Disabled people and their carers are already £500 million poorer due to cuts in their support. And with predicted losses of £9 billion by 2015/16, the worst is yet to come
For the past 18 months, the think tank Demos, with the support of Scope, has been running the Disability in Austerity project – following six disabled households to assess how a range of benefit and service cuts affect their lives. Now, two years to the day since the government announced the first cuts to disability benefits in the Emergency Budget 2010, we have published the fourth and final report, reviewing what has happened to these families during this time and reflecting on their future.
The numbers are stark. Overall, we have calculated that disabled people and their carers are £500 million worse off since the government began to implement benefit reforms, just 14 months ago. The parents of a disabled child in our study are £410 worse off. A disabled mother and her disabled child are £558 worse off. A disabled man, now made to contribute his disability living allowance towards his social care costs, is already £1,280 worse off.
These losses aren’t small beer for the lowest income households, often with higher living costs as they manage their health conditions. For the social care user, his £1,280 loss represents a 10% cut in his income.
But behind these numbers are stories of the human cost of welfare reform. We heard how people couldn’t afford replacement wheels for wheelchairs. How parents had to skip hospital appointments for their disabled child because they couldn’t afford the diesel. How one couple had to stay home as they couldn’t afford to go out, and another couldn’t afford to stay home due to heating costs.
Beneath these disturbing anecdotes, we have identified longer term trends which have gradually become apparent through the course of this research.
First, there has been a deterioration of mental health. Reports of stress and depression for the disabled people in the study and their families have become more prevalent over the two years – a combination of financial hardship making life harder; the uncertainty and fear of what the future holds as new reforms take effect; and a pervading sense of hostility from the state – even feelings of persecution – as disabled people are treated with suspicion by welfare authorities and harangued in the media.
Second, there has been growing isolation and exclusion from community life as families move into what might be described as ‘survival mode’: a lack of resources and the closure of support services has led to families reducing their activities to the very basics, often within the home. So essentials such as medical appointments have been sacrificed, alongside ‘luxuries’ such as working, training and volunteering. Leisure pursuits and socialising are out of the question. Decades of work by disabled people and charities to promote inclusion and equality of access to a social, working and community life is being unravelled as disabled people become socially and financially excluded and isolated in their homes.
Finally, the burden on informal carers is clearly increasing as formal support – or the resources to buy financial support – is cut away. The parents of the two disabled children in our study were under no illusion that they would receive any help from the state until they had reached ‘breaking point’, and were told – as support was taken from them – that they ‘should be able to cope’. All reported physical and mental ill health resulting from their burden of care – a growing problem highlighted in Carers Week this week.
These three themes, we believe, will be the lasting legacy of the government’s welfare reforms. Increasingly excluded, with deteriorating mental health, their families around them reaching breaking point. It is a bleak picture for disabled people. And yet, only 12% of the government’s austerity plans have been implemented. Key welfare reforms – such as the replacement of DLA – are yet to come. Local authorities have three quarters of their budget cuts still to make.
These hard truths are reflected at household level. Although disabled people and their carers are £500 million worse off to date, we predict this group will lose £9 billion by 2015/16. So however bad things are now, it’s clear that for disabled people, the worst is yet to come.
I can identify with much of this – I was made redundant in March; I knew it was coming and had been looking for work since last August. The pressure of looming redundancy, fears about my future and my inability to find another job massively impacted my mental health. I’m recovering now, but January was terrible, I felt so afraid for the future. One job I applied for wanted details of my disability and any medication I took – illegal to ask, I know. I am afraid I will lose my DLA, which will mean I won’t be able to run my car, which will then mean I won’t be able to go out of my house unless someone takes me, as I can’t walk far without pain. I’ve managed to get another part time job now (I can’t work full time because of the impact of my disability), but without a car I can’t get to work. I feel afraid for the future, I hate what this government is doing to disabled people whilst at the same time ignoring rich people’s tax evasion. The amount of tax unpaid is more than they want to take off disabled people, but we don’t count, we’re not rich Tory Party donators.
Good god, there’s David Cameron and his crone George Osbourne stashing their money away in offshore accounts (didn’t see him calling Osbourne ‘morally wrong’ or any of the party donors). If they focused on the welfare of the people in this country and not the welfare of themselves then they’d probably achieve something along the lines of what they promised. Oh wait let me guess Cameron, ‘You inherited this legacy from the previous government.’? YOU INHERITED THIS LEGACY FROM THE DOUBLE DIP RECESSION WHICH YOU HAVE CAUSED. Worst. Government. In History.
I am current supporting, financially, a very pregnant daughter + 2 children, who’s husband’s* Disablilty has been cut completely. They are awaiting review, which CAB is assisting at – but their rep doesn’t want to travel from Bideford to Plymouth to be there in person! I have my own disablilites to worry about, as well as the recent loss of my dear husband – so there is less spare cash about as well as a pair of hands short. The stress is not good for any of us. *Son-in-law’s disablilty is a sleep disorder + erratic insensible times, when his body goes riigid [not epilepsy!] and at a glance he appears ‘well’ – I baby sit when ever daughter’s p/t Party Organising takes place – as we do not leave the children alone in case of a ‘session’. [They are 4 & 5 years old] We are lucky to live in a village community – but shopping locally is horrendously expensive… fuel oil for heating uses up all of a small private pension of mine + as it is taxed… I could go on further as I need to do work on my house to make it more suited to a lone partially disabled pensioner!.