworld

Oh wait! You mean "the public" DOESN'T want disabled people to suffer? http://t.co/Uvy2F0wq #damnthoseindependentthinkers
http://twitter.com/creativecrip/status/174646338313650176 TheCreativeCrip

RT @leftfootfwd: The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut http://t.co/mJ01RBGr #spartacusreport #wrb #pip #dla
http://twitter.com/corrisanne/status/174662227163492353 Anne Corris

RT @leftfootfwd: The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut http://t.co/rRIrbNpU <<Did I mention? This is awesome
http://twitter.com/corrisanne/status/174662251159109633 Anne Corris

I know. It's late, you've got beer, but read and RT this – just for me? http://t.co/Uvy2F0wq #wrb #spartacusreport #pipconsultation #spoonie
http://twitter.com/golookgoread/status/174670243384410115 goLookGoRead is:

RT @leftfootfwd: The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut http://t.co/mJ01RBGr #spartacusreport #wrb #pip #dla
http://twitter.com/miriamsaid/status/174679609642713088 Miriam Said

I know. It's late, you've got beer, but read and RT this – just for me? http://t.co/Uvy2F0wq #wrb #spartacusreport #pipconsultation #spoonie
http://twitter.com/CyborgDave Dave

“What’s then proposed as counter evidence to this is that 40% win on appeals, and the conclusion is that the total error rate is 40%. However that’s an argument that doesn’t stack up. Are those that appeal representative of the 2.5 million? The answer is no. The correct answer for the failure rate is number succeeding on appeal divided by the number assessed. It’s a small failure rate.”

If you were right, that would *still* be an unacceptably high failure rate.

But you’re also wrong.

57% of people who are assessed fail their assessment.

40% of those appeal against this decision, and 40% of those win.
Of the remaining 60%, the majority take it to a tribunal, and the majority (well over 80%) win.

So that would be a failure rate for Atos Healthcare of around 20% (~30% of 57%). I don’t think that’s acceptable work in return for a hefty government contract.

60% of those who fail their initial assessment DO NOT APPEAL in the first place.

Now that could be because they’re going “it’s a fair cop, I’m not disabled after all”, or because they’ve just come to the end of a long-term illness.

Or it could be because they don’t have the energy or capability to appeal: because they’re mentally or physically disabled (or just too ill).

It’s notable that those who have support from social workers, local council support services, CAB etc., and go on to qualify for legal aid, have a 98% success rate when you combine their appeal and tribunal results.

And as Atos and the DWP can tell us how many cases are dropped before assessment (around 35%) – usually because the customer gets better, but sometimes because he dies – we can pretty easily identify the missing number – 25% (of the whole).

That’s roughly the number of people who are told they don’t qualify for ESA, but don’t appeal against the decision – despite still having a disability of some kind.

If they ALL should qualify, that would make Atos Healthcare’s failure rate more like 55% – which is utterly unacceptable.

In reality, their failure rate is – according to their own figures – somewhere between 20% and 55%. Even if we’re conservative, that’s some pretty appalling work – at the taxpayer’s expense.

That’s somewhere between 0.5million and 1.25million EXPENSIVELY wrong decisions (these appeals, tribunals, reassessments etc. aren’t cheap) – and that’s ignoring the human cost of all this.
http://twitter.com/nhsspy/status/174714837778178049 Watching You

The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut – http://t.co/xMrYKEO1
http://twitter.com/ostendgudgeon/status/174726892535037953 OstendGudgeon

Oh wait! You mean "the public" DOESN'T want disabled people to suffer? http://t.co/Uvy2F0wq #damnthoseindependentthinkers
http://twitter.com/jackiwk/status/174728254224211969 Jackie Kelly

The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut – http://t.co/xMrYKEO1
http://twitter.com/paul_trembath/status/174731127850942464 Paul Trembath

The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut – http://t.co/xMrYKEO1
Anonymous

With you there, as a hard working single parent, I need to be in 2 places at once 5 days a week and provide the equivalent of 2 incomes in order to support my child – since his other parent walked out of a job and onto JSA last summer to avoid paying the minimum token amount of contribution towards his care.

Let me be clear I have always worked harder, held down at least 2 jobs and do not expect to be ‘supported’ by anyone, least of all him. So it was no surprise only a tad galling!

The media blackwashing and demonising of single parents throughout corporate media over the last 30 yrs will be directly responsible for the result of that particular poll. When you challenge those prejudices and put a face or a name to that category, the “but I didn’t mean them, or you” response is immediate.

