英国在残疾人方面的支出比国防支出还多 - 我们是怎么走到这一步的？
UK spends more on disability than defence — how did we get here?
译文简介
“难道我们不应该在残疾人身上花钱吗？”——《泰晤士报》报道。
正文翻译
UK spends more on disability than defence — how did we get here?
-Even Sir Keir Starmer’s critics agree that DWP spending on PIPs and other welfare benefits has spiralled out of control, in a trend that started in the 1970s
英国在残疾人方面的支出比国防支出还多——我们是怎么走到这一步的？
——就连斯塔默的批评者也认为，自上世纪70年代以来，养老金部在个人独立支付和其他福利方面的支出已经失控了
(Analysis suggests Britain is spending ten times as much on the benefits as it did at the start of the 1990s.)
（分析表明，英国在福利方面的支出是上世纪90年代初的10倍。）
新闻：
It was Margaret Thatcher’s favourite small-state guru who accidentally created an entirely new branch of the welfare state and set Britain on the path to the current crisis over disability benefits.
正是玛格丽特·撒切尔最喜欢的小政府专家，意外地创造了福利国家的一个全新分支，并将英国置于当前残疾福利危机的道路上。
Going back to the Beveridge Report lionised by Labour and beyond, it had long been a principle that welfare payments should be based on people’s contributions.
在之前被工党和其他党派推崇的《贝弗里奇报告》里，福利支付应该基于人们的贡献，这一直是一条原则。
But when Keith Joseph introduced the attendance allowance under Edward Heath in the early 1970s, people were for the first time entitled to financial help — in this case, with care at home — purely because of their disability.
但是，20世纪70年代初，当基思·约瑟夫在爱德华·希思的领导下引入看护津贴时，人们第一次有资格获得经济帮助——在这种情况下，是居家看护——纯粹是因为他们的残疾。
At first, spending was only £96 million in today’s prices. Today, Britain spends more on all sickness benefits than on defence or schools.
以今天的价格计算，最初的花费只有9600万英镑。如今，英国在所有疾病福利上的支出超过了国防和学校的支出。
Even Sir Keir’s Starmer’s backbench critics largely agree that something has gone very wrong with Britain’s sickness benefits system. So how did we get here?
就连批评斯塔默爵士的后座议员也大都认为，英国的疾病福利制度出了很大的问题。那么我们是怎么走到这一步的呢？
Ministers trot out the figures:
Ailing society
1.a thousand new people a day start to claim personal independence payments (PIPs), adding a city the size of Leicester to the total every year
2.one in ten people of working age are now claiming at least one type of sickness benefit
3.spending on them has risen by more than £20 billion since the pandemic and will go up by another £10 billion by the end of the decade, even after the cuts threatening to derail Starmer’s government
大臣们公布了这些数据：
境况不佳的社会
1.每天都有1000人申请个人独立支付，相当于每年增加一个莱斯特大小的城市
2.十分之一的工作年龄的人现在要求至少一种疾病福利
3.自疫情爆发以来，在这方面的支出已经增加了200多亿英镑，到本十年末，甚至在削减开支可能使斯塔默政府翻车之后，还将再增加100亿英镑
But reforms to disability benefits — paid whether or not someone can work to compensate for the extra costs of ill health — are immensely divisive. MPs protest, with some justification, that the reforms are about saving money. Ministers respond, equally fairly, that the money needs to be saved: spending on disability benefits had doubled in real terms since the last time Labour was in power.
但是，对残疾人福利的改革——不管一个人是否能工作来补偿不健康的额外成本——存在极大的分歧。议员们抗议说改革是为了省钱，这是有一定道理的。大臣们同样公平地回应说，这笔钱需要节省：自上次工党执政以来，残疾人福利的实际支出已经翻了一番。
The trend goes further back. Although much of the increase in incapacity benefits happened as a result of de-industrialisation in the 1980s, the rise in disability spending is more recent. Even as a share of GDP, we are spending ten times as much on the benefits as we did at the start of the 1990s.
