Failure to adequately support young adult carers costs UK £1bn

Failure to adequately support young adult carers costs UK £1bn

In September the London School of Economics and the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre released new research showing that the lack of support for young adult carers cost the UK £1bn per year, as well as coming at a high personal cost to the individuals. Providing unpaid care can negatively affect the employment prospects, physical health and mental wellbeing of young adults.

The research is the first to calculate the knock-on costs of these individual impacts to the government, and they break down as estimated £497 million in forgone tax revenue, £357 million for welfare benefits and £194 million for health service costs. The study due data from 7,000 young carers. More here.