Public spending is out on control

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A while back the Tory government rearranged disability payments given to people in the UK with disabilities to make it more digital and called it Personal Independence Payments. Post Covid we have seen a huge increase of people applying for them. This rise is not driven by physical disability so much but mental health issues. The younger people that came through Covid are the biggest growth on the PIP claims. About 20-years ago people under 18 could no longer claim unemployment benefit and those that would have left school at 16 would be encouraged into college education instead. They would get a small stipend of £25 to help them travel to and from college and buy books and stuff. But the kids just messed about at college and it didn't really work, spending the cash on burgers, ciggies and phone credit. The stipend ended with the plan to just shove them into any job instead. That didn't work. After lockdown we had over 1 million kids not in employment or education. The internet and social media are not great for kids mental health and the main driver for depression now. If you are not photogenic or attractive when you are a teenager it's best to stay off social media. That's how we are judged now. But this online world and access they adapted to during Covid allowed troubled kids and the unemployable ( that would never go university) figure out how to cheat the system and get PIP payments by claiming mental health problems. They had no money so why not? And it worked big time as they didn't need a Doctor's note in lockdown and the claims exploded. You simply ticked boxes online and the cash arrived. They have not come off those payments. There are 3.3 million adults claiming one or more PIP payments here. Only 17% are retirees. 37% of that 3.3m get the full handout. Some teenagers are getting £180 a week for sitting at home pretending to be depressed. That's a lot of spare time to vape and Red Bull. Even if they are depressed and anxiety ridden they dont need that much cash. In the 1970s the number was quite low on disability and very few teens. Governments were cool with that as they didn't count on the headline unemployment figures. But now the spend is huge from the public purse and coupled with increasing numbers of old people on pensions the country is effectively bankrupt. Unless it cuts that spend its going to be unable to repay government debt, let alone the interest on it. 1 in 6 adults are not in work here.These are youth unemployment European Union rates of the P.I.G.S - Portugal, Italy, Greece and SPain, up to 25% of their youth jobless. Labour MPS did not want to vote through cuts and needed changes to social security so the bill fell. Some say it was because the big chunk of left wing Labour MPs that hated PM Keir Starmer saw that as away to weaken him and remove him. Eventually it did. But this has to be dealt with. Kids need the discipline of work early in their lives or they will be a mess in their 30s. I guess it's similar across the West now.