这种趋势可以追溯到更早以前。虽然丧失工作能力福利的增加大部分是上世纪80年代去工业化的结果，但残疾支出的增加是最近才出现的。即使以GDP的占比计算，我们在福利上的花费也是上世纪90年代初的10倍。
The problem boils down to this: we have promised people a level of support our worsening national health has now rendered unaffordable.
问题可以归结为：我们向人民承诺了一定程度的支持，但我们日益恶化的国家医疗现在已使我们负担不起。
Britain is becoming sicker. This is partly simply because we are getting older as a population and partly also because we eat badly and do not exercise enough. A quarter of us now report having a life-limiting disability and far more are suffering from multiple illnesses at the same time; almost a million people now have five or more health conditions, up 40 per cent since Covid.
英国的病情正在恶化。部分原因很简单，因为我们的人口在变老，部分原因是我们吃得不好，锻炼不够。现在有四分之一的人患有限制生命的残疾，更多的人同时患有多种疾病；现在有近100万人患有五种或五种以上的健康状况，自疫情以来增加了40%。
William Beveridge, the architect of the modern welfare state, assumed “the development of preventative and curative treatment” would bring down the sickness benefit bill. Instead, treatment keeps people alive to claim for longer.
现代福利国家的缔造者威廉·贝弗里奇认为，“预防性和治愈性治疗的发展”将降低疾病福利账单。相反，护理则让人们活着以申领福利更长时间。
Spending on PIPs is rising fastest among pensioners, who tend to keep claiming until they die. The total cost of PIPs for those over 66 is due to rise 40 per cent by the end of the decade, twice as fast as the rise for those of working age.
在养老金领取者中，个人独立支付支出增长最快，他们往往会一直申领到死。到2020年，66岁以上人群的个人独立支付总成本将上升40%，是工作年龄人群增幅的两倍。
Indeed, it is those with conditions of later life who would be hit hardest by government reforms making it harder to qualify for PIPs. The losers will be largely older people with arthritis or back pain.
事实上，那些晚年生活条件下的人将受到政府改革的最大打击，因为政府改革使他们更难有资格获得个人独立支付。输家将主要是患有关节炎或背痛的老年人。
More than two thirds of those with joint and muscle conditions look likely to see payments stopped. The unspoken argument is plain: Britain can no longer afford to subsidise people for the illnesses that come with ageing.
超过三分之二患有关节和肌肉疾病的人可能会停止支付。不言而喻的争论显而易见：英国再也负担不起为伴随年龄增长而出现的疾病提供补贴。
Then there is mental health. This is the fastest-growing category of claim; anxiety and depression is now the single biggest reason to claim PIPs, accounting for 16 per cent of spending. Including problems such as autism and ADHD, there are 1.4 million people claiming for “psychiatric disorders”, almost 40 per cent of the total.
然后还有心理健康。这是增长最快的申领类别；焦虑和抑郁现在是要求获得个人独立支付的最大原因，占支出的16%。包括自闭症和多动症在内，有140万人声称患有“精神疾病”，几乎占总数的40%。
NHS figures on Thursday found that 23 per cent of people of working age now have a mental disorder, up from 18 per cent a decade ago, rising to 26 per cent in 16 to 24 year-olds.
国家医疗体系周四公布的数据显示，目前23%的工作年龄人口患有精神障碍，高于10年前的18%，在16至24岁的人群中，这一比例上升至26%。
Young people are most likely to claim benefits for mental health problems and there is growing concern about a generation who may do so for decades. The number of children on disability living allowance, the precursor to PIPs, will reach a million by the end of the decade, double pre-Covid levels. Most of these are for behavioural problems such as ADHD or learning disabilities.
年轻人最有可能因为心理健康问题而要求福利，人们越来越担心这一代人可能会在几十年内这样做。到本十年末，领取残疾生活津贴（个人独立支付的前身）的儿童人数将达到100万，是疫情前的两倍。其中大多数是针对行为问题，比如多动症或学习障碍。
Jeremy Hunt, who was health secretary when the Conservatives introduced PIPs a decade ago, acknowledged that he may be “indirectly responsible” for the rise in spending through a landmark law requiring the NHS to treat mental health equally to physical health.
