The difficulties encountered in forecasting social security expenditure (significantly underpredicted for much of the 1980s) have long been a source of concern-not least to officials in the DSS. Although official forecasts are undertaken and published primarily because they are needed for the...

This paper examines the upward trend of numbers in receipt of Invalidity Benefit (the major contributory benefit for the long-term sick) in Britain since 1971. Possible explanations include the rising level of unemployment through much of the period; the heightened link between ill-health and...