BBC NEWS | UK | 'Tougher' work tests for disabled
New incapacity benefit tests are to be introduced, which ministers say will mean fewer sick and disabled people will qualify for being unable to work. Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain says the changes, introduced next year, will end "sick-note Britain".
Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain says the changes, introduced next year, will end "sick-note Britain".
might just have the effect of increasing the number of unemployed temporarily, before reclassifying people permanently out of the workforce so they do not have to be paid any benefits? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
I am also sure there are a number of disabled people who would like to work, but can't get a job because disabled people are discriminated against to the extent that they are twice as likely to be unemployed as non disabled people in the UK. That it will take at least 80 years to close the gender pay gap but at the current rate we will never reach equality for disabled people in society. So let's push them further into poverty while doing nothing more to change society so that disabled people who are able to work, can get a job. And no, they don't all have to work in Remploy factories.
And what is going to be done for people who have medical conditions that fluctuate, or don't always seem apparently obvious to GPs or 'specialists' who don't believe in things like ME or fibromyalgia? What about them?
What about creating change in the way the labour market works so that people who need to work flexibly, part time, or job share, can do so without stigma and without being assigned to the rubbish dump of jobs nobody else will do at shitty levels of pay that aren't enough to live adequately on yet still are enough to disqualify individuals from getting benefits. What about them?
You want to end sick note Britain, you don't do that by taking benefits off people who need them (and believe me that is happening already). Where is the investment in health promotion, the drive to change culture, to regulate against junk food being advertised, to keep children in school over breaktimes so they can't run off to the chippy, providing better cycle lanes and access to leisure facilities, better education on active living and healthy eating, clinics for earlier diagnosis and prevention, GP lists that don't keep closing to new patients... ARGH. Ad astra per aspera
So, of course, there can be ambiguity with disabled people who would really like to find work.
All the rest of your rant, you know I agree with...
Would they just chuck people out there with no means of support? If they thought they could get away with it. But paying IB sweeps everything neatly under the carpet. And the capitalists don't need the "native" underclass, they've got all the immigrants they want, young guys who'll shut up, knuckle under and do the job with no nonsense about social benefits. Globalisation works in a number of wonderful ways.
