A new study from disability charity Scope has highlighted the hefty price tag of being disabled in the UK – and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are certainly not helping. It costs an extra £1,095 each month for disabled households to achieve the same standard of living as their non-disabled counterparts. Worse still, that gap is getting bigger year by year.
DWP lead rising cost of living while disabled
Then, we can add to that the fact that the fact that most disabled people have far less money in the first place. That £1,095 makes up a staggering 67% of the average disabled household’s income.
£1,095 is also 8% higher than last’s year’s total. Based on official forecasts of living costs and inflation, the price tag will have risen to £1,224 every month by the 2029 financial year.
Scope also estimated that the DWP’s Personal Independence Payments (PIP) also fall some £630 short of covering those extra payments. Likewise, that shortfall is predicted to hit £704 by 2030.
It’s not like these costs are for luxury items, either. Scope performed its calculations based on essentials like heating, transport, care, and home adaptations. These costs act like a sinkhole for disabled peoples’ finances, preventing them from gaining financial security or enjoying the privileges that everyone else takes for granted.
Demographic disparities
There’s a marked disparity in the extent to which the disability price tag tends to affect different disabled households. The report states that the poorest households are hit with extra costs equal to 202% of their income after housing costs. That’s an average of £1,402 a month, just to enjoy the same living standards as a non-disabled household.
For lower to middle incomes, the extra costs reach as high as £1,649 a month. Even for the highest income group, the disability price tag is around £287 per month, on average. After housing costs, that’s still roughly 9% of the household’s income.
Likewise, the price tag also varies massively according to age. Disabled people aged 25 to 35 are hit the hardest, averaging £1,463 a month. The 45 to 54 age bracket also faces costs of over £1,200 a month. This problem is then exacerbated by the fact that the 45-54s tend to support other dependents, like their children and parents.
‘Pathways to work’
The DWP are currently planning a massive shakeup of benefits like Universal Credit health payments and PIP. It’s all laid out in the new ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working’ green paper. Unfortunately, Scope’s research showed that – you guessed it – Labour’s planned changes to are likely to make things much worse.
Obviously we weren’t really imagining that Starmer’s Labour would do something wild like making life better for disabled people. However, the sheer extent of the proposed cuts is staggering. The average reduction in payments looks set to add up to around £4,500 a year for most disabled households.
Scope’s research found that:
For the estimated 400,000 disabled people set to lose their PIP benefit payments, we estimate the average loss of PIP income will be £520 per month, a total loss of £6,240 in the 2029 to 2030 financial year.
In the 2029 to 2030 financial year, on average, these disabled households stand to face extra costs of £1,224 per month without any benefit support.
This warning is stark. Disabled people are faced with ever-increasing extra costs, coupled with a government that plans to pull the rug out from under them. Bodies like the Public and Commercial Services Union; the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers; the National Union of Journalists; and Unison have already come out swinging against the green paper.
For its part, Scope has stated that this is a problem that benefits alone can’t fix. The charity argues that society must view the problem holistically. We need to look ways to ensure that disabled people have equal access to housing, work, transport and security. If not, that gap will widen ever further, and disability will continue to come with an unjust price tag for years to come.
Featured image via Unsplash/Tim Mossholder
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