The interim Milburn Review on young people and work, published at the end of May 2026, is the opening salvo in the Labour government’s renewed drive to push through swingeing cuts to welfare spending. These cuts are required by the ruling class in order to divert vast sums of money into military spending while maintaining the profitability of capital. Following the failure of an attempt last year to cut disability benefits, when Labour was forced into a humiliating U-turn by a backbench revolt, this new attack comes prettily packaged as 217 pages of heartfelt concern at the plight of the nearly one million 16–24-year-olds not currently in employment, education or training (NEETs), warning that Britain is on the path to a ‘generational, societal and economic catastrophe’.
The investigation by Alan Milburn, a former health secretary under Labour prime minister Tony Blair, warns that the number of NEETs in Britain will rise from one in eight young people to one in six within five years if urgent measures are not taken to reform what he describes as a ‘broken’ welfare system. The review found that:
- Youth unemployment currently stands at 14.7% – the highest in more than a decade and in contrast to a national unemployment figure of 5%;
- 6 in 10 NEETs have never had a job, although 84% of those surveyed said they would want to train or get work;
- 600,000 of these young people are economically inactive due to poor physical or mental health;
- Education is increasingly ineffective at guaranteeing jobs or further training, with 30% of NEETs having good GCSEs and 15% a degree or other higher education qualification.
This is a picture of young working-class lives blighted by capitalism. Young people are increasingly excluded from the job market with even entry level jobs denied to them by shrinking vacancies, the prevalence of AI and the unwillingness of employers – citing raised National Insurance Contributions – to take them on. The number of vacancies in hospitality for example has decreased by 50% since 2022. What jobs are available are low-paid, precarious and unrewarding, overwhelming concentrated in platform and zero-hour gig economy conditions. No wonder so many young people are simply not bothering to look for work, much as many would like to, suffering from deteriorating mental health and experiencing homelessness; housing charities say 124,000 people aged under 24 are now homeless or at risk of homelessness, up 6% since last year. The issue is most acute in the north of England and the Midlands, and amongst young people who have struggled with school, have been in care or have additional needs. Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that children who grow up in poverty (one in three in Britain today) are three times more likely not to be in education, employment or training by age 17 or 23.
But the point of the review is not to transform the lives of these working-class young people but rather to force them off meagre benefits into low-paid, precarious employment and save the state the more than £125bn a year it costs to support them. The review argues against raising the minimum wage for 18-20 year olds (currently £10.85 an hour), despite this being a Labour manifesto pledge. Instead it offers a plethora of new work experience schemes and low-paid jobs in the entertainment, hospitality and care industries, where private companies like Merlin Entertainment and Costa Coffee will receive thousands of pounds in subsidies to take them on. We have been here before, from the ill-fated Youth Training Scheme of the 1980s to the Youth Credits and Modern Apprenticeships that followed a decade later. This new Youth Jobs Grant will only provide a few hundred jobs but should suffice as a sweetener to persuade backbenchers to accept the report.
The real consequences of the review, along with those of the parallel Timms Review into disability benefits published in June, will become clear after September, when recommendations for action are published. Because, make no mistake, behind the apparently compassionate language of both reports lies the steely determination of the capitalist state to cut spending on the working class. Both reviews were commissioned by the Labour Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden, who on 15 July stated that the government must ‘stop writing a blank cheque’ to benefit claimants – despite Britain’s working age benefits being the lowest in Europe. It is no surprise that McFadden keeps his post under new Labour prime minister Andy Burnham: there is a job to be done for British capitalism and Labour is signalling its readiness to carry it out. As well as drastic benefit cuts, there will be sanctions and other punitive measures to force young people into poverty-pay jobs and measures to deter working class young people from going to university, channelling a chosen few into vocational and technical training with the majority consigned to form part of a low-paid, low-skilled reserve army of labour tailored to capitalism’s needs. Young people face a choice: to accept the grim dictates of capital, or to organise, resist and fight for the better future that only socialism can offer.
Cat Wiener
