Results tagged “welfare”

I blogged yesterday on the public's support for out-of-work benefit reforms. Bizarrely enough the same survey included a question on Disability Living Allowance (DLA), even though DLA isn't an out-of-work benefit.

Leaving this point and what it represents to one side (aside from one implication, which I'll highlight below), the results were as follows:

• 69% of people support more stringent testing for people receiving Disability Living Allowance
• Broken down by voting intention, 86% of Tories support more stringent testing, and 70% of Lib Dems. The figure is 58% for Labour voters
• Some 76% of social grade ABC1s support it, and 58% of C2DEs
• Taking the opposite view, 20% of people oppose the introduction of more stringent testing for people receiving DLA
• Broken down by voting intention, some 6% of Tories oppose more stringent testing, 22% of Lib Dems and 32% of Labour supporters
• Around 14% of ABC1s oppose more stringent testing and 27% of C2DEs oppose it.

Once again, the similarity between Tory and Lib Dem views on the case for more stringent testing is interesting, though the Tories are alone in their opposition to more stringent testing - just 6% of them oppose it.

Now - and here's the implication I alluded to earlier - it could be the case that people are confusing Disability Living Allowance as an out-of-work benefit. It isn't (more here). If people knew what DLA was actually for, I would hope they wouldn't hold the same views as they apparently do above.

But taking the findings at face value, nearly 7 in 10 people support stricter testing, which is more than enough for the government's proposals on DLA to pass relatively smoothly through the machinery of government.

If this is the case, then this should be of significant concern to people who support disability equality, and should be taken into account in the campaigning or influencing approach taken to opposing the effective cuts, or attempts to minimise their damaging effects.

Iain Duncan Smith, launching his welfare reforms on Thursday 11 November 2010:

These announcements are an important step towards reform. They aren’t driven by a desire to moralise or lecture.

Iain Duncan Smith, speaking about his welfare reforms on Thursday 11 November 2010:

[I]t's a sin that people fail to take up work

(For more on the government's use of language, start here.)

A welfare cheat is like a mugger who robs you on the street

That was George Osborne in yesterday's News of the World (behind a paywall) talking about welfare cheats.

It's churlish to note the use of his language, though that's not going to stop me, because it was David Cameron who said that

We will be challenging lobby groups that are making inflammatory arguments. We will take their claims on. We will highlight when it is irresponsible to make statements like that.

and Osborne has form.

Osborne is being inflammatory and irresponsible - and his arguments are part of a narrative that is willfully ignorant and deliberately manipulative (as I've highlighted here and here) - so it's down to us to continue take his claims on.

I'll start by reminding people that most disability benefits are not work- or sickness-related. For example, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) helps with the additional costs of disability, primarily related to personal care. It is for people under 65, though you can continue to be in receipt of DLA over the age of 65 if you have it before you are 65. (Attendance Allowance is the equivalent for people over 65. Both are non-means tested.)

And rather than pejorative statements that play to Osborne's prejudices, let's introduce some facts:

• More disabled people live in relative poverty than non-disabled people, and are less likely to be in employment or have education qualifications than non-disabled people of the institutional barriers they face in society. Calling disabled people welfare cheats doesn't solve the issue. It ignores it.
• 80% of DLA claimants are in the bottom 60% of income, meaning more precisely that DLA is targeted exactly at those disabled people who live in relative poverty. This is not a lifestyle choice. No one chooses to live in relative poverty.
• The fraud rate for DLA is 0.5%. For Income Support that figure is 2.9%, for Incapacity Benefit it's 1% and for Jobseekers Allowance it's 2.8%. The DWP's own administrative error rate is 0.8% (stats via ). For a benefit specifically focusing on disabled people, does that sounds like widespread fraud?

Feel free to add your own thoughts on Osborne's fatally damaging narrative. If you're interested in this topic, do also check out , Anne Wollenberg, Louise Bolotin and , all of whom make great and thoughtful contributions to this issue.

