The British benefits system is in chaos. Incapacity benefits are a case in point: they are too expensive for the taxpayer while being too ungenerous for the individual. The Coalition Government has set its sights on welfare reform, but it will be no easy task.
This pamphlet informs that challenge. A new Index of Financial Protection, published for the first time here, shows that British workers are some of the worst protected in the OECD. Of Mutual Benefit sets out another way: reforming Statutory Sick Pay so that people get back into work before they become long-term unemployed, no longer punishing the savers of the ‘squeezed middle’ and encouraging more personal responsibility. These measures would save the state billions and be of mutual benefit to the individual, the household, the taxpayer and society.