The longer people are on a benefit, the harder it is to get off it.
The following graph illustrates that. Someone who has been benefit-dependent for 1-6 months has a much higher likelihood of leaving for employment than someone with a duration of a year or more. Although the graph was released this month (September 2022) it only contains data to June 2020 unfortunately:
Two concerns.
In each of the years shown, the likelihood of leaving a benefit for employment has decreased.
Compounding that, in June 2017, 74% of all beneficiaries (203,772) had been on a benefit for more than a year. This grew to 75% in June 2022 (257,490).
For Jobseeker beneficiaries the respective percentages climbed from 57% (67,479) to 61% (104,985).
Most disturbing is this growing dependency is happening against a backdrop of employers across the board crying out for workers.
This scenario seals it. The welfare system has morphed well beyond a last-resort, safety net.
2 comments:
Much as I agree with your commentary, I’m somewhat puzzled by the opening sentence, ‘The longer people are on a benefit, the harder it is to get off it.’ This is a quite plausible interpretation, but could the same graphs be restated as, ‘People who are unemployable/hardest to get off the benefit, stay on it longer’?
The two statements aren’t mutually exclusive, but do imply different causation, or have I missed something?
DaveLenny
The longer a person is detached from the workforce, the harder it is to re-enter. The same goes for non-beneficiaries. That's due to what an employer wants and what a prospective employee offers. CVs with big gaps are troublesome.
But there are other self-directed reasons why exiting gets harder, like having longer to adjust to the economic restraints as well as physical/psychological non-demands of unemployment.
But those psychological non-demands are also psychological burdens. For many, mental health worsens with lengthening dependence. A lot of those who went on welfare during the early 1990s recession never went back to work but gravitated to sickness/invalid benefits. It was a sad loss of human capability and life quality.
Post a Comment