Why are there so many PIP claimants and mobility cars?

 Britain's welfare state cost has become bloated and unsustainable.

There are now 3.9 Million people claiming PIP (Personal Independence Payments) compared to 1.1 Million a decade ago in 2016.  

A friend of mine with Parkinson's failed the PIP assessment - she cannot work, cannot control the left side of her body, can't drive, can't dress herself, struggles with basic tasks like cooking etc but is ineligible but another friend's sister gets PIP and a mobility car because of her "bad back".  The system seems to be grossly exploited or at best unfairly allocated.  I'm half tempted to tell my friend with Parkinson's to tell the PIP assessors that she has a "bad back" due to being unable to control half her body - maybe she might get it. 

There are now 890,000 mobility cars being paid for by the tax payer. In 2016 the number was 651,000.

Has Britain's health really deteriorated so much in 10 years or are there simply more chancers?

I was thinking about this in the context of shoplifting.  There are no consequences for shop-lifting so it's on the increase. Even if you are caught, little will happen if the value of the goods is less than £200. Measurement drives behaviour - or in this case - lack of consequence drives behaviour.

I was then reminded of Tim Harford's excellent book "The Undercover Economist".  Tim tends to look at everyday scenarios and look at the social behaviours, incentives and drivers resulting from them.  

In one scenario he looks at going to a restaurant as a group.  If there are a group of say 6 people, and the bill is split equally, it tends to drive a behaviour in at least one member of the group to order more expensive items as the others in the group will be subsidising the luxury purchase.  Things have moved on since he wrote that book and I would say that the majority of the group will now try to play the economics resulting in more people ordering expensive things they don't want in order to "out-smart" the other diners.

So returning to our sick benefit claimants.  I think what is happening is that genuine tax payers can see what's happening and so are playing the economics game in order to not be seen as a mug by becoming benefits claimants. 

Unless there are consequences, this will only get worse. The economic incentives to game the system are just too tempting. There is virtually zero penalty for applying for these benefits. Introducing a £100 application fee would be a good start.  A lie detector test would also be good. If you are fraudulently found to be claiming then naming and shaming - maybe public stocks or pillaries would be good !

Sadly Starmer will probably say it's against their human rights.....


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