By Dillon Morrow

Since Covid-19 there has been a significant rise in working aged people (16-64) claiming benefits due to poor health conditions, according to Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) report. There are many different contributing factors to this rise in claims however one of the major rising statistics is the amount of working age people who are having problems with their mental health.

The IFS report also shows some of the most common mental health and behavioural conditions in young people are depressive disorders, mood disorders, anxiety, learning disorders and autism spectrum disorders. Since 2019 there has been a significant increase in claims that report learning disabilities and autism as their primary condition.

In 2024 there was a 36% rise in working aged people who were in contact with mental health services compared to those in 2019, according to the IFS report, including people who are waiting for care, there has been two million people who contacted mental health services by December 2024. This is split between 0.6 million children and 1.4 million adults.

More than half of the rise in working aged people claiming benefits has been due to claims that relate to mental or behavioural problems. A recent survey from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) shows that 44% of people claim benefits for mental health problems and that 86% of people who claim benefits report a long-term mental health condition even if it is not the primary condition that they are afflicted with.

The IFS report has found that Mental health conditions are becoming more common in 13% -15% of working age people who report that they suffer from a long-term mental health condition, up from 8% -10% from the 2010s. This is more likely a continuation on the rising trend pre Covid rather than a sudden increase post pandemic.

Poor mental health conditions have been increasing since the early 2000s. In 2002 25% of people in England and Wales reported poor mental health and behavioural disorders as the main conditions in their benefits claims (1.1% of the working age population).

However, the IFS report has found that by 2019 this number had risen to 40%, making up 2.2% of 16–64-year-olds. Figures went up again in 2024 to 44% .This shows that 55% of the rise in benefits claims post pandemic are made up of predominantly mental health claims.

Unsurprisingly the IFS report has found that people with poor mental health conditions have a significantly higher risk of “deaths of despair”. Deaths of despair are caused by drugs, alcohol and other self-inflicted harm caused by feelings of despair. Mortality rates in 2024 show that the working age death rate was 1.5% above the 2015-19 average. This is more than 1,200 additional deaths after adjusting for population size. In 2023 which was the last year of data available, reported cause of deaths of the working age death rate was 5.5% higher than 2015-19. The number of additional deaths in 2023 was 4,400 and most of these deaths were deaths of despair. In 2023 there were 3,700 more deaths of despair than in 2015-19.

Image by Dmytro Betsenko via gettyimages

Mental health conditions aren't the only thing that are causing the rise of people claiming benefits. The IFS report also highlighted a lower quality of health in people since Covid. Many public sectors have seen a rise in sick days post pandemic. Some public workers that have seen a rise in sick days are teachers (up by 29%) , civil service workers (up by 19%) and the NHS which has seen a rise of 14%. The rise of sick days isn't a direct argument for more people claiming benefits, but it is an argument that public health is on a downturn and hasn't improved since 2019.

Benefit claims are rising due to a downturn in mental health since Covid