The FT reports today that:Up-to-date figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that last May 504,000 people below the age of 35 were claiming incapacity benefit or severe disablement allowance compared with 443,000 claiming jobseeker’s allowance.Run that by me again? The figure, which includes more than 300,000 young people claiming for “mental and behavioural disorders”, shows continuing high levels of worklessness among the young, in spite of 10 years of steady economic growth and a concerted attempt to move people off welfare and into work....Sue Christoforou, of mental health charity Mind, said: “Society is much faster paced, the workplace is more competitive, and there are more short-term contracts.” There is, I believe, a technical phrase for this. It begins with a b, ends with an s and has ollock in between.
I accept that there will indeed be some under-35-year-olds who are so mentally incapacitated that they cannot work. But 300,000? Because of short-term contracts? Such is the benefits system today, that such patent nonsense is simply accepted as a given.
As for there being over half a million people under 35 are unable to work: surely the correct word is not 'unable' but 'unwilling' - and then indulged by the state.
