One quarter of Britain’s working age population is disabled.
That’s a stunning, unbelievable statistic. Yet it comes from the Department for Work and Pensions. Are Britain’s cities really full of suffering cripples?
Another statistic goes a long way toward explaining it: Unemployed people on sickness benefits earn more money than those on minimum wage. In 2026, someone on minimum wage will earn £22,500 after tax. An adult on sickness benefit will get £25,000. An unemployed adult looking after a sick child can claim £36,900 a year.
In some large cities, one in five adults are supposedly too sick to work. Every day, 2 to 3,000 more sign up.
And the benefits continue. Tick the right boxes and the government will buy you a brand-new car and cover your insurance, tax, service and maintenance. The Motability Scheme allows people to swap part of their sickness benefits for a new car. One fifth of all new cars in Britain come from this scheme. Half of all new cars sold in Northern Ireland were bought by the government this way.
Many have to contribute at least a little toward their car, though TikTok videos showing how to game the system are common. The government also covers insurance for friends and family to drive. Many of these cars are used to run a taxi business.
Over 42,000 people have a Motability car because of anxiety or depression, nearly 32,000 for autism, and another 30,000 for an unspecified learning disability. adhd used to be a made-up disorder that saw undisciplined children medicated at school. Now it gets over 9,000 people a taxpayer-funded car. Over 5,000 have one because of a personality disorder, 4,000 for schizophrenia.
You would think alcohol misuse would get you banned from driving, yet 770 were provided a car because of it, causing the campaign group Crush Crime to complain that its “easier for a drunk driver to get a free car than a lifetime driving ban.” Two hundred and twenty have one for “drug misuse.” With 800 driving state-funded cars due to obesity, you could eat your way to a free car.
Some have very unique reasons for having the taxpayer buy them a car: 20 people have one due to food intolerance, 190 for a phobia of socializing, and 10 for a “failure to thrive.”
Nor is this the end. Local councils are going bankrupt from funding “special needs” pupils. In 2013, the United Kingdom spent £700,000 (us$945,700) on pupils with adhd. Now it’s £300 million (us$405 million). Pupils with these diagnoses are often taxied to school at the taxpayer’s expense because of the “distress” that taking the bus would cause. The total cost of giving 2 million people under 25 this support is over £10 billion (us$13.5 billion).
This is bankrupting the country. Disability benefits consume nearly a third of all money brought in by income tax. It’s fueled by borrowing, but lenders are becoming less confident in the British economy. New Zealand and Iceland are the only advanced economies with a higher interest rate on their 10-year government bonds. And yes, that includes Greece: Britain is a bigger risk than a country that went bankrupt 15 years ago.
It’s hard for the government to bring in more money to solve this. Raising income tax is unpopular. Current and previous governments have stealthily done it by causing massive inflation and then not rising tax brackets with inflation. The government also raised “employers’ contribution to national insurance.” It’s a tax on your paycheck, but because that chunk isn’t counted toward your salary, you don’t lose any money. Instead businesses have to cut jobs, freeze hiring, and close stores to meet it.
The government has also done the politically popular thing and raised taxes on millionaires. The result: 16,500 millionaires are expected to leave the UK this year, more than any other country on record ever.
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Many on the left don’t mind. But the top 1 percent of earners pay 30 percent of all income tax.
The next solution being touted is a wealth tax. This kills economies. If you successfully start a business, you can have a lot wealth on paper. But many founders don’t pay themselves a salary at first. When Norway tried this, entrepreneurs found they had no choice but to move abroad.
But perhaps the craziest thing is that the government won’t cut spending.
Clearly any system in which the government gives you a new car if you say you’re depressed can’t last. Even the left-wing Prime Minister Keir Starmer planned some small measures to get a handle on it. He wanted to make it slightly harder for people to claim the personal independence payment—just one health benefit. But his party rebelled, and he backtracked. Then he was forced to water down his proposals again—to the point that they are basically meaningless.
The farcical situation raises broader questions about the sustainability of democracy. Once a large chunk of people realize they can vote for free stuff, it’s very hard to stop them. Around 200 Labour members of Parliament have a majority smaller than the number of people claiming personal independence payments. Cut that and they lose their seat.
Britain’s problem stems from an attitude that has been ingrained for generations. In 1964, the Trumpet’s predecessor, the Plain Truth, wrote:
“[T]he British public remains apathetic! … The new generation insists only on less work and more benefits. The welfare state, supported by each government in turn, encourages just such an attitude. … But as the cry grows louder for wage increases, unemployment pay, sick benefits, pensions, allowances, national assistance, grants and payments—the entire economy staggers, unable to stay afloat!”
The great irony is that those in favor of giving money to those who claim to be disabled believe they are loving and compassionate. Those against it are immoral.
The Bible says the opposite. Psalm 37:21 says, “The wicked borrows, and cannot pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives” (Revised Standard Version). God wants individuals to have compassion and help the poor. But for the state to forcibly take the majority’s money, hand it out according to its own whims, and still fail to make ends meet is not compassion.
It’s cowardice. Britain’s economy will soon explode because too few people in government have the will to confront this crazy spending. The fallout will injure far more than those claiming the free money.
Many of those claiming health benefits are using invisible mental illnesses to fake sickness and run off with taxpayer money. It is also probably true that Britain has more depression and mental illness than ever before. Either way, immorality—wrong living—lies at the root. People don’t know the way to happiness, or even mental stability.
Britain is bankrupt by its own sin and sickness. “[T]he whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint,” God laments in Isaiah 1:5. Perhaps Britain is where that truth is clearest.
This is at the heart of our message. Sin, disobedience to God, is the cause of all this world’s suffering. In The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Herbert W. Armstrong wrote:
What people do not seem to realize is that sin does bring upon the sinner the consequences of sin—the plagues of suffering. The Bible defines sin as the transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4), and the law of God is a spiritual law (Romans 7:14).
Let’s understand this! I have said that money is not the source of happiness. Money can buy only material things or services. But there must be the spiritual content, as well as the physical, to happiness. Material things alone do not provide satisfying happiness. God’s law is a spiritual law. In other words, it is the way to peace, happiness, abundant well-being. Going that way is what God supplied to cause real happiness.
Conversely, then, can we not see that transgressing that way is to cause unhappiness, pain and suffering, emptiness, heartaches, fears and worries, frustrations? All these evils are caused by transgressing God’s law. The sinner is really plagued with these evils he brings on himself.
That describes Britain in so many ways. “We have brought the consequences of sin on ourselves—now God will Himself bring on us sevenfold more intense punishment—punishment that is correction!” wrote Mr. Armstrong. He continued: “God is going to keep multiplying chastening—correction—upon our peoples until they do turn from their evil ways—until they turn to the ways that cause peace, happiness, prosperity, all the good things!”
The only solution for economic stability, mental stability and national happiness is a massive change from the way we are living. We are causing disaster. But a loving God will guide and even add to that disaster so it unfolds in a way that causes us to repent and turn to Him. You can learn more about how and why He will do that in Mr. Armstrong’s free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.