Former health secretary Alan Milburn said the UK government spends significantly more on youth benefits than on programs designed to get young people working.
This spending imbalance threatens the long-term economic prospects of a generation. Milburn said the current welfare structure traps young people in a cycle of dependency rather than providing a pathway to employment or training.
During an interview on BBC's "Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg," Milburn said the current state of affairs is "shameful" [1]. He said the government spends 25 times as much on benefits for young people as it does on programs intended to move them into the workforce [1].
This financial disparity coincides with a crisis of inactivity among the youth. Nearly one million young people are currently classified as NEET, meaning they are not in education, employment, or training [1]. Milburn said this lack of engagement results in "incalculable costs for their life chances" [2].
Milburn, who authored a major review into youth inactivity, called for a "system reset" of the welfare system [1]. He said the current approach prioritizes short-term financial support over the structural interventions needed to resolve chronic inactivity.
The push for a reset suggests a shift toward more aggressive employment support. By redirecting resources from passive benefits to active job-creation and training programs, Milburn said the government could reduce the number of NEETs and improve national productivity [1, 2].
“"Shameful"”
The critique highlights a systemic tension in the UK welfare state between providing a social safety net and incentivizing labor market entry. If the government adopts Milburn's proposed 'system reset,' it would signal a policy shift toward 'activation' strategies, moving away from cash transfers toward mandatory or heavily incentivized training and employment schemes to reduce the long-term fiscal burden of youth inactivity.