十年前保守党引入个人独立支付计划时的卫生大臣助理杰里米·亨特承认，他可能对支出的增加负有“间接责任”，因为他通过了一项具有里程碑意义的法律，要求国家医疗体系将精神健康与身体健康同等对待。
While his “parity of esteem” law excluded the Department for Work and Pensions, Hunt now says “it contributed to a culture where benefits assessors felt they have to treat mental health claims not just equally but exactly the same”.
虽然他的“尊重平等”法将工作和养老金部排除在外，但亨特现在表示，“这导致了一种文化，即福利评估人员认为他们不仅必须平等对待精神健康索赔，而且必须完全相同”。
Hunt said radical change was now required to deal with “an explosion of mental health conditions” the benefits system was not designed to cope with, arguing for restricting disability claims for milder problems.
亨特说，现在需要进行彻底的改革，以应对福利制度无法应对的“精神健康状况的激增”，他主张限制对较轻微问题的残疾申领。
“Talking therapies cost the NHS about £1 billion and are some of the best in the world, with a 50 per cent success rate. You could double that and it would be a lot cheaper and more effective than parking everyone on benefits,” he said.
“谈话疗法花费了给国家医疗体系大约10亿英镑，是世界上最好的疗法之一，成功率为50%。你可以将这个数字翻倍，这将比让每个人都享受福利要便宜得多，也更有效。”
The Centre for Social Justice think tank has worked up a similar proposal, embraced by the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
智库社会正义中心也提出了类似的建议，得到了保守党领袖凯米·巴德诺克的支持。
Labour, for now, disagrees. Many disability groups argue this would be discriminatory. But finally, Britain has started a debate that is perhaps a generation overdue: what is the disability benefit system really for?
工党目前不同意这种说法。许多残疾人组织认为这是一种歧视。但最终，英国开始了一场或许迟了一代人的辩论：残疾福利制度到底是为了什么？
“The thing that gets lost is that these benefits were meant to be for additional costs. So if you were immobile and had to take a taxi to work, that’s an extra cost that’s not your fault, and so the state pays to equalise you with someone who’s not disabled,” said Sir Steve Webb, a Liberal Democrat DWP minister when PIPs were introduced and now a partner at the consultancy LCP. “It feels like we’ve gone an awful long way from that.”
“被忽略的是，这些好处本来是用来弥补额外成本的。因此，如果你行动不便，不得不打车去上班，这是一笔额外的费用，这不是你的错，所以国家会付钱让你和没有残疾的人平等，”史蒂夫·韦伯爵士说。他是自由民主党在引入个人独立支付计划时担任养老金部大臣的人，现在是咨询公司LCP的合伙人。“感觉我们已经走了很长一段路。”
Back in the 1970s when Joseph created when he called “entitlement by right of disablement”, he added with masterly understatement: “I would doubt whether we have exhausted the possibility for developing that principle.”
早在20世纪70年代，当约瑟夫创造了他称之为“残疾权利的授权”时，他巧妙地轻描淡写地补充说：“我怀疑我们是否已经用尽了发展这一原则的可能性。”
It was another Conservative, John Major, who turbocharged this principle in 1992, introducing disability living allowance to compensate for the extra costs of illness. In another irony, he did so explicitly to help more disabled people get jobs, arguing the payments would give them “greater independence”.
另一位保守党人约翰·梅杰在1992年推动了这一原则，引入了残疾生活津贴，以补偿患病的额外费用。另一个具有讽刺意味的是，他这么做明确是为了帮助更多的残疾人找到工作，他辩称，补贴会让他们“更独立”。
Employment rates for the disabled have improved but spending has quadrupled in real terms by the time the Conservatives returned to power in 2010. In an effort to control costs, the coalition introduced PIPs with a requirement for “obxtive medical assessment”, yet spending continued steadily upwards.
残障人士的就业率有所改善，但到2010年保守党重新掌权时，实际支出已经翻了两番。为了控制成本，联合政府引入了带有“客观医疗评估”要求的个人独立支付计划，但支出仍在稳步上升。
Covid accelerated this generation-long trend, new claims doubling. Exactly why is surprisingly under-researched, but most experts believe it is a combination of a health hangover from the pandemic, a greater willingness to claim for mental health problems and the cost of living crisis.
