Government spends 25 times more on benefits than jobs for young people, says Milburn

According to the author of a big study into youth inactivity, the government spends 25 times more on youth in benefits than it does on supporting them into jobs.

Alan Milburn, a former minister, told the BBC that this was shameful and that, with nearly a million young people not working or in education (NEETs), a complete system reset was needed.

Milburn said in an exclusive interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday that it was absolutely vital that Labour reformed the health service, even though the government had shelved some proposed healthcare reforms in the face of opposition from their own MPs.

This week, the first part of his government-commissioned study into the issue will be released.

Milburn's estimates are based on the number of 16- and 24-year-olds enrolled in primary work and pensions as well as Jobcentre Plus's main employment programmes.

The amount invested in welfare is dependent on the amount invested in key services, including universal credit, PLP, Jobseeker's Allowance, PIP, and Disability Living Allowance. In the paper, the complete methodology will be revealed later this week.

The former Labour health secretary under Tony Blair was asked by the government to look into why so many young people were in the position of not working, studying, or enrolling in training courses, the highest level in more than ten years.

In the United Kingdom, there were 97,000 young people who were NEET from October to December 2025, roughly equivalent to 12. According to the most recent estimates from the Office of National Statistics, 8 per cent of people in that age group were in that category, which was released in February.

Since they were not looking for jobs, more than half of those were deemed to be inactive.

Milburn's initial report, released this week, said it would come as a result of a widespread lack of support for the state.

This is a failure. This is the failure of the social care system, but it's a failure, I'm sorry, of the education system, the education structure, and the health care system,

he explained.

"We're not prioritising getting young people into a situation where they're learning or earning, rather than bringing them into monetary benefits that have incalculable costs for their life.

He cited a main finding of the study on the disparities between the amount of money spent on helping young people on benefits and how much money goes into state-funded programs to help them get them back to work.

What is shameful? We discovered in the course of this investigation that every £25 we spend keeping young people on benefits, we spent just over a pound to help them get into work through employment assistance," he said.

Welfare reform 'absolutely essential'

Milburn's key findings into the issue will be published later this year, but Milburn said that there must be a reform of the benefits system, part of which must be completed. He was directly advising those in the Labour Party who are concerned about welfare reforms, saying, 'Labour is what it says on the tin.' It's the party of work. Work gives purpose. Work gives income. Work gives meaning.

Welfare reform is absolutely vital and must be carried out,

he said. However, as I said, it's going to be within the context of a larger series of changes to state agencies. Milburn's book

would also discuss the challenges young people face in work, concluding that the rise in mental health problems is real. However, he will argue that such diagnoses should not mean young people are not expected or welcomed into the workplace. He said there were fewer part-time jobs for young people, adding that he was fired from his first job doing a paper round when he were 13 in Newcastle.

Like all adolescent boys, guess what? I couldn't get out of bed, he said. He was fired for not delivering the papers, according to him.

It's the first time in my life so far, but I've never been fired from anything.

he said. However, he said he had learned from the experience.

Effort and praise, there's something going on here, and the number of young people actually working is decreasing, and it's likely that it'll be down for at least 25 years.

Entry-level jobs are losing, he said, but the ones that you used to be able to get to the first rung on the ladder have gone.