Longest sustained rise in people too sick to work since 1990s, says thinktank

UK was the only G7 country with a lower rate of employment than before the Covid pandemic, according to the Resolution Foundation. Photograph: Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images

Britain is going through the longest sustained rise in the number of working-age adults who are too sick to work since the 1990s, according to a report warning that a benefits crackdown is unlikely to solve the country’s jobless crisis.

The Resolution Foundation said economic inactivity due to long-term sickness – when people aged 16-64 are neither in work nor looking for a job because of a health condition – had increased in each year since July 2019, the longest sustained rise since 1994 to 1998.