This post also appears on the excellent blog, which is keeping tracks of the budget cuts and the impact on (disability) benefits

I'd love to know what it's like being someone with the mindset of a Daily Mail reader. It must be fascinating to be outraged by something today that is the exact opposite of the thing you were outraged by yesterday.

The subject of benefits is ripe ground for this: on the one side you have the "benefit scrounging scum" who are displaying frankly extraordinary skill and expertise in amassing small fortunes at the expense of your average hard-working taxpayer. On the other, you have "our brave lads" and "heroes" whose sacrifice and commitment to our way of life the government isn't valuing by scrimping and saving on the measly difference of a few quid a week.

Into this melting pot of prejudice, hypocrisy and knee-jerk reaction enters the "hero officer blinded by gunman Raoul Moat", David Rathband. The DWP has assessed him as being eligible for the lower mobility component of Disability Living Allowance, £18.95 a week, compared to the higher rate of £49.85.

Predictably, the Daily Mail is appaled by this decision, branding it "paltry" and quoting Mr Rathband as follows:

If only they knew how hard it is being blind. I need help just to get to the end of my garage. Each day is a challenge to get about. As a blind person you have to learn a route in your mind, if it's walking to the shops and back, and it's taken me six weeks just to do that. How on earth does that make me mobile? I'm going to appeal the decision. I don't know if I'll win or not but this is a point of principle.

This, of course, from the the paper which gave us:

— George Osborne's remedy for a crippling benefit (bonus points for particularly distasteful use of language)

— The boom towns transformed into benefit blackspots

— 76% of those who say they're sick 'can work': Tests weed out most seeking incapacity benefit

— Osborne begins crackdown on incapacity benefit cheats with plans to treble assessments

— Just one in six incapacity benefit claimants 'is genuine' as tough new test reveals TWO MILLION could be cheating (extra style points for use of capital letter for emphasis)

All in all, this amounts to the usual, ill-informed hypocrisy of the Daily Mail. Only it could glowingly quote a hero talking about the "principle" of the positive difference benefits makes in their day-to-day life, whilst at the same time lambasting every other benefit recipient as a "scrounger".

With all due respect to Mr Rathband and the difficulties he will undoubtedly face for the rest of his life, there are plenty of people in far worse a position than him who are being targeted by the coalition government's wilful confusion of Disability Living Allowance as an "out-of-work benefit" and the Daily Mail's gleeful coverage of people that fit the bill.

Perhaps the Daily Mail should recognise how hard it is being a disabled person by ensuring everybody gets the right level of welfare support they need, rather than just those it happens to think are the most deserving.

More of that, erm, non-inflammatory language from the coalition government today, with this offer from Nick Clegg:

Welfare needs to become an engine of mobility, changing people's lives for the better, rather than a giant cheque written by the state to compensate the poor for their predicament.

Compensate "the poor" for their "predicament"?

It's like living in a Dickens novel.

Earlier this week, Iain Duncan Smith gave a key note speech on reforming welfare. This was in light of the Emergency Budget.

I think it's worth noting that he doesn't mention disabled people or Disability Living Allowance once.

Why should he? It's not like there are any issues arising from the Budget that affect either of these. Apart from this, of course.

Lawrence M Mead:

In 1986, Mead's big idea was to push welfare recipients into jobs - an approach that came to be known as "workfare". Unlike those on the left who wanted to change capitalism, Mead wanted to change the poor. The academic argued that disorder stemming from the actions of the inner-city poor, rather than a lack of opportunity, lay at the collapse of their communities. What was needed, he argued, was to "enforce values that had broken down" with an expensive, intrusive bureaucracy that "helped and hassled" people back to work…

Mead's solutions are controversial - being simultaneously draconian and costly. More than 2.5 million people in Britain on disability benefits, he says, is "way too high" and claimants must be forced into an "activity". There should be benefit cuts to drastically shake out those claiming fraudulently, says Mead. "People say they want to work but they are not actually working."

Danny Dorling:

If I were advising him [Frank Field] on his review, I would suggest he start by looking at what George Bush enacted in his last days in office as president of the United States. He signed into law an extension of unemployment benefits. Despite his political instincts for "tough love" of the poor, and despite the US's precarious financial position, full unemployment benefits were extended by another seven weeks across the country and by as much as 20 weeks in those states where unemployment rates were highest. When unemployment is high and rising, you raise benefits because it is clear there are many more people looking for work than there are jobs. Even Bush got this.