疫情加速了这一长达一代人的趋势，新申请人数翻了一番。令人惊讶的是，具体原因还没有得到充分的研究，但大多数专家认为，这是大流行带来的健康后遗症、更愿意为精神健康问题提出申请以及生活成本危机的综合作用。
Claims are rising faster than disability rates and Sir Stephen Timms, the disability minister, said this week: “The cost of living challenges are a very big factor in what’s happened. People who may well have always been eligible but have not in the past claimed benefit are now doing, and that’s what’s driven this very substantial increase.”
失业救济申请的增长速度快于残疾率的增长速度，英国残疾事务大臣斯蒂芬·蒂姆斯爵士本周表示：“生活成本的挑战是造成这一现象的一个非常重要的因素。那些可能一直符合资格但过去没有申请福利的人现在正在申请，这就是推动这一数字大幅增长的原因。”
But, as Webb argued: “Going back to those additional costs, if we as a society think we just can’t meet small extra costs because too many people have them, then we should design a new benefit and be frank about that — as much as the politics will allow.”
但是，正如韦伯所说：“回到那些额外的成本，如果我们作为一个社会认为我们无法满足小的额外成本，因为太多人拥有它们，那么我们应该设计一种新的福利，并在政治允许的范围内坦率地承认这一点。”
The problem for any government is that it is far easier not to give people a benefit than to take it away once they have it. There are now 3.7 million people claiming PIP.
任何政府都面临的问题在于，不给民众利益要比民众有了利益之后再把它拿走容易得多。现在有370万人申请个人独立支付。
Beveridge recognised the inherent tension between ensuring dignity for the vulnerable while avoiding trapping people on state support. “The danger of providing benefits, which are both adequate in amount and indefinite in duration, is that men, as creatures who adapt themselves to circumstances, may settle down to them,” he wrote in his 1942 report.
贝弗里奇认识到，在确保弱势群体的尊严与避免让人们陷入政府支持的困境之间存在着内在的紧张关系。他在1942年的报告中写道：“提供数量充足、持续时间不确定的福利的危险在于，人类作为适应环境的生物，可能会对环境感到安于现状。”
More than 80 years on, we appear no closer to resolving this dilemma.
80多年过去了，我们似乎没有离解决这一困境更近一步。
-Even Sir Keir Starmer’s critics agree that DWP spending on PIPs and other welfare benefits has spiralled out of control, in a trend that started in the 1970s
英国在残疾人方面的支出比国防支出还多——我们是怎么走到这一步的？
——就连斯塔默的批评者也认为，自上世纪70年代以来，养老金部在个人独立支付和其他福利方面的支出已经失控了
(Analysis suggests Britain is spending ten times as much on the benefits as it did at the start of the 1990s.)
（分析表明，英国在福利方面的支出是上世纪90年代初的10倍。）
新闻：
It was Margaret Thatcher’s favourite small-state guru who accidentally created an entirely new branch of the welfare state and set Britain on the path to the current crisis over disability benefits.
正是玛格丽特·撒切尔最喜欢的小政府专家，意外地创造了福利国家的一个全新分支，并将英国置于当前残疾福利危机的道路上。
Going back to the Beveridge Report lionised by Labour and beyond, it had long been a principle that welfare payments should be based on people’s contributions.
在之前被工党和其他党派推崇的《贝弗里奇报告》里，福利支付应该基于人们的贡献，这一直是一条原则。
But when Keith Joseph introduced the attendance allowance under Edward Heath in the early 1970s, people were for the first time entitled to financial help — in this case, with care at home — purely because of their disability.
但是，20世纪70年代初，当基思·约瑟夫在爱德华·希思的领导下引入看护津贴时，人们第一次有资格获得经济帮助——在这种情况下，是居家看护——纯粹是因为他们的残疾。
At first, spending was only £96 million in today’s prices. Today, Britain spends more on all sickness benefits than on defence or schools.
