Official statistics in the United Kingdom show that more young people than ever before are claiming disability benefits after being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) amid growing calls for the benefits system to be overhauled.
According to government statistics from July 2024 to April 2026, at least 40 percent of those receiving disability benefits, also known as personal independence payments (PIP), are people with psychiatric disorders.
Moreover, the number of people claiming disability benefits for ADHD with no requirement to work rose from 71,528 in July 2024 to 100,207 in April this year. The rise is largely down to an increase in the number of young people aged 16 to 24 making claims, according to official government figures reported by The Times newspaper this week.
Referring to The Times report on Tuesday, opposition Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would stop people with mild mental health conditions from receiving disability benefits, suggesting that the report had supported her case.
But Mindy Ptolomey, a lecturer in disability studies at the University of Leeds, said the focus on young people diagnosed with ADHD and receiving disability benefits was “disingenuous”.
“I think there’s also an important point that most social security money – the benefits that people receive – go directly back into the economy, so people are buying goods and services. They’re paying for their utilities,” Ptolomey told Al Jazeera.
“So this is money that continues to circulate in the economy. It’s not being taken out and put somewhere else. It’s actually circulating in our society,” she added.
Here’s what we know:
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) released a report on June 16 showing the number of people claiming PIP had reached four million in April, a 2 percent increase from January 31.
“Of these, 3.3 million (83 percent) were of Working Age and 680,000 (17 percent) were of State Pension Age. 37 percent received the highest level of award, the same level as in January 2026,” the report said.
The Times reported that of those claiming PIP for ADHD, “about four in 10 are receiving the top rate of daily living and mobility allowances worth up to £194 [$259] a week”.
It added: “Official statistics show that the government has approved an average of 40 personal independence payments (PIP) a day over the past two years in which ADHD is cited as the main condition.”
According to the government, people are eligible to be signed off from work and receive the payments if they have either a “long-term physical or mental health condition or disability” or “difficulty doing certain everyday tasks or getting around because of your condition”.
Not all people on PIP are signed off from work or cannot work. That is determined by an assessment within the process. While there are no official figures of how many people who receive PIP have been signed off from work, 2.8 million people are “economically inactive due to health conditions”, including mental health and disabilities, according to government statistics updated last week.
ADHD is characterised by an inability to pay attention to things, having high energy levels and being impulsive, according to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).
Symptoms of the disorder usually start before the age of 12 and are thought to be less recognised in women than men due to symptoms presenting differently.
But getting an official diagnosis of ADHD in the UK can be a long process, campaigners say.
Those who have the disorder have to see a GP who will then decide whether to refer them to a specialist for an official assessment. This can take several months or even years.
Treatments for ADHD range from behavioural therapy to medications.
NHS figures from May showed that an estimated 2.4 million people in England have ADHD, including those without a diagnosis. It added that of those, an estimated 741,000 are aged 5-24.
Figures also show that in March, 32,375 new referrals were received for a possible ADHD assessment, a 29.5 percent increase from March 2025.
While the numbers seem high, Ptolomey said the UK may in fact be facing an “underdiagnosis crisis”.
“It’s practically impossible for some young people in the UK right now to access an ADHD diagnosis on the NHS. Some areas’ waiting lists are closed entirely. In some areas, it’s a decade that you would be waiting to have a diagnosis,” she said.
Even then, receiving benefits is not a given, she said.
“It’s also very important to say that PIP is not assessed on the basis of things like having a diagnosis; it isn’t an automatic award that you will get. It has an assessment process that’s not related to immediately getting access to benefits if you’ve had a diagnosis. So a lot of things are being conflated together here that are actually quite separate issues,” Ptolomey explained.
Disability benefits are financial payments to people with disabilities or long-term health conditions that affect daily life, including their ability to work.
The most common disability benefits include PIP, universal credit, disability living allowance, and employment and support allowance.
To receive some of these, such as some PIP and universal credit claims under which a person is assessed as having a limited capability for work and work-related activity, there is no requirement to be in work.
According to government figures in March, from 2024 to 2025, 45 percent of young people aged 16-24 who were classed as not in education, employment or training (NEET) were instead classed as disabled, an “increase of 24 percentage points since 2013/14”, a government report said.
“In 2024/25, disabled young people were more than three times as likely to be NEET (29.6 percent) compared to non-disabled young people (8.7 percent),” it added.
According to official statistics, from 2025 to 2026, the government is expected to spend 77.1 billion pounds ($102.8bn) on benefits to support people with disabilities and people with health conditions and 37.3 billion pounds ($49.7bn) on housing benefits.
So far, there are no official figures on how much it costs to provide ADHD-related benefits specifically.
Disability Minister Stephen Timms is expected to release the results of a landmark review into the disability welfare system this week.
The review, which was conducted in consultation with people with disabilities, advocates and charities, is expected to be released in two parts with the latter part to be published in the autumn.
It is expected to find that the system for assessing people with disabilities for benefits is dehumanising and also hinders people from seeking work, The Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
It added that the review is expected to conclude that the points-based system of assessment, which considers the severity of a condition in terms of mobility and daily living, is “in effect worthless because of the rising number of new conditions – particularly relating to mental health – that can fluctuate considerably in severity”.
Reforming welfare benefits is a long-term battle the British government has been engaged in to free up spending on other programmes.
Under the previous Conservative government, claiming benefits became significantly harder after claimants were required to undergo more frequent face-to-face assessments. The policy was later adopted by the now ruling Labour Party, which said it aimed to increase face-to-face assessments from 12 percent to 30 percent.
In 2024, research commissioned by the DWP found that among people surveyed who were claiming PIP, 17 percent said the in-person assessment made them “less likely to apply”.
In the same year, national disability charity Sense found that while in-person assessments were not necessarily a bad practice, it found that the system as a whole was taking a toll on the health and wellbeing of people with disabilities.
Since coming to power in 2024, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has tried and failed to push through plans to cut PIP spending further by restricting eligibility. These plans would have saved 4.8 billion pounds ($6.4bn), but Starmer was forced to drop the welfare reform bill after 49 Labour MPs voted against a second reading in the House of Commons.
The MPs argued that the bill could leave more people in the country in relative poverty.
Andy Burnham, a Labour MP and the frontrunner to take over from Starmer after he announced his resignation on June 22, told The Times last month that he was “not squeamish” about overhauling the system.
While he warned against “crude” cuts to the system, he insisted that he wanted to get more young people into work.
Ptolomey said that while it is clear the welfare system as it stands needs to be reformed, this must be done with the needs of those with disabilities at the forefront.
“This isn’t about people wanting social security for all of these spurious reasons that are suggested, [such as] being lazy. Disabled people, young disabled people and young people with ADHD really want to contribute and participate in their community, and PIP should be one of the many mechanisms in our society that help people to do that,” she said.
