[UK] Poverty alarm for disabled adults

from The Scotsman

RAYMOND HAINEY

ONE in three disabled adults of working age in Scotland is living in poverty, new research has claimed.

The figure is double the rate for adults without disabilities and higher than the poverty rate for either pensioners or children, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Guy Palmer, the co-author of the report by the New Policy Institute, said that the research findings suggested discrimination against the disabled in the Scottish job market.

He said: "Disabled people are being kept in the grip of poverty by high levels of joblessness, despite the fact that a third of those who are not working have declared they would do so, given the chance. Their out-of-work benefits have also been rising at a slower rate than average earnings."

Mr Palmer said that benefit levels for Scotland were set by the Westminster government - but added that the Scottish Executive should "make its social-inclusion and equality agendas a reality" through better measures to help disabled people able to work to find jobs. The report also said that two-fifths of all children and working-age adults living in poverty in Scotland were in households where at least one person had a job.