Racist, sexist, disdain of experts, outriders as heroes, scoffing at political correctness, getting angrier.... I feel I know this story.

Mayfield Review rightly highlights employer incentives for more evidence & then action. But this is the bit that's absolutely crucial and has been ducked by governments for a long time. That must change for better living standards, inclusion &growth. 3/n www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/from...

- Useful short term actions: create standard, trial interventions, build up evidence. - But risk bolder next steps delayed or don't happen. - Big gap=employer incentives. We won't crack this by just working with the willing. We'll need incentives and enforcement 2/n

Excellent analysis of Mayfield Review from @benbgeiger.bsky.social & @louisemurphy.bsky.social @resolutionfoundation.org - Review has the right diagnosis & analysis of problem & drivers. - UK labour market isn't in crisis, but does have a long-running problem with disability inclusion. 1/n

Extraordinary story from @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social: A London lawyer bought hundreds of Sheffield freeholds. Then the ‘very aggressive’ letters arrived. One woman: “It broke my heart, that was my savings towards a new car...He has just wiped me out.” www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...

The Mayfield Review gets a lot right, but there's also ways it needs to go further - a response from me and @louisemurphy.bsky.social on the @resolutionfoundation.org blog:

*Have new WCA claims exploded in the last year?* My new blog post on (another) mess in DWP statistics... inequalities.substack.com/p/have-new-w...

Ouch

And the focus is largely on preventing people from falling out of work. While this is crucial, it’s equally important to address the barriers that prevent disabled people from entering work in the first place. We have further work on this coming out in the months ahead

However, it feels a bit too focused on the ‘carrot’. My concern is that this might simply reward employers already doing well on disability employment, without doing much - at least in the initial stages of the plan - to shift the behaviour of those falling short

Initial thoughts on the Keep Britain Working Review (More reflections to follow in an upcoming blog)

I missed this last week. The new English index of income deprivation includes UC working households who are on low-incomes AFTER HOUSING COSTS. This is a big deal technically & means we now have a hyper local measure of LIVING STANDARDS not just incomes. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

My latest: Move over bat tunnel, here’s the wild story of how HS2 were forced to build a multi-million pound bridge for a road that… doesn’t actually exist.

Fantastic, erudite, and provocative essay. Recommended for anyone interested literacy, AI, and education and the future of humanity: "For it is AI that has given the American ruling class the final impetus to more or less abolish education".

oh my god it's still online

One-in-ten adults on low-to-middle incomes are now carers. This has widened the gap between lower and higher income families when it comes to caring responsibilities.

Excellent article by @chrisgiles.ft.com riffing off recent posts from @benbgeiger.bsky.social No need for a moral panic about the welfare system on.ft.com/4ooDEqx

Can't believe someone a) had the data to write this paper b) wrote this paper www.nber.org/papers/w3434...

The UK is an international outlier when it comes to protection from unfair dismissal. Our two-year ‘qualifying period’ for unfair dismissal protection is completely out of step with other rich countries, where qualifying periods between three and six months are the norm. Read more buff.ly/0OSArrI

Hadn't realised lots of trusts were no longer prescribing gluten-free food for coeliac kids. My son is coeliac and his food is so much more expensive. We don't get on prescription because we can afford it but for a family in poverty that's a massive issue. www.independent.co.uk/news/health/...

Labour MPs who voted against welfare cuts this summer have warned that plans to change disability benefit assessments could trigger another mass rebellion Others called for a vote to be delayed until a review into the assessments is complete By me, for Big Issue: www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

✍ NEW BLOG | Putting humanity at the heart of welfare @j-hancock.bsky.social reflects on 13 years of online conversations evidencing the enduring challenges that people face when navigating the #welfare system. This blog draws from our ongoing Online Listening research with @jrf-uk.bsky.social.

That's quite the chart annotation. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I'm getting really really fed up at constant reassertion that welfare spending is "out of control" when it is the same as the average for the past few decades. One reason disability benefit costs have risen is because core support has fallen.