Barack Obama went further and significantly raised taxes on the rich to pay for increased benefits for what Americans call "struggling Americans", "Americans with disabilities", "American children" and "elderly Americans", to remind themselves that others are like them.

Following my lengthy post on the new coalition government's report on Poverty, Welfare and Dependency, I thought I'd point you to the United Kingdom Disabled People's Council response to the report. It picks up on many of the same points I made in my post, and very usefully goes further by pointing out where the coalition government's report fails to mention many other issues relating to disabled people. These include young disabled people, not distinguishing between disability and sickness, the role of employers in combating unemployment in the disabled population and housing.

The UKDPC's conclusion is apt:

Overall, it is worrying that Government is not appearing to engage with the basic needs of disabled people to maximise the realisation of aspirational participation in all aspects of community life. The failure to access goods and services and choice and control in our lives is cause for concern...

The State of the Nation Report should be seen as an opportunity for scrutinising the effects of economic deprivation and barriers to employment for disabled people within the body of the report. It would then be possible to undertake a more realistic analysis of the projected need for benefit support and range of available options. It should also be a vehicle for social equality and challenge precepts of prejudice and discrimination. There is a notable lack of such in the existing text.

The new coalition government published its "State of the Nation" report on "Poverty, Worklessness and Welfare Dependency" last week. This is clearly an important document since it sets out the perspective from which a key department will operate in a vital area over the coming parliament and, as the document itself notes, provides an overview that "will be used to inform policy decisions" (p6).

This posts notes some key themes of and issues with the report, particularly relating to Disability Living Allowance.

The first point is the overarching narrative the report builds. It is one that supports the 'Broken Britain' soundbite we've heard so much over the last few months. I've made the point before that "governing in the national interest" depends on what you think is in the national interest, and much the same stands for the issues of poverty and welfare. How you approach these issues and the outcomes you are hoping to achieve is informed fundamentally by your political beliefs.

Thus, in my view, the report is quick to note statistics and trends that support the 'Broken Britain' narrative, especially focusing on people out of work and on benefits. The language it uses cements this, talking of people 'parked on benefits (p3), and the main imperative of the report is one that identifies work as the means to solve the majority of problems the report highlights.

I have no direct issue with this - it is the prerogative of a government to build a narrative in whatever way it wants to. It is worth noting, though - as the report itself does - that relative poverty (i.e. those on less than 60% of median income) fell between 1997/98 to 2008/09 (p15) and that absolute poverty (those on less than 60% of 1998/99 real-terms median income) also fell over the past decade (p15). Similarly, wealth inequality in 2005 was around the same level as it was in 1996 (p22). I can selectively quote statistics, too, it would seem.

The report is good on noting the inbuilt disadvantage that many groups of people face. For example, it notes that disabled people:

• Are more likely to live in poverty (29% of families live in poverty when at least one family member is disabled, compared with
• 20% of families with no disabled people) (p8)
• Are more likely to live in persistent poverty compared to non-disabled people (11% compared to 5%) (p18)
• Are less likely to be in work (over half of disabled people do not work) (p9)
• Are less likely to have formal qualifications (24% of disabled people have no formal qualification) (p12)

It has similar statistics for people from BME backgrounds, though not for people at different income levels.

But the report then doesn't note the factors which lead to these institutional barriers: it appears good enough to note 24% of disabled people have no formal qualifications or that over half are not in work and offer no reasons for this. The effect is to create a suspicion whichs fall on disabled people as not trying hard enough to gain a qualification or get a job - something it is convenient not to correct in order to maintain the overall narrative.

(Similarly, pupils with Special Educational Needs face some of the most significant barriers to educational achievement it is possible to face. However, the only mention of pupils with SEN in the report (in the educational disadvantage section) is to note that 9.2% of pupils with SEN are 'persistent absentees', compared with 2.1% of pupils with no SEN.)

