"Disability benefit costs double as fraud soars"

That's a headline from the UK Telegraph.

When Labour came to power in May 1997, 1.9 million people received DLA . By last November, the number of claimants had risen to 2.85 million.

On investigation I find DLA (Disability Living Allowance) claimants could be children or pensioners. So for a better comparison to NZ, I'll use working-age incapacity benefit recipients of which the UK has 2,673 million (many of whom will be claiming DLA).

In NZ in May 1997, 78,500 people received a sickness or invalid benefit. By last November that had risen to 124,600.

The UK has more incapacity beneficiaries per capita BUT their number has been steadyish since 1999. Ours has grown substantially.

Overall the UK has 8.8 percent (5,331 million) of its total population on some sort of working-age benefit. We have 6.5 percent. But we have many more single parents on a benefit per capita (2.2 compared to 1.3) which doesn't bode well for the intergenerational factor.