Key points
•5.4 million people were in receipt of an out-of-work benefit in February 2010. Of these, 2.6 million (48%) were sick or disabled, 1.5 million (28%) were unemployed and 0.7 million (13%) were lone parents.
•Up until 2008, numbers had been falling slowly but steadily, from 5.3 million in February 2000 to 4.7 million in February 2008. The majority of the fall was in unemployed claimants, the numbers of which fell by a third over the period, from 1.2 million to 800,000. By contrast, the number of sick or disabled claimants remained broadly unchanged.
•Between February 2008 and February 2010, however, numbers rose sharply, from 4.7 million to 5.4 million (i.e. back to the levels of a decade previously). All of this rise was in the number of unemployed claimants which, by February 2010, was actually substantially higher than a decade previously (1.5 million). Again, the number of sick or disabled claimants remained broadly unchanged.
•Despite the recent rise in unemployed claimants, the biggest group of claimants remains those who are sick or disabled. Two-fifths of all claimants of out-of-work disability benefits have mental or behaviour disorders. This is more than twice the size of the next largest group, namely those with musculo-skeletal disorders.
•Two-fifths of all working-age claimants of out-of-work disability benefits are aged less than 45.
•Almost twice as many working-age people in the North East and Wales are recipients of out-of-work benefits as in the South East.
The figures quoted by mister man on the total number in receipt of benefits were wrong. Above are the correct figures. My post about the rise in the number claiming disability benefit since 1970 was correct.
The issue now is this.
The world has changed in the last few years and the extensive safety net put in place in the UK, which has often had perverse incentives not to work, has to change with it.
Many on the Left don't see this.
Doesn't matter.
You can moan and groan, and blame capitalism, and construct ideal little worlds in your mind. But the money to pay for these schemes is no longer there, and won't be in the future.
I live in the Far East, among the 90 countries that enjoyed more than 4% growth in 2010.
They work much harder, they study much harder, they save much more.
Some in the UK bleat about manufacturing jobs. How are they going to compete with people prepared to work 12 hours a day, six days a week? Who save, so that there is capital to build new plant, instead of spending it all on benefits and the public sector.
The only question is whether the UK will see an absolute decline.
A relative decline is certain.