以今天的价格计算，最初的花费只有9600万英镑。如今，英国在所有疾病福利上的支出超过了国防和学校的支出。
Even Sir Keir’s Starmer’s backbench critics largely agree that something has gone very wrong with Britain’s sickness benefits system. So how did we get here?
就连批评斯塔默爵士的后座议员也大都认为，英国的疾病福利制度出了很大的问题。那么我们是怎么走到这一步的呢？
Ministers trot out the figures:
Ailing society
1.a thousand new people a day start to claim personal independence payments (PIPs), adding a city the size of Leicester to the total every year
2.one in ten people of working age are now claiming at least one type of sickness benefit
3.spending on them has risen by more than £20 billion since the pandemic and will go up by another £10 billion by the end of the decade, even after the cuts threatening to derail Starmer’s government
大臣们公布了这些数据：
境况不佳的社会
1.每天都有1000人申请个人独立支付，相当于每年增加一个莱斯特大小的城市
2.十分之一的工作年龄的人现在要求至少一种疾病福利
3.自疫情爆发以来，在这方面的支出已经增加了200多亿英镑，到本十年末，甚至在削减开支可能使斯塔默政府翻车之后，还将再增加100亿英镑
But reforms to disability benefits — paid whether or not someone can work to compensate for the extra costs of ill health — are immensely divisive. MPs protest, with some justification, that the reforms are about saving money. Ministers respond, equally fairly, that the money needs to be saved: spending on disability benefits had doubled in real terms since the last time Labour was in power.
但是，对残疾人福利的改革——不管一个人是否能工作来补偿不健康的额外成本——存在极大的分歧。议员们抗议说改革是为了省钱，这是有一定道理的。大臣们同样公平地回应说，这笔钱需要节省：自上次工党执政以来，残疾人福利的实际支出已经翻了一番。
The trend goes further back. Although much of the increase in incapacity benefits happened as a result of de-industrialisation in the 1980s, the rise in disability spending is more recent. Even as a share of GDP, we are spending ten times as much on the benefits as we did at the start of the 1990s.
这种趋势可以追溯到更早以前。虽然丧失工作能力福利的增加大部分是上世纪80年代去工业化的结果，但残疾支出的增加是最近才出现的。即使以GDP的占比计算，我们在福利上的花费也是上世纪90年代初的10倍。
The problem boils down to this: we have promised people a level of support our worsening national health has now rendered unaffordable.
问题可以归结为：我们向人民承诺了一定程度的支持，但我们日益恶化的国家医疗现在已使我们负担不起。
Britain is becoming sicker. This is partly simply because we are getting older as a population and partly also because we eat badly and do not exercise enough. A quarter of us now report having a life-limiting disability and far more are suffering from multiple illnesses at the same time; almost a million people now have five or more health conditions, up 40 per cent since Covid.
英国的病情正在恶化。部分原因很简单，因为我们的人口在变老，部分原因是我们吃得不好，锻炼不够。现在有四分之一的人患有限制生命的残疾，更多的人同时患有多种疾病；现在有近100万人患有五种或五种以上的健康状况，自疫情以来增加了40%。
William Beveridge, the architect of the modern welfare state, assumed “the development of preventative and curative treatment” would bring down the sickness benefit bill. Instead, treatment keeps people alive to claim for longer.
现代福利国家的缔造者威廉·贝弗里奇认为，“预防性和治愈性治疗的发展”将降低疾病福利账单。相反，护理则让人们活着以申领福利更长时间。
Spending on PIPs is rising fastest among pensioners, who tend to keep claiming until they die. The total cost of PIPs for those over 66 is due to rise 40 per cent by the end of the decade, twice as fast as the rise for those of working age.
在养老金领取者中，个人独立支付支出增长最快，他们往往会一直申领到死。到2020年，66岁以上人群的个人独立支付总成本将上升40%，是工作年龄人群增幅的两倍。
Indeed, it is those with conditions of later life who would be hit hardest by government reforms making it harder to qualify for PIPs. The losers will be largely older people with arthritis or back pain.
