'Dependency' and disability: how to misread the evidence on social security

Author: Gaffney, Declan

Source: Soundings, Number 49, Winter 2011 , pp. 58-72(15)

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Abstract:

The idea that Labour failed to reduce the Incapacity Benefit caseload - a dominant theme in the party's post-election autopsy - is largely a myth, and is based on misconceptions about the geography, age and gender patterns of benefit receipt. In fact Incapacity Benefit receipt fell substantially from 1997 to the present, but disability benefit receipt (which is payable to all people living with disability, whether or not they are unemployed) rose - partly because of demographic factors, but also because of increases in claims associated with mental health and learning difficulties. The key point here is that long-term out of work benefit receipt is increasingly dominated by people living with more severe disabling conditions, and by people caring for the disabled. To construct from this an argument about dependency being responsible for worklessness is to deliberately misread the evidence.

Keywords: DEPENDENCY; DISABILITY; BENEFITS; INCAPACITY BENEFIT; DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3898/136266211798411264

Publication date: 2011-11-24

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