The Telegraph has posted the crass news story of the day in one of its morning emails, saying:
Graduates claiming benefits surge to 700,000
Hundreds of thousands of graduates are claiming benefits amid a post-pandemic surge in people who say they are too sick to work.
Analysis of official data by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) showed there were 707,000 people with a university degree at the end of last year who were out of work and claiming one or more benefits.
This is up 46pc compared with pre-lockdown levels in 2019 and has been driven by a doubling in the number of graduates who claim they cannot work because of a health condition.
Of course, if you dig a little deeper, the story is about The Telegraph's hatred of graduates, all of whom it thinks exist to reinforce left-wing opinion. It is also abiut its support for Reform, who get the opportunity to comment in the piece, and its hatred of people with mental ill health, all of whom are skivers in the Telegraph's opinion, and of of its loathing of benefits, which should very clearly not exist in the opinion the Telegraph's economics editor, who authored this piece, In that case, the preamble should be seen as an exercise in turning up the heat for all the prejudice that follow.
But then, let me stand back from what was said and just consider how crass the claim is. After all, the underlying assumption is that if you are a graduate, you should not be ill. There is no argument as to why. There is no explanation for the thesis. It is either just taken that graduates are superior beings who should not be ill, or instead, the crassness of the assumption is ignored to let the prejudices flow.
What is also ignored is the fact that graduates may be more likely to be ill. They should be trained in critical thinking. They should be able to better understand the world around them. They should see through the hollowness of the claims made for the neoliberal world we are asked to live in. If they can, why wouldn't they have increasing rates of mental ill health? After all, shouldn't that be the rational reaction to what they see and understand? This possibility is, of course, not considered, although the article does promote apprenticeships over university courses. To no one's surprise, the Telegraph would prefer that people not be taught to think.
This is crass journalism. It is unfettered prejudice. It is the sort of material that a dying economic system pumps out to perpetuate its claim that all is well, really, and any impression to the contrary is just the population's own fault. And this is also what happens before an edifice falls. It is the manic cry of a failing system wailing that about those who do not appreciate it.
But that does not stop it from also being crass, unintelligent and abusive of the intelligence of the Telegraph reader. I will avoid the obvious comments.
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It seems that the Telegraph is saying that it is better to be it ignorant and never know anything at all. And in case you do know something what you should do instead is claim the truth is actually false. All you have to do is think about it hard enough and you will be fine. And if you dont you are lazy and you don’t deserve benefits.
So what exactly is that as a percentage of working age graduates in the UK & how does it compare with the population as a whole – I suggest probably favourably.
Without the figures I suggest that its a non story in fact the figures are per Google AI
87.6% of UK Graduates are in employment compared with 75.1% of the working age population
In short another steaming pile of something that I put on my potato’s to make them grow
Maybe a lot of those graduates are ill because of the huge amount of debt that they carry by daring to want to learn.
People need to recognise that Universities are a business and will entice young people on to courses regardless of their worth to employers. And many undergraduate courses offer little employment value. Now if a young person enjoys the course shoukd they still do it and rank up the debt? i would suggest not. All the evidence is out there as to the employment opportunities for a course from a particular University. I would argue many courses are unsustainable as are many of the low end Universities.
So, what do you propose?
And why do you think education is all about earnings?
Please tell, explaining whether yiu are a graduate or not, and if so whether you have student debt.
Yes indeed Mike.
The Guardian reported on Saturday about a nurse who began working for the NHS after graduating 4 years ago. Her debt has ballooned from £57000 to £77000 as her repayments are not keeping up with the interest. It will be 25 years before the debt is written off. What a millstone to carry through life. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jan/23/student-loans-graduates-plan-2-interest-rates
Agreed.
Two members of the team here have such debt.
Two do not.
That is the generational divide in action.
I totally agree with you. I haven’t read the Telegraph article but no doubt it is a disgraceful manipulation of statistics for, as you point out, political ends. I am disappointed that the article’s author Szu Ping Chan presumably a competent economics journalist would fall for such crass politicisation – is she no longer independent minded? I would have thought given her background, e.g. Morley Fool (admittedly neoliberal but not overtly left or right wing nor culture war focused), she would be pointing out that although non-graduates remain three to four times more likely than graduates to claim Universal Credit on a per-capita basis, the sharp growth in Universal Credit and sickness claims among graduates is a serious warning sign, suggesting underlying weaknesses in the nation’s health and in the economy itself.
With help from ChatGPT 5.2, a summary comparison statistics for graduates non graduates is as follows (apologies for the formatting as I have just copied and pasted the relevant parts of the ChatGPT conversation):
“As of early 2025:
About 24 million people claimed some type of DWP benefit.
Around 10 million were working-age claimants.
Universal Credit claimants alone were ~7.5 million.”
“Graduates on benefits (≈700k) are a small proportion of total benefit claimants (≈24 m total, ≈10 m working age), but still a notable number in absolute terms.
Graduates make up around 8–12% of Universal Credit claimants depending on measure and period.
By contrast, around 33–34% of adults in England & Wales hold a degree, meaning graduates are under-represented among benefit claimants relative to their share of the adult population.”
“Group Estimated Claimants in 2019 Estimated Claimants in 2025 % Change since 2019
Graduates on benefits: ~485k ~700k +~46%
Graduates on sickness/health grounds: ~117k ~240k +~105%
Total benefit claimants (all ages): ~20.0 million ~24.0 million +~20%
Working-age benefit claimants ~6.8 million ~10.0 million +~47%
Working-age health-related benefit claimants (all) ~4.2 million +24% ”
“Graduate share of UC claimants: ~11.9 % of Universal Credit claimants
Graduate share of adult population: ~33–34 % hold degree-level qualifications.”
“In relative rate terms: Graduate claim rate relative to their population share: ~0.36 (11.9 % of claimants ÷ 33 % of population). Non-graduate claim rate relative to their share: ~1.31 (88.1 % ÷ 67 %). Implying non-graduates are roughly 3–4× more likely to be on UC than graduates on a per-capita basis.”
Thyan ks.
Appreciated.
It highlights how crass the claims are.
I’m increasingly frustrated by media that quote figures out of context in a blatant attempt to mislead in support of their ill-considered agendas. Worse, Government and its agencies are now starting to use the same tactics.
As one example, Evan Edinger has today released an excellent fisk of OfCom’s very selective use of the data it collected in its ‘report’ on the state of public broadcasting in the UK.
https://youtu.be/Naruaf0MsSI
This line of media attack on graduates and the “benefit bill” is typical neoliberal distraction tactics.
MSNOW reported last week that the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karl, in an interview in Davos said:
“No one needs to go to college anymore”
“AI will mean there will be enough jobs for everyone to work in their own country, so there will be no need to emigrate.”
“AI will destroy humanities jobs”.
Says it all. Only the best for the elites and the rest of you will do as you are told.
Precisely.
Well highlighted Richard.
The agenda here is not to accurately investigate in order to find solutions, it simply to serve up to their audience, another identified group to be vilified.
This divisive politics relies on people having hate towards “undeserving” groups in society regardless of the exact details.
It’s a case of “look at those undeserving so_an_sos over there” (don’t look at us who are the ones causing your misery.