My friend John Phelan, probably quoting another famous economist, says that the discipline of economics can be summed up in the phrase “incentives matter.” An illustration of this principle is that if you pay people to be disabled, they will become disabled. This is from the London Times:
Teenagers claiming sickness benefits for anxiety receive £100 a week more than those who take a part-time job on the minimum wage.
More than 87,000 16 and 17-year-olds are claiming the personal independence payment (Pip), the non-means-tested benefit intended to cover the extra costs of disability.
More than two thirds of those on the upper tier, £194 a week, are claiming for mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions including anxiety, depression, autism and ADHD.
These mental ailments have become ubiquitous, largely because they generate revenue.
A 16-year-old working 12 hours a week, the legal maximum during term time, on the under-18 minimum wage takes home about £94. The same teenager, signed off with anxiety, can receive more than double the hourly equivalent while staying at home.
You can work and still collect your disability benefit, or, better yet, you can just collect your disability benefit and keep your time free. This whole program seems designed to funnel young people into a path of lifelong dependence on government. No wonder the U.K. is supporting an unbelievable number of non-working adults.
Britain’s feckless, unelected Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who has been in the House of Commons for a week or two, weighs in:
In his first speech in Downing Street, Burnham said the government would “help more young people into work by changing the education system and giving them more support, more mental health support” and by building more council homes.
Isn’t it blindingly obvious that Britain’s government is giving young people too much mental health support, in the form of cash, rather than too little? And sure: more “council homes”–public housing–is just the ticket to get young people on their feet.
More from Mr. Burnham:
In a speech last month [Burnham] said of young people who could not find stable work: “Don’t blame them, blame ourselves. We haven’t been giving people this stability — this ability to get on in life and it’s time we did.”
There has never been a time in human history when government could give people the “ability to get on in life,” nor will there ever be such a time. A society that thinks its citizens need government to “get on in life” is a doomed society.