It is the intolerant and rigid nature of the working practices in this country which make single parenting so hard – practices that are still designed to fit around the mythical 1950′s man who has no domestic responsibilities at all – but does have a little wife at home as an unpaid housekeeper and nanny.

The “I’m alright jack” attitude which pervades society now gives the 2 parent haves permission to attack anybody who is not the same, it makes them feel all warm and safe on the inside to have easy scapegoats. The Daily Hate and the Toxigraph ar responsible for so much.
http://twitter.com/golookgoread/status/174788279504347139 goLookGoRead is:

leftfootfwd: The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut http://t.co/zU3xBuNh
http://twitter.com/networding/status/174796777441079296 cvitae is:

leftfootfwd: The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut http://t.co/wl4paHSm
http://twitter.com/djmgaffneyw4/status/174816251552612352 Declan Gaffney

Hate 2 disagree w @guardian_clark but this http://t.co/qTKzu1bJ indicates support 4 #wrb #dla very weak: contrast this http://t.co/htgGOcSL
http://twitter.com/keepdla/status/174818964264853504 lisa

RT @leftfootfwd: The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut http://t.co/6Bl4FAKD
http://twitter.com/barbsisi/status/174820911361425408 Barbara Hulme

Hate 2 disagree w @guardian_clark but this http://t.co/qTKzu1bJ indicates support 4 #wrb #dla very weak: contrast this http://t.co/htgGOcSL
http://twitter.com/rosenamc/status/174822567432028160 Rosena McKeown

RT @leftfootfwd: The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut http://t.co/6Bl4FAKD
http://twitter.com/djmgaffneyw4/status/174829500343918592 Declan Gaffney

@FactCheck Might be of interest: really doesn't look as if gov can claim public support for DLA reforms http://t.co/qTKzu1bJ
http://twitter.com/catherinbrunton/status/174836402532524032 Catherine Brunton

Hate 2 disagree w @guardian_clark but this http://t.co/qTKzu1bJ indicates support 4 #wrb #dla very weak: contrast this http://t.co/htgGOcSL
http://twitter.com/stuartgwhite/status/174837079799369730 Stuart White

Hate 2 disagree w @guardian_clark but this http://t.co/qTKzu1bJ indicates support 4 #wrb #dla very weak: contrast this http://t.co/htgGOcSL
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/02/wales-faces-6000-more-children-in-poverty-due-to-welfare-cuts/ Wales faces 6,000 more children in poverty due to welfare cuts | Left Foot Forward

[...] also: • The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut – Declan Gaffney, February 28th [...]
clarebelz

In simple terms it boils down to this: do we want to see disabled people begging in the streets because the government say they can no longer afford to house them? Is that what people want to see in a relatively rich country, because this is the bottom line.

Welfare reform is not about ‘cutting’, but about a reduction in all welfare payments via new uprating rules so that over time they will be completely worthless.
http://twitter.com/4afairsociety/status/174865847205113857 Campaign4FairSociety

Article of yougov poll – the focus of the demand for cuts is not ‘welfare’ as a whole but out-of-work benefits to… http://t.co/mXhouEgh
http://twitter.com/stouffer/status/175014670866972673 Greg Harrington

Great article by Declan Gaffney about how the Gov't are cutting the benefits Britons actually want kept – http://t.co/ZzKe7C7X
http://twitter.com/ninatoast/status/176264501929324545 burnedtoast

RT @leftfootfwd: The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut http://t.co/6Bl4FAKD
http://twitter.com/Newsbot9 Newsbot9

Of course he’s here only to troll.

And of course he’s ignoring that it’s cheaper than other forms of care….because he doesn’t support institutional care either, he wants to cut them from benefits entirely.
http://twitter.com/Newsbot9 Newsbot9

Funny, seems that it doesn’t. That under 100 cases of fraud were found in a comprehensive sweep.

But hey, no, DLA should be cancelled because of massive fraud 1$££$!!
http://twitter.com/Newsbot9 Newsbot9

Of course that’s the aim…and for it to work, healthcare also has to be charged for, to prevent the costs of starvation and resultant illness and disease being transferred to the NHS in the years to come.

This is no longer a rich country. It’s a third-world one who is seeing it’s last days in the sun.
http://twitter.com/Newsbot9 Newsbot9

That’s right, people were shifted from institutionalised care to DLA. Why? Cheaper. And it’s also let them live longer, which has inflated the figures (…but it’s still cheaper). You want to throw them onto the streets.

Moreover, for the appeals, a 25% success rate would be catastrophic. The actual rate shows massive fraud on the part of the company conducting the checks.
Anonymous

Good on you for coming up with some numbers. Refreshing difference.

