3 - Disabled People and Carers

Summary

I can't afford to heat my flat. I can't afford to put the hot water on. For washing dishes, it's cheaper for me to boil a kettle. I have a blanket and thermals on now, as I can’t afford to put the heating on.

Disabled person, cited in Young (2021)

It's strange how little we talk about the fact that half of the 14 million people in poverty in the UK are disabled or live with someone who is. Nearly four in ten working-age disabled people live in poverty, more than twice as high as the rate for non-disabled adults. Comparing the UK with other European countries shows that we are failing our disabled fellow citizens to a greater extent than most other countries (according to official Eurostat disability statistics). We have a higher proportion of disabled people at risk of poverty and social exclusion than all the other northern European countries aside from Germany, which equals us. The gap between poverty rates for disabled and non-disabled people is also particularly high in the UK.

Disabled people tend to have lower incomes than non-disabled people, with higher costs, pulling them into hardship. Carers are also much more likely to be trapped in poverty than those who aren't caring for other adults, in large part because they need to balance paid work and unpaid caring, which restricts the hours and jobs they can do. Young carers are also disadvantaged where their school education or chance to gain more qualifications as an adult have been constrained by their caring role. Of the nearly 4.5 million informal adult carers in the UK, almost a quarter are living in poverty. Three factors drive this: limited access to good jobs, higher costs and inadequate social security.

ACCESS TO GOOD JOBS

Work is how most people escape poverty, but disabled people are far less likely to be employed than non-disabled people and they’re paid less when they are in work. Just over half of disabled people were employed in 2019, compared to 82 per cent of non-disabled people. That gap has closed slightly in recent years but incredibly slowly. Work generally needs to be full time to be a reliable route out of poverty, but disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to work part time: 32 per cent compared to only 20 per cent.