Recently, the government’s Fit For Work (FFW) service tweeted, ‘For 300,000 people, sic
Recently, the government’s Fit For Work (FFW) service tweeted, ‘For 300,000 people, sickness can result in a complete end to employment & dramatic loss of earnings’ This seemed a welcome acceptance of the reality of how ill health affects employment, in contrast to the government’s usual portrayal of people on sickness and disability benefits having made a lifestyle choice. I asked for clarification, and FFW kindly confirmed that yes, this did mean that up to 300,000 people per year lose their livelihood and become reliant on benefits as a result of ill health.
They also helpfully referred me to the document from which the figure is taken, ‘Health at Work – an independent review of sickness absence’ by Dame Carol Black and David Frost. This document has influenced much government thinking on welfare reform, particularly on sickness and disability benefits. The authors say, “The aims of our Review were to minimise the loss of work resulting from ill health and to find ways of reducing the burdens and costs.”
The impetus behind the report becomes clear as it refers to the challenge of keeping people with long-term health conditions in work.
“This challenge will become ever more important because the population in Great Britain is both growing and ageing… In 2035, there will be 639 dependants per 1,000 persons of working age, up from 618 in 2010. There is evidence to suggest that the health of the population – and thus the workforce – will deteriorate in the coming decades…Coupled with an ageing workforce this represents a major challenge for the economy. It will become increasingly important to emphasise that work is compatible with less than perfect health.”
So, put simply – pensioners are supported by the working-age population, and because there will be more pensioners per thousand people of working age, we need to keep more people at work, requiring them to retire later and keeping people with health problems in work. This is the argument. But is it fair?
The government says that increases in the pension age are fair because we are all living longer, so it is only right that we should work and contribute for longer before we enjoy our retirement. But we know that life expectancy varies widely between the rich and the poor – the gap in life expectancy between those in London’s affluent and deprived wards is now nearly 25 years. And if we take into account inequalities in Healthy Life Expectancy, the requirement for people to keep working into later life despite declining health looks grossly unfair towards the most disadvantaged sections of the population.
Consider these 2015 figures on Healthy Life Expectancy from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS reported that in England,
‘Males in the most deprived areas could expect to live 52.2 years in ‘good’ health, compared with males in the least deprived areas who could expect to live 70.5 years in ‘good’ health.
Females in the most deprived areas could also expect to live less of their lives (52.4 years) in ‘good’ health, compared with females in the least deprived areas (71.3 years).
Males in the least deprived areas could expect to live 19.2 years longer in ‘good’ health than those in the most deprived areas ….For females, this was 19.5 years.’
So with a current retirement age of 66, the poorest workers can expect on average to work for almost 14 years in poor health, whilst the most privileged people can expect to remain in good health for several years into their retirement.
This was recognised as a problem in a report commissioned by the government and published last year. The report, ‘Trends in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy’ spoke of an “expansion of ill health and disability in the UK” because “the latest data suggest that increases in Disability Free Life Expectancy and Healthy Life Expectancy in the UK are not keeping pace with gains in Life Expectancy.” It noted that, “if longer working life is accompanied by an increase in the time spent with health problems and work disability, continued working will be problematic.”
However, despite having been made aware of this problem, despite sickness absence declining and despite spending on out-of-work sickness and disability benefits having actually halved as a share of GDP, the government continues to adopt a punitive approach to getting people off disability benefits and into work.
In pursuit of this aim, the think tank Reform has proposed the abolition of Employment Support Allowance, the higher benefit paid to those who are unfit to work. Everybody, almost irrespective of health or disability, will be deemed a job seeker, and receive the same benefit. Reform says the reduced income of sick or disabled people may be supplemented by an award of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), but as people are currently losing their entitlement to PIP in large numbers, this is not reassuring. Nor is it clear where the employers are who are waiting to employ a million people with physical and/or mental health problems.
So in effect, what we seem to have is a policy of privileged people, who will live longer, healthier lives, pressuring poor people who will have shorter less healthy lives, to keep working, or keep trying to get back to work under threat of sanction, until retirement age, despite poor health. Or until they die, whichever come soonest.
It would appear that in order to finance the public spending needed to support an ageing population, whilst maintaining the economic status quo for the wealthy, the poorest people may be expected to work themselves to death.
If these issues affect you and you need to talk to somebody, please call the Samaritans helpline on 116 123. Calls are FREE and the helpline is open 24 hours a day.
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© Bernadette Meaden has written about political, religious and social issues for some years, and is strongly influenced by Christian Socialism, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker movement. She is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor. You can follow her on Twitter: @BernaMeaden