Imagine the Principality Stadium brimming to its capacity with 74,500 passionate rugby fans. It’s a lot of people, but a quick bit of arithmetic here, times that by 6.5. You should have arrived at a figure - rounded down - of 484,000.
So what, you might be thinking. But that is the number of working age people in Wales - 16-64- who are currently are not seeking employment; or put it another way are not able to help firms expand and provide much needed workplace related taxes to fund UK and Welsh government spending.
The economically inactive include those on long-term sick and students not working. Of course many people unable to work on health grounds, and those who have opted out of the workforce for other reasons, have worked in the past and contributed significantly in income tax and national insurance contributions.