=========
57% of people who are assessed fail their assessment.
=========

What percentage of people didn’t turn up for their assessment? That’s a strong indicator of the numbers who won’t get through at all.

It’s still doesn’t explain why the numbers have gone from 1 million to 2.5 million.

There has not been an increase in disability of 250%.

It’s fraud, and its fraud by the government.

ie. If I ask you for a million and you give it to me, who is the idiot? Me for asking or you for giving it to me. If you give me other people’s money, then its fraud.

So care to redo you numbers with the total number of people invited for assessment. That’s the population you need to consider when coming up numbers. By excluding the no shows, you’ve inflated your figures.
http://www.soylentdave.com/ Dave

That’s all mixed in with this bit:

“Atos and the DWP can tell us how many cases are dropped before assessment (around 35%)”

That’d be 35% of the total, obviously.

I’m not goinh to redo any numbers, because I was making a stab at Atos’ truly colossal failure rate, but even if – say – 40% of claimants ‘should’ drop or fail their claim in a given year:

That doesn’t mean there are 40% of people who shouldn’t be claiming – just that around 40% of a given group of claimants of ESA will probably be coming off the benefit in a given year. That makes sense – it’s meant to be a short-medium term benefit.

The number of people on benefits was lower twenty years ago in part because it was TWENTY YEARS AGO.

1. We’d just come out of recession.
2. There were fewer people living here (around 57m vs. 62m today)
3. Our population demography shows us a population which is 7 years older than it was 20 years ago (if that makes sense) – which would be an indicator of greater dependence on sickness benefits.

It certainly hasn’t changed much in the last decade – look:

http://www.poverty.org.uk/13/index.shtml?2

and a table of raw data for ‘number of people claiming an out-of-work benefit’

http://soylentdave.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/out-of-work.png

According to the Disabled Living Foundation – there are 2.1 million disabled people of working age living in the UK – which gives us a benchmark figure.

There’s also a proportion of people who are ‘technically disabled’ – that’s temporary disability through illness, injury etc. – people who are made unfit for work in the short-medium term (those who can’t be expected to look for work NOW, but are probably anticipated to go back to full-time taxpaying work in the FUTURE)

There’s a number of sick and disabled people we’ve got in the UK at any one time, which is those two numbers added together – and it’s been a pretty stable number for over a decade. I think it’s about 2.5 million.

(it also proves we CAN’T have much ‘generational’ unemployment, otherwise the number ‘out of work’ would be getting exponentially bigger)
Anonymous

Ok – misinterpreted your post.

According to the Disabled Living Foundation – there are 2.1 million disabled people of working age living in the UK – which gives us a benchmark figure.

Turkeys and Christmas spring to mind. They will always quote the top end.

So given the number of disabled hit 2.5 million, what were the 400,000?

Why has there been an increase from 1 million to 2.1 “entitled”?

What has caused the increase in disability? All the research I’ve seen on the matter points at “Hidden unemployment”. ie. Moving people off the unemployment figure to benefits, because its embarrassing.

==============
There were fewer people living here (around 57m vs. 62m today)
==============

Mostly young migrants. However, lets say its an equal spread. 8.7% increase. 87,000 people. Still leaves 1,413,000 to explain.

So, 2.5 million times 35% drop out rate. Most I suspect are those who aren’t entitled. 875,000 people who have been claiming who shouldn’t have received money. Since its being going on since Thatcher, that’s a massive black hole. It’s compounded up.

===============
Our population demography shows us a population which is 7 years older than it was 20 years ago (if that makes sense) – which would be an indicator of greater dependence on sickness benefits.
===============

No. The increase is because people are healthier for longer, not that they are disabled for longer [There are a small number of exceptions]

The length of time people are in old age homes, as a percentage hasn’t gone up 250%.

There’s also a proportion of people who are ‘technically disabled’ -

With the removal of dangerous industries, and that those who were disabled from things like coal dust and asbestosis have sadly died off, the number should have been dramatically reduced.

and it’s been a pretty stable number for over a decade. I think it’s about 2.5 million.

It’s still up from the 1 million from the time before the Tories move the unemployed ‘off the books’.
Anonymous

I keep reiterating the question because its being ignored. Why the increase from 1 to 2.5 million?

The figure of 10 million is just bonkers too.

If you want to assert the ‘hidden unemployment’ nonsense, then you’d have to show a correlating statistical signature in unemployment figures

Explain more?

What about research that points out that it is hidden unemployment? ie. Not undertaken by me?
Anonymous

1 million to 2.5 million claimants is significant.

