Disabled people, those with long-term conditions and their families are already at risk of hardship and face barriers to getting into work and education. Cuts to the support they depend on risk pushing them into poverty, debt and isolation.
Disability Benefits Myth Buster
A lot of myths, untruths and exaggerations are being peddled on the issue of disability benefits, particularly Disability Living Allowance (DLA).
In this document we set the record straight on some of the most regularly used myths for targeting cuts at disabled people’s support, some of which have been most recently given an airing by the Prime Minister himself.
Download the Disability Benefits Myth Buster (Word)
Poverty
- Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people. (ODI – Disability Equality Indicators)
- Nearly half of disabled people have ‘no savings at all’, compared to just 12% of the general population. (Leonard Cheshire UK, 2008)
- Families with a disabled child are estimated to be £50 a week worse-off than those without. (Warwick University Research, 2010)
- The Government plans to reduce DLA eligibility by 500,000. This could mean more than 25,000 disabled people are forced out of work (Disability Rights UK, April 2012)
Employment and education
- Less than half of working age disabled people are in employment compared with more than 75% of non-disabled working age people. (ODI – Disability Equality Indicators)
- Disabled people are more than twice as likely to hold no qualifications than non disabled people. (ODI – Disability Equality Indicators)
- Time limiting contributory ESA to one year will affect 700,000 people who have become disabled or acquired a long-term condition. These people have paid their National Insurance/stamps and yet they are only being given twelve months in which to obtain work following a new diagnosis or developing a long-term condition. (DWP, April 2011)
- If 25,000 disabled people are forced out of work as a result of losing DLA, the loss in National Insurance and Income Tax to the Treasury could be as much as £146.7 million a year. (Disability Rights UK, April 2012)
Crime and Discrimination
- Disability hate crime is at its highest level since records began and the rate of reported incidents increased by nearly 50% between 2009 and 2011 (Guardian FOI Request, April 2012)
- Disabled people are significantly more likely to be victims of crime than non-disabled people. 39 per cent of 16-34 year-old disabled people reported having been a victim of crime in 2010/2011 (ODI – Disability Facts & Figures)
- 56% of disabled people have had someone act in a hostile, aggressive or violent way towards them because of their disability. (Scope Attitudes Survey, 2010)
Data Sources:
- Office for Disability Issues – Disability Equality Indicators
- Leonard Cheshire UK – Disability Poverty in the UK Report, 2008
- Findings from research conducted by Warwick University published 2010
- Disability Rights UK – Impact assessing the abolition of working age disability living allowance (DLA), April 2012
- DWP Impact Assessment on ‘Time limit Contributory Employment and Support Allowance to one year for those in the Work-Related Activity Group’, April 2011
- Figures obtained by the Guardian following a Freedom of Information Request from the ACPO, August 2012
- Office for Disability Issues – Disability Facts and Figures
- Ref. from: Disability Rights UK – Let’s Stop Disability Hate Crime, 2012
The Hardest Hit 