The UK government has put forward ambitious plans to reform the UK’s employment support system. Helping people to find, stay in and succeed at work is a complex policy area. With unemployment at historically low levels, the key issue driving these new reforms is the high number of people – nine million across the country – considered to be “economically inactive”.

Economic inactivity measures the number of people who are not in work, but who are also not actively seeking it. Many who fall into this category are unable to work and should not be expected to.

However, such high levels are a worrying indicator of widespread exclusion from the labour market. This is bad news for individuals, given the many benefits that being in (good-quality) work brings. It is also bad news for the government’s economic growth ambitions – as it acknowledges, the talents of too many people are being wasted.

The reasons behind economic inactivity are complex. Ill health is the main reported reason (a record 2.8 million people are out of work in the UK due to long-term sickness). This includes mental ill health, especially among young people, alongside caring responsibilities.

But it’s not just high levels of economic inactivity that are worrying – once in employment, UK workers experience high levels of in-work poverty and insecure work. Those entering low-paid and insecure work often get stuck there. Analysis has also found that insecure workers are more likely than those with secure jobs to become unemployed or........

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