The government Autumn Statement announced changes to benefits which are cruel, vindictive and won’t help people return to work.
The government claims to be addressing long term economic inactivity as 2.55 million people are off work due to chronic illness.
The changes announced are to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) starting from 2025. The WCA is a test in which disabled claimants, if assessed as unable to work, are put in the category of LCW or LCWRA — Limited Capacity to Work or Limited Capacity for Work Related Activity. People in the LCWRA group receive an extra £390.06 a month and don’t need to look for work or do activities such as vocational training courses.
The government plans to change the assessment so fewer people go into the LCWRA group and more into the lower paid LCW group, who have to do work-related activities. It is important to clarify that the changes are to assessments and starting in 2025, so people who have already been assessed are not in immediate danger of losing benefits.
The government announcements, delivered with sneering and casual cruelty, caused distress and panic for disabled people and family members. The message, yet again, was that people who cannot work are taking money from the taxpayers, the real citizens, and are probably just lazy.
The government position is that due to changes in work practices and technology, disabled people should now be able to find jobs working from home. This is a fantasy. Many office jobs could in theory be done from home, but in practice are not. The jobs available as work-from-home often require high level training, and there is a fairly limited amount of those roles available and a lot of competition for them already. Becoming ill doesn’t mean that you automatically become a qualified software engineer.
This also reflects assumptions that difficulties with work caused by disability can be reduced to people basically needing to sit down. In reality people have all sorts of needs, and a lot of people are too sick to work and need to be given support and then allowed to get on with their lives in peace without constant threats and bullying.
Other people would be able to work with support and training, and would like to, but employers do not make the reasonable adjustments so that people are able to work. People who are working are often put under physically harmful amounts of stress due to employer intransigence.
It is disgusting to reflect that these record high numbers of economic inactivity include so many people with chronic illnesses who are ill, often suffering, due to the effects of capitalism running over our lives like a juggernaut, whether this is illness due to Covid, caused by work or bad housing, or mental health conditions exacerbated by stress.
The WCA is already difficult and distressing. Plenty of people who should get ESA or PIP (Personal Independence Payment) do not apply due to the onerous application process, and high numbers of claims are refused that are then awarded on appeal, weeding out many people with valid claims who give up before appeal. More people should be getting disability support not less.
Ill and disabled people are concentrated in the poorest and lowest paid sections of the working class. They are often themselves carers for children or elderly relatives, or for other disabled people.
Benefit cuts will make life more difficult for families who are already struggling and for the poorest communities. These are ideologically motivated attacks on the most vulnerable people and also on our class as a whole.