Thus, if you want to build a narrative, it is perfectly possible to do so. Taking this approach, at best, the report draws the wrong conclusions based on the evidence available; at worst, it is willfully ignorant.

The best example of this is the report's treatment of Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

The motivations for the coalition government to look at DLA are clear. In 2008/09, DWP spent £16.2bn on disability benefits from a total budget of £135.7bn. This was the third largest area of expenditure, behind the state pension (£62.7bn) and housing benefits (£17.2bn). If the coalition government is going to make inroads into budget cuts, it will feel it will have to look at disability benefits.

The report has 8 separate mentions of DLA (the second biggest disability benefit, behind Attendance Allowance), compared to just one indirect mention of Attendance Allowance (in the key of a table) and no other disability-related benefit. In these mentions, the report:

• Notes the rise in the numbers of disabled people claiming DLA, from 1.2m in 1997 to 1.8m in 2009, with an associated spending increase of £3.9bn in 1996/97 to £6.2bn in 2009/10 (p35)
• Notes the "persistence" of DLA claimants, noting that 2.2m disabeld people (including 1.1m disabled people of working age) have 'been claiming' DLA for over 5 years (p34)
• Calls DLA an 'out of work' benefit (pp33-34)
• Equates disability benefits with sickness benefits (p28)

It is worth noting that at no point does the report define what DLA is for. (DLA helps with the additional costs of disability, primarily related to personal care. It is for people under 65, though you can continue to be in receipt of DLA over the age of 65 if you have it before you are 65. Attendance Allowance is the equivalent for people over 65. Both are non-means tested.)

The sum total of this narrative around DLA leads me to believe that DLA is likely to face cuts by the coalition government. By noting the increase in spending on DLA, the increase in the number of 'claimants', the 'persistence' of such DLA 'claimants', being woolly over DLA as an 'out of work' benefit (which it isn't) and not directly mentioning any other form of disability benefits, the direction of travel is clear.

And yet the coalition government would be drawing exactly the wrong conclusion about DLA. This is based on information contained in its own report, as follows:

1. The report notes that disabled people are more likely to live in poverty than non-disabled people. It notes disabled people are less likely to be in work than non-disabled people. It notes that disabled people are less likely to have formal qualifications than non-disabled people. DLA is therefore likely to make up a greater proportion of someone's income than a non-disabled person's equivalent. Reducing or removing it is therefore likely to have a greater impact on a disabled person's existing situation, especially as DLA is for care and support.

2. The report notes that pensioner poverty is greatest amongst pensioners not in receipt of disability benefits (p20). The same would also hold of working-age disabled people not in receipt of disability benefits, namely those who would be affected by any reduction in or removal of DLA.

3. It notes that "over one in five DLA claimants are in the top two income quintiles (when DLA is included as income and no account is taken of extra costs of disability)". In the first instance, DLA is designed precisely to take account of the extra costs of disability/impairment, so the parenthesis in the quote are duplicitous. In the second instance, and taking the figures at face value, they tell us that over 20% of DLA claimants are in the top 40% of income distribution. That is, 80% of DLA claimants are in the bottom 60% of income, meaning more precisely that DLA is targeted exactly at those disabled people who live in relative poverty.

The report's treatment leads you to one conclusion only: that DLA is under threat.

I therefore come back to my overarching point about the type of picture you want to paint. If you want to suggest that Britain is 'broken' and that there is a rump of poorly educated and unemployed people who rely on out-of-work benefits rather than get back into work, then you can use the statistics in the way the coalition government has chosen to do.

If, however, you want to make the case that some benefits are well-focused and support precisely those people who face institutional barriers to enjoy the same opportunities as everyone else - such as the role of Disability Living Allowance in the lives of disabled people - then this is equally as plausible.

The fact the coalition has opted for the former approach, with some convenient details missing (such as what DLA is actually for), leads me to believe DLA is under significant threat. And that, as I have demonstrated - and not just in terms of its real effect for disabled people in Britain - undermines the coalition government's own case for addressing poverty, worklessness and welfare dependency.