So try researching “hidden unemployment”. It’s the jargon the researchers use.

http://northamptonshireobservatory.co.uk/docs/doc_Hidden%20Unemployment%20in%20the%20East%20Midlands_085025160205.pdf

1. Is the level of disability correlated with unemployment. Answer yes. Now for areas, say ex mining areas, there is a likely confounding variable – previous employment in a dangerous industry. However, that should decline with the time since that industry was up and running. It hasn’t.

Now, does that explain areas like Liverpool? Nope.

High unemployment and high disability go hand in hand.

Anyway, here are the conclusions. [Page 3]

The real level of unemployment in the East Midlands in January 2002 was nearly three times higher than the claimant count – 188,000, compared to 65,000.

This corresponds to a real rate of unemployment of 8.8 per cent

The difference between claimant and real unemployment is attributable to an estimated 123,000 hidden unemployed

The stock of hidden unemployed in the region is divided fairly evenly between men and women.

Unemployed people who have been diverted onto sickness benefits (mainly Incapacity Benefit) make up the largest group of hidden unemployed – an estimated 75,000. These are men and women with health problems who could have been expected to be in work in a fully-employed economy.

That’s the crucial point. A large number of people diverted for political reasons. Both left and right.

Page 11 onwards goes into lots of detail.

Page 12 has this

The numbers claiming Incapacity Benefit are now truly astonishing. Figure 2.1 shows the number of men and women of working age (16-64 for men, 16-59 for women) claiming IB (or its predecessor Invalidity Benefit) for more than six months. The numbers have risen more or less continuously for two decades. In 1981 there were 570,000 men and women in this category. By 2001 the figure had risen to 2,060,000. Even this is not the full picture. Added to this there are more than 300,000 further claimants of working age receiving Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA), which is paid to people with a high degree of disability but insufficient NI credits to qualify for IB. There are also more than 200,000 short-term (ie. less than six months) IB claimants of working age. Official statistics show that in Britain as a whole in August 2001 there was a grand total of 2.65 million people of working age claiming sickness-related benefits. Of these, 1.60 million were men and 1.05 million were women

Worse than the figures I quoted.
http://www.soylentdave.com/ Dave

The 1.2 million you’re quoting is the number of people on ‘out of work benefits’; not just disabled people.

So it doesn’t really matter if they’re reclassifying people as ‘disabled’ who you believe should be ‘unemployed’; it’s the same number – the DWP calls them all ‘out of work benefits’ nowadays.

The 2.5million (ish) is the number who are long-term out-of-work (which is ‘more than two years’ in DWP terms); the majority aren’t out of work for 5+ years – which matches the ‘ESA is meant to be temporary support’ idea.

At any one time in the UK there are around 5million people who are actually claiming out of work benefits – it’s just that the overwhelming majority are back in work within 3-6 months are thus are very quickly ‘off the books’. Obviously this takes a bit longer during a recession (because fewer full time jobs are being created), and the number of jobseekers builds up.

“With the removal of dangerous industries, and that those who were disabled from things like coal dust and asbestosis have sadly died off, the number should have been dramatically reduced”

The number injured in workplace accidents has been reduced (they’re now the smallest single group of disabled claimants).

The biggest single group who claim disability benefits are mentally ill – which reflects our current work environment (and probably our low priority on mental health care, too).

The number of people who are classified mentally ill or at risk of mental/ behavioural illness has actually gone down since the 90s; our approach to people has changed.

i.e. we support them in the community with benefits, rather expecting their families to provide all the support – or just putting them in care homes and prisons.

So that’s probably part of the increase – but it’s not something I’m really going to oppose (and we ultimately save money by keeping people out of prison and care, if we can)
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/03/tax-credit-changes-will-discourage-work-and-have-other-disastrous-effects/ Tax credit changes will discourage work and have other disastrous effects | Left Foot Forward

[...] also: • The benefits Britons want to save are the ones the Tories want to cut – Declan Gaffney, February 28th [...]
http://twitter.com/tweetcmw/status/181796170245488641 Charlie Wheeler

@SoniaPoulton This might also be useful on attitudes: http://t.co/EPEzMby3
http://twitter.com/djmgaffneyw4/status/203066269061234688 Declan Gaffney

@MillieQED sounds interesting – will u b posting rates data anywhere? This piece shows spending trends 4 IS/IB/JSA http://t.co/qTKzu1bJ
http://twitter.com/djmgaffneyw4/status/203066894998188033 Declan Gaffney

@PollardTom thanks but it's not new- July 2010! (Still broadly right though) See also more recently http://t.co/qTKzu1bJ