事实上，那些晚年生活条件下的人将受到政府改革的最大打击，因为政府改革使他们更难有资格获得个人独立支付。输家将主要是患有关节炎或背痛的老年人。
More than two thirds of those with joint and muscle conditions look likely to see payments stopped. The unspoken argument is plain: Britain can no longer afford to subsidise people for the illnesses that come with ageing.
超过三分之二患有关节和肌肉疾病的人可能会停止支付。不言而喻的争论显而易见：英国再也负担不起为伴随年龄增长而出现的疾病提供补贴。
Then there is mental health. This is the fastest-growing category of claim; anxiety and depression is now the single biggest reason to claim PIPs, accounting for 16 per cent of spending. Including problems such as autism and ADHD, there are 1.4 million people claiming for “psychiatric disorders”, almost 40 per cent of the total.
然后还有心理健康。这是增长最快的申领类别；焦虑和抑郁现在是要求获得个人独立支付的最大原因，占支出的16%。包括自闭症和多动症在内，有140万人声称患有“精神疾病”，几乎占总数的40%。
NHS figures on Thursday found that 23 per cent of people of working age now have a mental disorder, up from 18 per cent a decade ago, rising to 26 per cent in 16 to 24 year-olds.
国家医疗体系周四公布的数据显示，目前23%的工作年龄人口患有精神障碍，高于10年前的18%，在16至24岁的人群中，这一比例上升至26%。
Young people are most likely to claim benefits for mental health problems and there is growing concern about a generation who may do so for decades. The number of children on disability living allowance, the precursor to PIPs, will reach a million by the end of the decade, double pre-Covid levels. Most of these are for behavioural problems such as ADHD or learning disabilities.
年轻人最有可能因为心理健康问题而要求福利，人们越来越担心这一代人可能会在几十年内这样做。到本十年末，领取残疾生活津贴（个人独立支付的前身）的儿童人数将达到100万，是疫情前的两倍。其中大多数是针对行为问题，比如多动症或学习障碍。
Jeremy Hunt, who was health secretary when the Conservatives introduced PIPs a decade ago, acknowledged that he may be “indirectly responsible” for the rise in spending through a landmark law requiring the NHS to treat mental health equally to physical health.
十年前保守党引入个人独立支付计划时的卫生大臣助理杰里米·亨特承认，他可能对支出的增加负有“间接责任”，因为他通过了一项具有里程碑意义的法律，要求国家医疗体系将精神健康与身体健康同等对待。
While his “parity of esteem” law excluded the Department for Work and Pensions, Hunt now says “it contributed to a culture where benefits assessors felt they have to treat mental health claims not just equally but exactly the same”.
虽然他的“尊重平等”法将工作和养老金部排除在外，但亨特现在表示，“这导致了一种文化，即福利评估人员认为他们不仅必须平等对待精神健康索赔，而且必须完全相同”。
Hunt said radical change was now required to deal with “an explosion of mental health conditions” the benefits system was not designed to cope with, arguing for restricting disability claims for milder problems.
亨特说，现在需要进行彻底的改革，以应对福利制度无法应对的“精神健康状况的激增”，他主张限制对较轻微问题的残疾申领。
“Talking therapies cost the NHS about £1 billion and are some of the best in the world, with a 50 per cent success rate. You could double that and it would be a lot cheaper and more effective than parking everyone on benefits,” he said.
“谈话疗法花费了给国家医疗体系大约10亿英镑，是世界上最好的疗法之一，成功率为50%。你可以将这个数字翻倍，这将比让每个人都享受福利要便宜得多，也更有效。”
The Centre for Social Justice think tank has worked up a similar proposal, embraced by the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
智库社会正义中心也提出了类似的建议，得到了保守党领袖凯米·巴德诺克的支持。
Labour, for now, disagrees. Many disability groups argue this would be discriminatory. But finally, Britain has started a debate that is perhaps a generation overdue: what is the disability benefit system really for?
