Editorial: ​Politicians can’t ignore scale of people on benefits

​​Even before covid, there were too many adults of working age on benefits and outside the labour market.

This problem was particularly acute in Northern Ireland, as this newspaper first highlighted more than a decade ago – almost one person in eight was on Disability Living Allowance. That stat did not relate to adults but the entire population. Given that older adults are more likely to be on DLA (as it was then called) than children, the percentage of adults was all the higher.

This has now become a much more marked problem, both in NI and in the rest of the UK. A mainland study has found that the number of jobless benefit claimants aged 50 or older has reached nearly two million for the first time. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) report showed that those out of work and claiming benefits has risen by 600,000 among 50 to 64-year-olds since February 2020. This is attributed in part to an increase of more than a fifth (21%) in the number of health-related exits from the labour market among older people owing to long-term sickness since 2015.

In the final quarter of 2024/25, 93% of the 2.7 million who received fit notes were advised as “not fit for work”, with just 7% given the “may be fit for work” option. The CSJ think tank warned that the data “reflects a system that defaults to full sickness absence”. It said that GPs, the main issuers of fit notes, often lack the time and training to assess adjustments which may help a patient stay in work.

Can anyone be surprised that GPs, who are under extreme pressure and who might face aggression from patients who want to be signed off, are unable to make considered assessments? ​

It is not good enough for Stormont and indeed Westminster politicians to respond to every attempt to reform this problem with the cry that it is an “attack on the disabled”. It isn’t. It is a society-wide crisis. Apart from the vast cost of benefits, it is good for older people’s esteem and mental health to be in work as long as they can.