You may have heard that that the UK is approaching one million young people aged 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). At the end of 2025, 957,000 young people were NEET.

If they formed a city, it would be the third largest in the United Kingdom. Even larger than Leeds, Glasgow or Cardiff.

And yet, if some politicians, newspaper columnists and polemic commentators are to be believed, this is simply a generation that never engaged. A generation of social media zombies. Gen Z without a work ethic. Young people who somehow failed to get the memo about personal responsibility.

The facts, however, are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

The NEET crisis didn't come out of nowhere.

As Alan Milburn's Young People and Work review concluded, "The NEET phenomenon is grounded in social disadvantage and inequality."

The newly published APPG on Poverty and Inequality report builds on that diagnosis.

Drawing on evidence from 43 academic institutions, charities, economic institutes and people with lived experience, the inquiry places a self-reinforcing cycle of poverty at the centre of the UK's NEET crisis.

The cycle begins in childhood, where poverty and deprivation can undermine educational attainment, health and development. It continues in early adulthood, where many young people who become NEET receive little or no support. And the consequences can last a lifetime. 

And this is damning. Because if NEET is fundamentally about inequality, then it cannot be solved simply by asking young people to try harder, improve their attitudes, write better CVs or show more resilience.

It's also rather inconvenient for the meritocracy narrative.

We are often told that talent and effort determine success. Yet the evidence suggests that poverty remains one of the strongest predictors of who gets left behind. Almost as if the problem isn't a lack of aspiration, but inequality itself.

The encouraging news is that cycles can be broken. Which brings us to today.

With Andy Burnham taking over as Labour leader, there is an opportunity to rethink how we approach the NEET crisis, and the way we tackle inequality. During his time as Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham showed us his hints of progressive policies. It will be interesting to see if he will bring the same values nationally. 

The report has helpful starting points to get there. Among its recommendations are a whole-of-government strategy to reduce poverty and inequality, building on the Child Poverty Strategy, and ending the unfair lower rate of Universal Credit for under-25s, which expects young adults to survive on less despite facing the same living costs as everyone else.

Whether the new Labour leadership is prepared to act on that evidence remains to be seen.

But what it cannot ignore is that the NEET crisis isn't an employment 'problem'. It is a product borne from the cycle of inequality.

And if that cycle was created by policy, it can be broken by policy.