A third of disabled people live in poverty – a statistic which is set to rise according to disability campainers, as the time-limit for claiming Employment and Support Allowance takes effect.
Neil Coyle, the director of policy and campaigns, Disability Rights UK, said: “While we welcome disabled people being supported to enter and retain work, today’s measure is unlikely to incentivise work, penalises disabled people who have worked and leaves 280,000 disabled people and their families facing extreme poverty and exclusion.”
The government has introduced a cut-off for ESA payments for people in the Work-Related Activity Group as part of the Welfare Reform Act. ESA was introduced from 2008 to replace incapacity benefits and is split in two: the Support Group for disabled people not required to undertake any work-related activity and the Work-Related Activity Group for disabled people expected to undertake some work-related activity.
Disability Rights UK said the 365 day limit is being introduced retrospectively which means disabled people who have received support from April 2011 will automatically have payments reviewed and many will lose financial support immediately. It points out the department for work and pensions statistics suggest more than 40,000 disabled people will immediately lose help and that, by 2015/16, 700,000 disabled people will be affected by this new measure.
Neil Coyle said: “The government must monitor the effect of time limiting out of work support closely and should better support disabled people into employment. We believe greater awareness of, and resources for, the Access to Work initiative is essential to help the 50 per cent of working age disabled people not in work get into and retain employment.”
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