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As the ONS confirms there's been a rise in people who are 'economically inactive' in the UK since COVID, the key Q. is:
how much is due to long covid & other conditions compound by recovery from Covid;
how much to the crisis in the NHS driving a rise in long term sickness as people wait for treatment;
and how much from social changes driven by the period lockdown shifting choices about work-life balance.
An answer on the balance will shape future policies.
@ChrisMayLA6
A coherent balance for policymaking won't happen when the misleading term "economically inactive" is being used in such an opaque fashion. Is this a question about people below state pension age not being in paid employment? Is this a question about everybody not in paid employment? Is this a question about underemployment? Is this a question about employment — paid or unpaid — at all? Is it about people who save and don't spend? Is this, indeed, a thing at all? Or is it just a buzzword to justify another government blitz on the marginally poor?
(I say misleading because the groups tending to have this label stuck on them also tend to be the ones putting the greatest proportion of their incomes back into the economy.)
As I understand it, the ONS data is 'working age' people, but otherwise I think your concern with under-employment & the issue of un-paid 'employment' (carers and others) is the right concern - to some extent that was covered (insufficiently in a short post) in the third Q.; for the historic data the shift in 'choices' is interesting, but socially your concerns about how this is framed is right on point!
@ChrisMayLA6 and Brexit, which is still slowly strangling businesses and leading to people running them just giving up and if they've earned enough taking early retirement.
@ChrisMayLA6
A few points:
• We are in the sixteenth year of Austerity with no end in sight. In some areas the public sector is the largest employer and directly and indirectly creates the largest market for local SMEs. These jobs are still being whittled away.
• Brexit came into force, with its dampening effects on the economy, again with SMEs disproportionately affected.
• People reaching what would have been retirement age before the goalposts were moved and retiring anyway because the job market isn't there or is skewed against them.
• We are seeing the effects of an economy trying to wish away a pandemic, leaving a long tail of new infections, a lack of prevention of reinfection and very sparse acknowledgement of the effects of Long COVID.
• A health system that is rewarded (badly) for the treatment of acute illnesses but under resources the treatment of chronic illness (and a society that thinks chronic illness isn't really a thing).
/1
@ChrisMayLA6
• Carers dropping out of the system to look after Long COVID sufferers and not bothering with Carers Allowance because it's hard work to apply for and is well publicised as being a pathway to massive debt due to arcane rules with Draconian sanctions.
• We have an ageing population. Carers will be dropping out of the system to look after ageing relatives because the care system is broken and the pandemic smashed trust in it.
• We have a sluggish economy managed by a policy framework based on the needs of the financial sector and large corporations and which stifles consumer demand and actively works against the needs of SMEs.
/End
Yes, I agree with all of that& only didn't include that range of detail due to the character limit my instance works with... but have boosted you wider context - understanding the balance between these issues should be driving policy... but like you I fear it is not because most of this is happening outside the myopic vision of our political class, whose priorities seem to lie elsewhere (within the M25)
@ChrisMayLA6 @Stevenheywood As someone born and raised in London (and who briefly moved back there in young adulthood) I don't even think politicians (other than Sadiq Khan, who at least tries his best) are doing much good even within M25 - London is now an overcrowded, unsafe and unfriendly place compared to what it was like just a few decades ago - even the middle class aren't safe (an West End actor was badly hurt in a road rage incident and metpol can't find the attacker despite CCTV)
#FBPE @ChrisMayLA6 All of which are "woke" questions, of course, so will never be answered in the USA.