Against the backdrop of this month’s jubilant A-level and GCSE final results, 17-year-previous Sanjeev Singh gives a various image of what it is to be younger in Conservative Britain.
In several methods, Sanjeev is a younger individual “doing the right thing”. He lives at house with his mum and 3 siblings and, because leaving school a year in the past, he has persisted in seeking for function. But Sanjeev, 17, is deaf and as soon as prospective employers know he has a disability, they really don’t get in touch with him once more. He keeps making an attempt to get interviews but, unable to travel securely alone on public transport, he has no way of receiving to them.
This is where the welfare state’s security net is meant to kick in. Disability living allowance (DLA), for instance – a benefit Sanjeev has obtained since he was 6 years previous – could pay for a taxi on the days he demands get to an interview and has no one to support him communicate with the crowds on a bus. But the government chose to change DLA with personal independence payment (PIP) and following currently being tested for the new, tougher evaluation in December, Sanjeev had his advantages stopped, soon after much more than a decade
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Even unemployment advantage is out of his attain. There is no specific entitlement for jobseeker’s allowance for anybody below 18, in accordance to the Division for Operate and Pensions (DWP). As an alternative, it is left to regional jobcentres to arbitrarily judge if an individual is in “hardship”. Neither is Sanjeev eligible for the disability “unfit for work” benefit, employment and help allowance (ESA). As a DWP spokesperson confirmed to me this week, that advantage is only available to beneath-18s if they have not only left school but also are residing “independently”. So a teenager coping with chronic sickness or disability is expected to move out of their loved ones residence ahead of the government will take into account them for unemployment help.
Perversely, as a younger disabled jobseeker, Sanjeev has no way of knowing if he is even classed as “fit for work”. He can’t be assessed for ESA right up until he is 18 but in the meantime, have to commit yet another 12 months attempting to uncover a job no employer so far desires to give him.
This is unwinnable Britain. Where you can be outdated enough to have left college but be classed as too youthful for out-of-operate rewards. Where you can have a disability that stops you acquiring to a task interview but are not disabled sufficient to get living allowance.
What is occurring to Sanjeev sits within a wider landscape of the state’s abandonment of youthful individuals: housing benefit cuts for beneath-21s, unemployed 18- to 21-12 months-olds to be sent on instruction “bootcamps”, and the servicing grants for students from bad backgrounds abolished. Each and every policy is based mostly on the exact same assumption that each mother or father can afford to feed, clothe and residence their children into adulthood.
Latest government ideas to eliminate 18- to 22-12 months-olds’ in-perform rewards – that is tax credits to youngster advantage – will only hit disabled younger individuals and youthful dad and mom (any other below 25-12 months-outdated is not eligible). As Sam Royston, policy director at the Children’s Society, put it to me: remove assist this kind of as tax credits, and youthful disabled men and women who are moving into adulthood and needing added help will locate it significantly more difficult to get into function and to reside independently. It factors to how far fears of so-referred to as “welfare dependency” are detached from actuality. The advantage technique is not a crutch of dependency but – for any person born outside of the protection of income – often the launchpad to independence. To stamp out younger people’s housing, wages, training, unemployment, and disability assistance is to lock a entire generation – bar the wealthy – into stagnated opportunity, low incomes, and insecure work.
Sanjeev tells me he’s going to maintain hunting for function even though beginning the appeal approach to try out and get his disability advantage back. He asks if I know how to fill out the types. “I’m not receiving any assist,” he explains. “I’ll need to have to tell my mum to ring them.”
Disabled teenagers are easily lost in a welfare state lower to the bone. To be younger whilst bad or disabled is more and more to view your existence chances be pulled away.
Disabled youngsters are very easily misplaced in a welfare state cut to the bone | Frances Ryan
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