工党目前不同意这种说法。许多残疾人组织认为这是一种歧视。但最终，英国开始了一场或许迟了一代人的辩论：残疾福利制度到底是为了什么？
“The thing that gets lost is that these benefits were meant to be for additional costs. So if you were immobile and had to take a taxi to work, that’s an extra cost that’s not your fault, and so the state pays to equalise you with someone who’s not disabled,” said Sir Steve Webb, a Liberal Democrat DWP minister when PIPs were introduced and now a partner at the consultancy LCP. “It feels like we’ve gone an awful long way from that.”
“被忽略的是，这些好处本来是用来弥补额外成本的。因此，如果你行动不便，不得不打车去上班，这是一笔额外的费用，这不是你的错，所以国家会付钱让你和没有残疾的人平等，”史蒂夫·韦伯爵士说。他是自由民主党在引入个人独立支付计划时担任养老金部大臣的人，现在是咨询公司LCP的合伙人。“感觉我们已经走了很长一段路。”
Back in the 1970s when Joseph created when he called “entitlement by right of disablement”, he added with masterly understatement: “I would doubt whether we have exhausted the possibility for developing that principle.”
早在20世纪70年代，当约瑟夫创造了他称之为“残疾权利的授权”时，他巧妙地轻描淡写地补充说：“我怀疑我们是否已经用尽了发展这一原则的可能性。”
It was another Conservative, John Major, who turbocharged this principle in 1992, introducing disability living allowance to compensate for the extra costs of illness. In another irony, he did so explicitly to help more disabled people get jobs, arguing the payments would give them “greater independence”.
另一位保守党人约翰·梅杰在1992年推动了这一原则，引入了残疾生活津贴，以补偿患病的额外费用。另一个具有讽刺意味的是，他这么做明确是为了帮助更多的残疾人找到工作，他辩称，补贴会让他们“更独立”。
Employment rates for the disabled have improved but spending has quadrupled in real terms by the time the Conservatives returned to power in 2010. In an effort to control costs, the coalition introduced PIPs with a requirement for “obxtive medical assessment”, yet spending continued steadily upwards.
残障人士的就业率有所改善，但到2010年保守党重新掌权时，实际支出已经翻了两番。为了控制成本，联合政府引入了带有“客观医疗评估”要求的个人独立支付计划，但支出仍在稳步上升。
Covid accelerated this generation-long trend, new claims doubling. Exactly why is surprisingly under-researched, but most experts believe it is a combination of a health hangover from the pandemic, a greater willingness to claim for mental health problems and the cost of living crisis.
疫情加速了这一长达一代人的趋势，新申请人数翻了一番。令人惊讶的是，具体原因还没有得到充分的研究，但大多数专家认为，这是大流行带来的健康后遗症、更愿意为精神健康问题提出申请以及生活成本危机的综合作用。
Claims are rising faster than disability rates and Sir Stephen Timms, the disability minister, said this week: “The cost of living challenges are a very big factor in what’s happened. People who may well have always been eligible but have not in the past claimed benefit are now doing, and that’s what’s driven this very substantial increase.”
失业救济申请的增长速度快于残疾率的增长速度，英国残疾事务大臣斯蒂芬·蒂姆斯爵士本周表示：“生活成本的挑战是造成这一现象的一个非常重要的因素。那些可能一直符合资格但过去没有申请福利的人现在正在申请，这就是推动这一数字大幅增长的原因。”
But, as Webb argued: “Going back to those additional costs, if we as a society think we just can’t meet small extra costs because too many people have them, then we should design a new benefit and be frank about that — as much as the politics will allow.”
但是，正如韦伯所说：“回到那些额外的成本，如果我们作为一个社会认为我们无法满足小的额外成本，因为太多人拥有它们，那么我们应该设计一种新的福利，并在政治允许的范围内坦率地承认这一点。”
The problem for any government is that it is far easier not to give people a benefit than to take it away once they have it. There are now 3.7 million people claiming PIP.
任何政府都面临的问题在于，不给民众利益要比民众有了利益之后再把它拿走容易得多。现在有370万人申请个人独立支付。
Beveridge recognised the inherent tension between ensuring dignity for the vulnerable while avoiding trapping people on state support. “The danger of providing benefits, which are both adequate in amount and indefinite in duration, is that men, as creatures who adapt themselves to circumstances, may settle down to them,” he wrote in his 1942 report.
