The government’s decision to reform disability benefits has brought about much angry debate, not least from those on the left who do not believe it is the duty of a Labour government to, well, reform disability benefits. I don’t particularly want to get into a debate about this, which is to say I am going to bottle out of blogging about it. It’s too close to home, in that some of my best friends, some of the friends of best friends and others I just happen to know are on disability benefits. We all know, don’t we, that work is good for you. Not working is, apparently, bad for you physically and mentally. But is it good for you? Really?
According to the BBC, “about a quarter of the working age population – those aged 16 to 64 – do not currently have a job. That’s about 11 million people.” There are millions of job vacancies but 11 million people don’t want to, or can’t, do any of them. Neither do the near 13 million state pensioners who will rightly consider that they’ve done their bit. Government revenues are falling and the country is sick of foreigners coming over here and … er … doing the jobs we don’t want to do. What to do about it? I’ll just say something must be done and leave it at that. It’s for someone else to worry about.
I know why I finished full time work some nine years before retiring: I’d had enough. I’d done nearly 40 years. It was time for me time and if I could afford it, I’d work part time until I didn’t need to work at all. At no point did I feel that I owed it to the country to work myself into the ground. This is my one life and I am going to live it, thank you very much.
I was never exactly in well-paid work during my civil service career so I knew that when I went looking for part time work I would be earning a pittance. When I worked for the hateful British Red Cross – don’t ever given them money: they’re absolute bastards to work for – and later the dysfunctional brain injury charity Headway, I earned not much more than the minimum wage, with a pitiful annual leave allocation. With amateur hour standard managers in both places, I was very happy when my working life came to an end. The work was okay but frankly it was a means to an end, a few quid to top up my occupational pension. Work is overrated.
I know loads of people who are part of that quarter of the working age population who do not want to work. They’re happy to have a few bob less in order to spend times with loved ones, on hobbies, joining local organisations and not having to get up every morning to sit in gridlock, to dance to someone else’s tune, to spend 48 weeks a year working for someone else or something else.
As you enter your sixties, you know that you are in decline, especially physically. You know that won’t get any better. No. It will get worse, much worse. Enjoy your retirement, if you get there, because much of it won’t be very pleasant. Have you thought about escaping from work, if only full time work, sooner rather than later?
I worked briefly for the little Hitlers at Tesco and the dullard managers at Asda, being told what to do, particularly at the former, by people who would struggle to walk and chew gum at the same time. Each day was a day nearer death and a wasted day at that. So, people are working it out for themselves. Do I really need to work? If the answer is no, why wait until pension age until someone tells you don’t need to.
Lockdown may have had an effect. It did on me. I went back to work for a short while and did my best but when Headway sacked me for declining the golden opportunity of wiping a service user’s arse after he’d taken a shit, I was actually relieved. Once that was over, so was work.
This won’t change though unless the country does. Ageing folk who can manage without work will continue to do so. They won’t be badgered back to work in a dead end job on the minimum wage with crap holiday allocations. If you’re not drawing benefits, why the hell would you want to work as a 60-something if you didn’t need to? If you are on benefits, why drag your sorry arse out of bed if there is no incentive?
I’ll leave the DWP benefits for others to resolve. I happen to think that the British benefits system is totally broken and we need to start all over again, that serious fraud and abuse is far more widespread than the government dares admit and to pretend otherwise is a nonsense. Let the government get on with that. I’ll just get on with my post work life while I still can.
No one can tell me to get a minimum wage dead end job and they shouldn’t you, either. Remember the old adage that this is life, not a trial run. If you want to spend your one life marching to someone else’s tune until you drop, then that’s your look out. I repeat. Working one second more than you need to is a wasted second. Don’t waste it.