We can also do this for the 2025 panel, here with vote intention as opposed to past vote. On the right I add people saying Don't Know. Couple of things. Gap between parties is larger now than in 2025. Reform voters are miles away from Labour. LDs cross over. DKs are in middle but near Labour 16/n

On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n

1/ So you’re thinking about applying for an academic job in the UK but don’t know how? This thread will walk you through the essentials.

How the government's new digital ID will work… and why I’ve changed my mind on ID cards (FREE TO READ!) takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/how-the-uk...

How do experiences of claiming social security look in different countries? A fab online panel on 6th October are discussing first findings from @welfare-experience.bsky.social , sign up at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/welfare-ex...

Randomized controlled trials are a key tool to study cause and effect. Why do they matter and how do they work?

I was a boy in the 1970s and I thought it was brilliant. As long as I got fed, could play with my mates down the woods, and watch TOTP and the occasional war film, I was happy. But I was looking at my (very narrow) world through a child's eyes. You'd think this point was obvious to everyone else.

I'll have more to say on Reform's proposals to scrap ILR at some point but for now I'll just note this - anyone telling you this is a popular idea doesn't know the polling. Overwhelming majority of public back giving people who work and pay taxes most or all rights after 5 years or less

Most people working in this area have known for years that DWP's figures on trends in out-of-work benefit caseloads are complete junk but have struggled to find more accurate figures. Ben has now produced an estimated time series and the discrepancy is huge. Nobody should be using these stats!

Are out-of-work benefit claims at a record high? My new post open.substack.com/pub/inequali... , and also my take on More or Less this morning at www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Fantastic column by @stephenkb.bsky.social "Racism in the UK remains the preserve of an extreme minority — but one that is emboldened and growing louder. It is the result of a year in which neither the government nor the opposition have been willing to draw red lines." www.ft.com/content/fbbd...

Watch @ageingbetter.bsky.social's Experts by Experience share their stories and offer ways for employers to build more inclusive workplaces ⬇️ 📺 See the full film: youtu.be/oAdLiry9CKA

NEW: Disabled older workers are almost twice as likely to experience negative treatment when applying for jobs or promotions than their peers without disabilities, according to our new report with @ageingbetter.bsky.social. ➡️ ageing-better.org.uk/resources/su...

I'm not sure Kent was even this bad in my 80s-90s childhood (and I can tell you, it was pretty bad). The trajectory is absolutely chilling. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What is a distinctive pattern in the UK (the young are more leftwing) is treated in the UK as what seems natural. This has the consequence that the reasons why it happens in the UK but not in most of western Europe are missed, because it's thought to be a law of nature

For the ALMP and social policy nerds. This seems important 👇🏻

Angela Rayner's statement about her divorce & parenting 'nesting' arrangements of living part-time in the home her children live in. The personal details about her son's disability and trust show why it was not a straightforward case re taxation www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

For more than 16 years, Disability News Service has broken important stories about the discrimination disabled people face every day across the UK. Now DNS is looking for new subscribers to help fund its work. www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disability-n...

The Government is doing its best at the moment to imply it has no problem with the ethnonationalism now rearing its ugly head. And I don't understand why. 1/5

Fab job opportunity below 👇

This is excellent. There's now broad consensus that the current benefits system isn't doing a good enough job at supporting disabled people into employment, but until now there hasn't been much good evidence about what 'better employment support' actually looks like.

Big moment - all PIP claimants in Scotland have been transferred to Adult Disability Payment. Why does this matter? 1) UC (incl UC-health) is reserved to the UK Gov, while disability benefits are devolved. This makes the UK Gov's upcoming health benefit reform tricky www.gov.scot/news/adult-d...

Mental health problems are real. But they’re rarely people’s only barrier to work. People with experience of mental distress describe a wide range of social, economic, relational and structural barriers to work – in addition to the challenges posed by symptoms. It’s more than a mental health issue 🧵

This chart from @smfthinktank.bsky.social shows the problem. The most selective unis are hoovering up students to manage their finances, leaving others at risk of closure. The market needs managing.

The state spends billions every year trying to fix people with health conditions & disabilities for jobs that simply don’t exist. Our response to the Keep Britain Working Review argues for a paradigm shift away from fixing the worker to fixing the workplace: timewise.co.uk/article/bett...