[UK] Poverty among disabled people rises

From The financial Times

By Nicholas Timmins,Public Policy Editor

Poverty among people with disabilities is high and rising, presenting a challenge to the government as it prepares a green paper on welfare reform, says the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

An annual "audit" of poverty and social exclusion, undertaken by the New Policy Institute, a think-tank, shows the government making progress on child and pensioner poverty.

In 2003-04, the last year for which figures are available, 12m people, about one in five, were classified as living in poverty - on a household income 60 per cent or less than the average.

The number is 2m below its peak in the early 1990s, lower than at any time since 1987, but still almost twice the figure for the end of the 1970s, the close of Labour's previous period in power.

But 30 per cent of disabled adults of working age are living in poverty, a higher proportion than a decade ago, and double the rate for non-disabled adults.

About 800,000 disabled people aged 25 to retirement are "economically inactive but want work", the report says, a much higher figure than the 200,000 disabled people who are classified as unemployed.

"In other words, the numbers of disabled adults who lack but want work is five times the number included in the official unemployment figures."

Guy Palmer, a co-author of the report, said: "Both child and pensioner poverty are decreasing because the government brought in policies to address them.

"But poverty among disabled people is high and rising, with little by way of government policy thus far to help. Tackling disabled poverty needs to be made a top priority."

The government is working on reforms of incapacity benefit with the aim to reduce the number of people reliant on it and to get more people back into work.

Proposals planned for this autumn have been put back to the new year following David Blunkett's departure as work and pensions secretary and the need for John Hutton, his replacement, to get up to speed.

Peter Kenway, Mr Palmer's co-author, said: "A disabled person is more likely to be either low paid or out of work than a non-disabled person with similar qualifications. The inescapable conclusion is that the labour market discriminates against disabled people. Policies to help them into work will have a limited success unless they focus on changing employer attitudes."

Disabled graduates face unemployment rates higher than those with no qualifications, while those in work have a greater chance of being low paid at every level of qualification and regardless of whether the jobs are full- or part-time.

The report uses 50 measures of poverty and social exclusion to track progress over time. Only two have got worse over the past year, with six worsening when looked at over the past five years.

In the past year, 20 improved and 20 held steady while the results for the remainder are mixed.