I'm not surprised by this. Years ago I saw a powerful Brit film called "I, Daniel Blake", which was a fictional story based on research about the Department Of Work And Pensions, about a middle-aged man who suffers a heart attack, is unable to work, but is denied disability pension and forced to go thru the hamster wheel of pretending to seek work so he can at least collect unemployment benefits. The movie shows how cruel the system became after the Thatcher regime and also parallels what happened in America during the same time under Reagan as the safety net was destroyed, first thru de-institutionalization of the mentally ill and disabled, then with the shredding of support programs in the community, which were supposed to help those sent away from institutions.

At the end of "I, Daniel Blake", the Blake character finally gets his appeal hearing on his disability pension case, month after being denied, but he dies of a heart attack the day of the hearing. The film also features a friend of his on unemployment, a younger woman, who is reduced to seeking work from an escort service in order to provide for her two children.

Needless to say, when the system makes life so hopeless for the unemployed, mentally ill, and disabled in America and the UK, I'm surprised there aren't way more suicides than we already have.....

M. Thatcher started the downward spiral, when it was plain that reform was needed even back then. But instead of well thought through reform of course , she went for cheap money saving stunts called "Care in the community." which opened the doors to all forms of cuts, and money saving spins.

The idea of labor rights was strangled here, in d$A, too so unable to gain their full intention. Now people think the idea just failed b/c of economics. I didn't read the story, though, b/c I'm retired and no longer care about what conditions people toil under in either nation.