A record number of people are now claiming disability benefits for anxiety - with 250 handed the benefit every day under Labour.Almost 650,000 people were claiming Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for anxiety and mood disorders in July, according to new research.More than 44,000 people have been handed PIP for mental health since the general election last year - equating to almost 250 people every day under Sir Keir Starmer.Meanwhile almost a million benefits claimants will be £2,500 better off than those working a minimum wage job by 2026, the research by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found.An economically inactive claimant on universal credit for ill health who receives the average housing benefit and PIP will get about £25,000 - more than the £22,500 a full-time worker on the national living wage is expected to earn after paying income tax and national insurance.The think tank said the figures show ‘rising numbers of young people combining different benefits to provide an income in place of work’.
Sir Keir Starmer was forced to abandon his welfare reform plans last night to avoid a humiliating Commons defeat by his own MPsBen Gregg, senior researcher at the CSJ, said: ‘Abandoning young people to sickness benefits only increases the isolation feeding their struggles. It is neither kind nor helpful.‘The Government can and should redirect funding to tackling the root causes of mental ill-health.’He added that work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden is ‘saying all the right things about getting young people into work, but the Government must turn warm words into action’.There were 60,000 16 to 24-year-olds receiving PIP for anxiety, depression and mood disorders in July, with an additional 1,407 under 25s awarded the benefit that month, the think tank found.Almost a million under 25s are not in either in work or training, with over half citing ill-health. There are 50,000 fewer young people on company payrolls since April alone, according to HMRC.The CSJ has called on ministers to urgently ‘close the gap between work and welfare’ and get more young people into jobs before they are ‘locked out of opportunity for decades to come’.The think tank has proposed a plan - backed by former ministers Lord Blunkett and Jeremy Hunt - to withdraw universal credit health and PIP from 1.1 million people with milder anxiety, depression or ADHD to save £7.4billion by 2029/30.It has also proposed an effective tax cut for employers hiring young people who are not in employment, education or training that it says would get 120,000 under 25s into jobs.Earlier this month Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data showed that 3.83 million people were claiming PIP in England and Wales at the end of July - up by almost 100,000 since Labour’s welfare reform climbdown.
