Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Wouldn't the GP (or whatever specialist) be in a better position to give you a sick note, if we talk about normal illnesses? Esp. if they know you personally?

Over here sick notes are handled that way. Though if you're on long term sick leave, after a few months (2? 3?) the insurance might ask you to see one of their doctors for verification. And if you apply for disability, there's rigorous examinations, obviously.

It is largely about disability:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/19/sunak-disability-benefit-curbs-sicknote-culture-pip

Practically speaking given that a lot of the rise in disability has been for mental health reasons, and this didn't announce any new support for NHS mental health services, I suspect it's going to shift decisions to less qualified people with a Department of Work and Pensions checklist. I agree with a lot of the criticism in that article, especially as the last 14 years of benefits reform have been pretty disastrous, including for the disabled.

But also it's one of the big differences with a lot of European systems, that we don't have an insurance model at all. It's universal benefits administered by the state that are (relatively) low on their own but cumulatively, depending on eligibility, about average (although a lot of that reflects the housing situation/costs) - but, which is a big difference, have no link to your previous work/salary and there is no insurer. You are entitled or not and if you are, then you can claim them for ever and they don't change.

There is something going on in the UK labour market which is a bit of a mystery at the minute though. This speech prompted the BBC's Ben Chu to post about it - which totally undermined everything I'd understood about it My understanding was that there's been a sharp increase in disability claims basically since the pandemic - and my assumption was that it was probably long covid. That an impact of covid were these syndromes that we didn't really understand and weren't yet able to treat that affected people in different ways, some short of breath, some brain fog etc.

Turns out that there has been a sharp upturn which is still growing - as the Guardian article notes one element of disability benefit is projected to increase by 50% in the next 4-5 years and the overall disability benefit cost is now higher than the schools budget. But Sunak's point, which has been repeated by others, is that this is a cause of a wider issue of rising "economic inactivity" in the UK economy. It's also been thought this might be part of Britain's productivity issue.

That last bit doesn't seem to be true. Zooming out the level of working age "economic inactivity" as measured by the ONS isn't particularly high. It's not at record highs or anything like that, it's about the level it was at in 2015. Similarly in international comparisons of economic inactivity the UK is where it's normally been in a bunch with France, Germany, Canada and Japan.

Part of it might be that this is an area where the old method of statistics pre-pandemic doesn't work in a post-pandemic with a significant chunk of WFH workers economy. So the numbers on disability benefits and the costs are increasing. The number of workers registered and paying tax are also increasing. So there's now a gap between the ONS' Labour Force Survey and the ONS' Workforce Jobs Survey (based on actual tax etc data):


So I think there is probably an ill health issue in the British economy (I'd suggest solving that by treating more people not making the process of getting benefits while you wait for treatment more humiliating). But I think that's often tied, not just by Tories, to a wider issue of economic inactivity - which might just be bad statistics. So the end result wouldn't be that you'd actually boosted the economy, you would just have added cruelty to the process of obtaining disability benefit.

[crazy canuck]

Something similar here.  Employers don't bother with "sick notes" for short term illnesses anymore.  And most employers provide disability benefits through third party insurers.  So it is the insurer seeking medical confirmation of an entitlement to the disability benefit that occurs now.