Recently, Liz Kendall—now the UK’s Work and Pensions Secretary—criticized the term “economically inactive”, calling it a “terrible” phrase to describe those out of the labour market. She’s right. It’s a cold, clinical label that erases the real, complex lives behind it: people living with chronic illness, disability, caregiving responsibilities, and mental health struggles.
For too long, policymakers have relied on this kind of technocratic shorthand to frame non-working populations as a problem to be solved, rather than citizens to be supported. "Economically inactive" suggests stagnation, burden, even blame. But what it hides are the social and structural failings that push people out of work—lack of accommodation, inadequate healthcare, unaffordable care systems, and inaccessible workplaces.
That Kendall is distancing herself from this language signals a shift, at least rhetorically. But words are just the beginning. If we truly want to honour the humanity of those left behind by austerity and neglect, we need more than new terminology—we need a radically different vision of work, health, and dignity.
Because when a label like “economically inactive” is allowed to define someone’s worth, we’ve already lost sight of what a just society demands.
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