The human cost of welfare reform
by Claudia Wood
For the past 18 months, we here at Demos, with the support of Scope, have 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 2010 Emergency Budget, 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 per cent 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 in 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 unravelling 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 per cent 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.
simon evans
Charities have voiced concerns that disabled people and thier families are going to be a lot worse off under the governments welfare reforms. The government and Lord Freud said they are scaremongering and are being selectist what ever that means. Charities have also stated they are concerned for future disabled parents andthier families and the adverse affects the cuts will have on them. Lord Freud is wrong,it is happening now. I am a full time carer,before I was working fulltime,my wife worked,we had children,and werent eligible for taxcredits. My wife was mildy disabled,yet her disability became severe,also our daughter became severely unwell. I had to give up my job to look after my wife,daughter and young family. We are having cuts,on Christmas eve our housing benefit will be cut,before my wife became severely disabled we didnt have housing benefit or benefits,but we didnt look down our noses at people who did,now that is how people are judged.thanks to the government and the media,people can look at us and assume they know everything about us,what about right to privacy to family life? and hardly a whimper was made when panorama and dispatches were aired on the same night showing what is going on. At the very least,you would have thought it woud have been looked into. At least these issues are being aired on mainstream television. My wife wouldnt go out,some people are lovely and smile,older people mainly,its getting better,but I prefer pushing her in attendant chair,that way,I know she is safe,as sometimes in the past,people have just blocked her way when she has been in the power chair.The government are determined to get thier way on this,they have had to do too many u turns on other things,but its easy for them to implement these reforms as they know they can get away with it. we have been on at our MP for months ,I am a fulltime carer,in receipt of income support and CA and yet come christmas i will be £60 worse off,thats a nice present ,Bah humbug, why ? because I have a sick wife and a family. As to what will happen next year for my wife and daughter,I dread to think, as the song goes whats the use of worrying.
simon evans
it has happened,the housing benefit has been cut,the reason given change of liability.no change on my part.my wife is still severely disabled,my adult disabled daughter is still disabled and we are fighting to keep her in the right field of care neuropyschiatry,as its outside our area,our other daughter has to go into birmingham childrens hospital.my wifes social care has been pared to the bone,in 2008 it was nearly £300 a month,now it is £160 a month. and it is true the working poor are being made worse off under these reforms,no doubt about it.bloody lot of hoorah henrys running this government,all stick together.maria miller no problem£90k,says it all. one good thing fuel not going up.
David Vinter
M/S Wood, ma'am. As a disabled pensioner, all I can say is that my experience is very different. Yes I live on my own, and have a carer 3 days per week. And yes I have an elrctic wheelchair, provided free by social services, which by the way I offered to pay for, but was told it was free.
At 75 of course I miss my friends,but let us be fair to any government, if as we are told that every third child born today will live to be 100, then we must prepare to work to my present age, I only wish my health would allow it. [ one day some 20 years ago, whilst parking my car in a farmyard, I was asked to move it 20 yards as 'Joe' was coming down the road with a full load of straw bales stacked 6 high. He arrived 5 minutes later, ' Joe' was 92.
Also at about the same time, our local blacksmith, Mr Marfleet was at his forge 7 hours per day at the same age, perhaps it's our local high quality air in Lincolnshire.