贝弗里奇认识到，在确保弱势群体的尊严与避免让人们陷入政府支持的困境之间存在着内在的紧张关系。他在1942年的报告中写道：“提供数量充足、持续时间不确定的福利的危险在于，人类作为适应环境的生物，可能会对环境感到安于现状。”
More than 80 years on, we appear no closer to resolving this dilemma.
80多年过去了，我们似乎没有离解决这一困境更近一步。
评论翻译
很赞 ( 1 )
收藏
I'd rather spend more on people's wellbeing and dignity than weapons to murder civilians... Otherwise what are we even defending?
我宁愿把更多的钱花在人们的幸福和尊严上，也不愿把武器花在谋杀平民上……否则我们在捍卫什么？
gavpowell
Good? I don't want us spending the bulk of our money on defence unless we're under threat of actual occupation.
好吗？我不希望我们把大部分钱花在国防上，除非我们受到实际占领的威胁。
Responsible-Cap-8311
Maybe if corrupt politicians hadn't fraudulently awarded PPE contracts during the pandemic there'd be less
如果腐败的政客们没有在大流行期间以欺诈手段授予个人防护用品合同，开支也许会少一些
CaterpillarLoud8071
The simple answer would surely be to require disability claimants to provide receipts of the disability related costs they have and bank records. If they claim they can't get about, they'd have record that they haven't got a car, have been turned away from taxis, that others have to get their shopping, etc. Any bank statements showing they've been down to the pub would immediately show them up. Random checks of receipts of claimants would also show whether they've been spending that PIP money on something disability related.
最简单的答案当然是要求残疾申请人提供与残疾有关的费用收据和银行记录。如果他们声称自己无法出行，他们就会有自己没有车、被出租车拒之门外、别人不得不去买东西等记录。任何显示他们去过酒吧的银行对账单都会立刻暴露他们的身份。对申请人收据的随机检查也将显示他们是否将个人独立支付的钱花在了与残疾有关的事情上。
BlackPlan2018
almost like the goal of a democracy is more about looking after its people than preparing for war.
几乎就像民主的目标更多的是照顾自己的人民，而不是为战争做准备。
superjambi
almost like the goal of a democracy is more about looking after its people
Errr, is it though? I’m not sure that’s actually ever been the point of democracy. Arguably that might be the point of Communism, but that’s sort of the opposite of democracy
“几乎就像民主的目标更多的是照顾自己的人民”
呃，是吗？我不确定这是不是民主的意义所在。可以说，这可能是共产主义的意义所在，但这是民主的对立面
ShortNefariousness2
The UK has an elderly population. They are prone to health issues and poverty. We are not alone with that issue.
英国人口老龄化。他们容易出现健康问题和贫困。我们并不是唯一有这个问题的国家。
Foreskin_Ad9356
They are old already, past their time. Why should we be feeding money to people who offer nothing?
他们已经老了，过了他们的时代。我们为什么要给那些什么都不提供的人钱呢？
coffeewalnut08
I don’t see what’s wrong with that.
Are we not supposed to spend on disability?
我不觉得这有什么不好。
难道我们不应该在残疾人身上花钱吗？
GreatBritishHedgehog
Nearly 1M people now get a free car from the government
We’re speed running towards an IMF bailout.
近100万人现在从政府那里得到了一辆免费的汽车
我们正在加速向国际货币基金组织寻求救助。
bacon_cake
1 in 5 of all new cars purchased in the UK are Motability.
在英国，五分之一的新车都是给残疾人提供的。
ZephinismLiberal
Why would the IMF want to bail out a country that has an ever increasing number of disabled people who are less productive than their peer countries and little to no national assets?
If they do take mercy on us and bail us out they will absolutely rinse us.
为什么国际货币基金组织想要救助一个残疾人数量不断增加、生产力低于其他国家、几乎没有国家资产的国家？
如果他们真怜悯我们，救助我们，他们绝对会清洗我们的。
onionsofwar
Wonder how much we pay for tax breaks, tax loopholes, etc.
不知道我们为税收减免、税收漏洞等等支付了多少钱。