"Meet The Neets"

Neets, if you were unaware, is an acronym referring to people between the age of 16 - 24 who are "Not in Education, Employment or Training." There's now over 1.2 million of them in this country, representing a fifth of people in that age group who are literally sitting around doing nothing all day.

As the Telegraph reported (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/15/neets15.xml):

"Among their ranks are the troubled, the badly educated, and the feckless and work-shy. In the 16 to 19 age bracket, 11 per cent are classed as Neets - double the proportion in Germany and France."

This is clearly going to be a massive problem for the UK and these people will be a huge burden on the working taxpayers:

"The research... calculates that this "lost generation" is costing the country £3.65 billion a year - enough to fund a 1p cut in income tax. Indeed, the Government's own figures estimate that each new Neet dropping out of education at 16 will cost the taxpayer an average of £97,000 during their lifetime. The worst will cost more than £300,000."

And all of this despite an election manifesto which, in 1997, promised great reforms to the Welfare State and making it clear through the Welfare-To-Work scheme, that indolence would not be an option.

"In reality, this "get tough" approach is not quite what it seems. When a young person signs on to the New Deal, they spend four months talking to their personal adviser about options. If a job is not found, they are given a "package of full-time help", such as a remedial skills course or work experience, and paid a "training allowance". If the young person is still without work after that, they make a new claim for the jobseeker's allowance - and the whole process starts again."