The Government’s welfare reforms will steadily increase jobless figures to about 3m by 2014, according to the Centre for Economic & Social Inclusion, reports the Financial Times.
Inclusion has modelled the impact of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and predicts that reforms will move up to 2m lone parents and sickness benefit claimants on to Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), thereby significantly increasing the jobless claimant count. Inclusion assumes that between a third and a half of all existing Incapacity Benefit claimants being retested by the government will be moved on to JSA. This estimate is based on the early results of the revised WCA, with a failure rate of almost 70 per cent.
"In 2014 we could have roughly the same number of people on sickness benefits as we had in 1979," said Dave Simmonds, Chief Executive of Inclusion. "It will be a 35-year journey when millions have been 'parked' on Incapacity Benefit."
The article goes on to say that, based on this assumption, the reclassification process and welfare-to-work drive could save up to £2.5bn a year by the end of the parliament, around £1bn more than the £1.5bn already assumed by the Treasury.
Source: Financial Times
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