Disabled  people have come under attack again in the latest of George Osborne’s budgets where unemployed disabled people are now set to lose a further £30 per week.   In this, the latest blow to disabled people, those on Employment Support Allowance are set to have benefits cut,  this comes on top a round of cuts dished out earlier this month which could leave those on Personal Independence Payments as much as £150 worse off per week. Despite the governments insistence that they are spending more each year on disability, it might look for many, and understandably so, that disabled people are being unfairly targeted by the government under the guise of austerity.

In the same budget today, Mr Osborne announced tax breaks for higher middle earners by raising the threshold above which people pay the top rate of income tax from £40,000 to £45,000 per year. He also lowered corporation taxing to 17% giving a break to small business and start ups.

It would appear that disabled people are being treated with utter contempt by this government and are being forced to live the lowest quality of life. While middle earners are given help and encouragement in the form of tax breaks, disabled people are continuing to be squeezed and forced further into poverty. The message that this government gives out seems to be that disabled people are undeserving, and not valued.  The notion that the government doesn’t  want to provide for disabled people, and think they only deserve the lowest standard of living, is deeply troubling.

The government set out to reform welfare in order to make work pay so that anybody in work is better off than those who are not. It seems rather cruel however to those who can’t work to be forced to live on means below that of the average worker. Many thousands of disabled people want to work but can’t through no fault of their own. Why then should they be denied a basic standard of living?

You would be forgiven for thinking that we may be going back to the dark ages.  It seems to be the attitude of the government that if  disabled people are not fit to work,  they are to be kept living in poverty with no, or little, access to services in the local community.  Already the government’s policies have been begun to change public opinion of disabled people with many of the major disability charities recording  a sharp increase in disability hate crime over the course of the last parliament.

The danger for the government is that they may be taking social attitudes towards disabled people back several decades. If the government keep disabled people living in poverty, without access to services because the funding is not available, they will inevitably undo much of the work the disabled rights movements have taken decades to achieve. The disabled community needs investment and not cuts. With investment, the government could save money in the long term by creating schemes and facilities that enabled disabled people to work and play a full part in community life. Instead the cruel and callous decisions they are taking now will do nothing but perpetuate the stereotypical attitudes that have kept disabled people at the lower end of the social and economic scale for far too long. 

This week the House of Lord voted in favour of cutting disability unemployment benefit by £30 per week leaving many, already struggling people, without money they need to live on. Names of the politicians who voted in favour of such a move have been published in the Independent in a so called ‘name and shame’ type article. The difficulty here however is that many of the Tory MPs have no shame and therefore disabled people continue to be squeezed.

Nobody can deny the extra costs of living incurred when people are coping with a disability or long term health condition. Just getting around can be difficult and many rely on taxis or even a car for everyday tasks. There are  many more hidden cost that disabled people have to shell out for, so why would government want to make their lives more difficult than it already are?

The entire premise of the government’s argument is that disabled people are too lazy to get work because welfare benefits are too plentiful and too easily attained. This is not the case. Many disability organisations have reported that disabled people want to work but can’t due to both the environmental and attitudinal barriers that are still in place. Many disabled people still can’t access public transport to get to a place of work and, if they could, might not even get into the building.

As a disabled job seeker I have come across time and time again attitudinal barriers that have prevented employers from hiring me. I know people with far less qualifications than me have been employed in the very same roles I have applied for. Disability discrimination is alive and well and this is only one example of many I, and no doubt others, could spout.

Until governments address the barriers, attitudes and the working environment, employment rates among disabled people are likely to remain the same. By cutting welfare, all they are doing is making the lives of disabled people even more difficult than it already is or has to be.