Tim Worstall

Incapacity Benefit.

Why this worry about incapacity benefit for the obese?

Eight million pounds a year is being spent on incapacity benefits to people suffering from obesity, it emerged last night.

It’s a rounding error!

As a percentage of total payments of incapacity benefit, the
obesity-connected payments have been roughly constant at between 0.06
per cent and 0.07 per cent.

Is this some part of a plan by the health nazis to show how damaging the food industry is to the health of the nation or something? I can’t think of any other reason why such a piffling sum would even be mentioned. Good grief, El Gordo is out to spend half a trillion a year!

In

5 responses

  1. The Remittance Man Avatar
    The Remittance Man

    Methinks the revelation is supposed to engender the following reaction: “Eight million for chubby phuques! Just tell the fat b*******ds to stop eating all the pies”. Thus neatly deflecting attention from the other 4992 billion a lot of which is spent on the other workshy loafers.
    Nor must we forget that those on disability allowance do not figure in the official unemployment statistics that allow Tubby Brown to gloat at various euro gatherings.
    RM

    Reply
  2. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    Er, you two do realise that it was the Tory party (The Stupid Party) that asked for the figures from the government and the Telegraph (The Stupid Paper) that ran the story about them, don’t you?
    Tim adds: Sure.

    Reply
  3. The Remittance Man Avatar
    The Remittance Man

    Jim,
    The way the Tories are going, they’ll be needing all the same spin as NuLabour when they get elected to office. This can be seen as laying the groundwork.
    RM

    Reply
  4. HJHJ Avatar
    HJHJ

    The irony is that it is certainly a gross underestimate of the cost of incapacity benefit claims caused by obesity, or rather poor diet and lack of exercise which are the principal causes of obesity.
    Much if not most illness in those of working age is caused by lifestyle factors.

    Reply
  5. dsquared Avatar
    dsquared

    Presumably this refers to the payments made to people who are solely incapacitated because of their obesity; otherwise (since it would imply that there are only about three thousand obese people recieving IB), it would suggest that becoming obese is a fantastic way to ensure a healthy life.

    Reply

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