Tests claim few benefit claimants 'unfit to work'

wotsthat

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Possibly accurate, but still doesn't fully get at my confusion.

1. Arthur - as you say - doesn't deserve benefits. Agreed. The point is, though, that someone like him (and there are millions) do actually get various benefits and credits.

2. Barry has been [properly] diagnosed as 'fit for work' (but not necessarily heavy manual). So he can work. OK, this is news to him, but it might spur him on to look for work. But he's not successful and so JSA runs out. He ends up in exactly the same situation as Arthur. He'll get the same as Arthur.

So we've saved a bit (Barry's disability benefit). Anything is better than nothing, but I feel the amount saved will be a drop in the ocean. If either family wants to 'up' their income, they merely have to have another child.

LM - they'd have to crack on with having another child - the average age of a UK lorry driver is over 50 years. Don't forget as well that Barry's got a bad back and we don't want him to any further damage.

Percy1983

True they can jsut start breeding for a living, I do bleive child based benefits should be the next on the chopping block.

Pay for the first 3 children only.

MacMickster

Well, at least for Barry there's no more "Ladbrokes, Yates's Wine Lodge, and a reasonable car", but now we need to review JSA and IS. Perhaps, given the potential greater savings, this should have been done before reforming benefits for the disabled.

Kennyboy66

Really2 wrote: »

Incapacity benefit was introduced in 1995, she was not in power then.

Within two years of introducing it they were not in power.

So it is hard to make out it was a Thatcher (though it was not)/ Tory legacy as they only oversaw it for a breif period.

It was the overseeing it that was the failure, not the benefit itself.

There is a world of difference to introducing something and poor monitoring of it's use.

There is nothing wrong with the benefit if applied correctly.

Whilst true, it merely replaced invalidity benefit.

It was pretty much de-facto policy in the 1980's to put people (particularly older men, in high unemployment areas) on IB.

I wasn't aware that people still disputed this - but you never know on this board.

The sad thing about Labour is that these were "their people" but they did little about it until 2008 (note that these tests started under Labour in 2008 and was not a new Tory idea).

olly300

MacMickster wrote: »

The problems arise particularly where people have variable conditions - eg some MS sufferers who may go a few weeks without symptoms, but then would need to take a few weeks off work when their symptoms reappear. Few employers would want to take someone on who is likely to regularly be absent long-term due to sickness, but these are people who are being found fit for work per the new tests.

Problem is "fit for work" doesn't equal "fit for employment" whether that employment is as a employee or some form of self-employment.

Employers are quite happy to sack cancer sufferers or others with conditions they got whilst in their employment, so they are hardly going to take on someone with a varying disability.

ILW

Many will just claim "stress" now as it is nigh on impossible to disprove.

Loughton_Monkey

ILW wrote: »

Many will just claim "stress" now as it is nigh on impossible to disprove.

...and it's a self-fulfilling prophesy!

When I worked, it was extremely stressful - and I expect the majority of other employed people might agree with this. But I never felt that this made me 'disabled'.

Equally, the position of not having a job (when you want one), or of being pressured to work when you would prefer to continue with high benefits must also be 'stressful'. But how can this be termed as 'disability' in the concept of benefits?

Does anyone have any research on '% of population suffering with stress' for various countries? Most industrial countries have the most basic (or even non existent) benefits system for disability (let alone including stress) and I strongly suspect that those countries have a relatively small percentage of population suffering 'stress'.

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

Should the two categories be mutually exclusive though? I know a couple of people with MS who work but get additional funding from the government to help them work due to their disabilities. One gets a paid taxi to work as they would struggle to park (in London) and can't get up and down all the stairs on the tube nearby. The other gets their parking paid in a town centre car park. That's the sort of pragmatic solution that should exist.

I agree. Paying someone a little to enable them to work is better than paying someone a lot not to work.

Part of the problem is people's attitudes, that someone who has a disability is somehow unemployable. That makes it politically possible to dump the 'disabled' onto benefits for life.

ILW

Wonder what the levels of stress related sickness are among the working classes of India and China?

Generali

ILW wrote: »

Wonder what the levels of stress related sickness are among the working classes of India and China?

Levels of genuine mental illness are likely to be much the same across the world. I would imagine that for many suffering from stress and depression the 'treatment' is to sit on a park bench with a bottle of whisky when they can get one and wish the world away.