Disability related benefits
Jul. 27th, 2011 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynSo, disability benefit.
I have, perhaps foolishly, been spending a lot of time on the Guardian news website lately, reading the CiF section. The first thing that bemuses me about many of the commentators on there is how many are horrifically right wing, and apparently only come to that website to be annoyed. The second thing that bemuses me is how terribly bad most of them are at arguing their point. The more I read the CiF section, the more left wing I become, mostly because the near monstrous lack of compassion, empathy and basic humanity shown by half those posters actually makes my skin crawl. The third thing that bemuses me is the overwhelming lack of internal consistency in many of the arguments on benefits, employment and specifically disability which tend to crop up on there.
I am, therefore, going to talk about the primary inconsistency which befuddles me the most right here. I don’t think many of the CiF right wing posters (who I am not calling ‘trolls’ because I don’t think they just post there for the sake of the conflict) are likely to read this, but there may be a couple of right of centre types lurking around here, or just people who understand the thinking better than I do who can just explain to me how this is all meant to work.
Now, the main area of confusion I have is that the same posters seem to be fighting very hard for two totally contradictory points. One is that there shouldn’t be too many government rules limiting what businesses can do. They are all very opposed to maternity pay in the first place, they don’t like extended maternity leave, and they really think that businesses should only have to hire people who are fit, well, able to work, never have to take time off, happy to do lots of overtime etc etc. The other is that there are too many people on disability benefit who are scrounging bastards who could be working, and, frankly, if you are not incontinent, brain damaged and lying in a pile of your own bodily fluids 23 hours per day you should be able to work.
And I don’t think those two make sense.
Now, on one hand, I do agree that there are many people on benefits who could, in theory, do some kind of work. I do, however, feel that at present there are probably relatively few of them who could actually get a job.
Let me try and explain this with a theoretical example.
Let’s say we have a disabled person. Let’s call her Alice. The nature of her disability isn’t important; she could have mental or physical disabilities. Let us say, however, that the nature of Alice’s disabilities are such that she could, in theory, do some form of work. She wouldn’t be able to work all the time. Shall we say that she would probably be off work sick for between 60 and 80 days per year on average, due to the variable nature of her condition. The kind of work she could do would be limited. She can sit at a computer, sure. She can’t, however, get up and move around the office much, and she really can’t lift things. So, even doing the filing isn’t really feasible, and helping lift boxes, or shift desks around is totally out of the question. She also, for some reason, isn’t really able to deal with customers or members of the public. Perhaps she has a speech impediment which makes her very hard to understand, or perhaps she has an anxiety related condition which means she can’t cope with people. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that she can’t deal with the public at all.
Oh, and because of Alice’s disability she sometimes has difficulty getting into work and will regularly be late into the office. It’s not her fault; say there are only a few specially adapted buses she can get, or maybe she relies on getting a lift with a friend or family member because she can’t manage public transport. She is willing to work later to make the time up, but Alice tends to get tired and is a bit useless after 4 pm anyway.
Alice isn’t a genius in her field. She’s not that one brilliant scientist who could cure cancer. She’s not that amazing writer who could change the world with her pen. She’s just a fairly normal 20-something. She has a 2.2 in English Literature and Sociology from Hull University, or maybe she’s got a General Science Degree from Edinburgh University, or perhaps she’s got a Third in Theology from Heythrop College in London. She’s done a couple of data entry jobs in the past, but her CV is pretty thin apart from that and she’s not worked in three or four years.
First of all, can Alice work? Should Alice be signed off on incapacity benefit?
And if you said ‘yes’, what should Alice do? What kind of job would be suitable to her, with her limitations? And finally, if you were an employer, would you hire her?
I have, perhaps foolishly, been spending a lot of time on the Guardian news website lately, reading the CiF section. The first thing that bemuses me about many of the commentators on there is how many are horrifically right wing, and apparently only come to that website to be annoyed. The second thing that bemuses me is how terribly bad most of them are at arguing their point. The more I read the CiF section, the more left wing I become, mostly because the near monstrous lack of compassion, empathy and basic humanity shown by half those posters actually makes my skin crawl. The third thing that bemuses me is the overwhelming lack of internal consistency in many of the arguments on benefits, employment and specifically disability which tend to crop up on there.
I am, therefore, going to talk about the primary inconsistency which befuddles me the most right here. I don’t think many of the CiF right wing posters (who I am not calling ‘trolls’ because I don’t think they just post there for the sake of the conflict) are likely to read this, but there may be a couple of right of centre types lurking around here, or just people who understand the thinking better than I do who can just explain to me how this is all meant to work.
Now, the main area of confusion I have is that the same posters seem to be fighting very hard for two totally contradictory points. One is that there shouldn’t be too many government rules limiting what businesses can do. They are all very opposed to maternity pay in the first place, they don’t like extended maternity leave, and they really think that businesses should only have to hire people who are fit, well, able to work, never have to take time off, happy to do lots of overtime etc etc. The other is that there are too many people on disability benefit who are scrounging bastards who could be working, and, frankly, if you are not incontinent, brain damaged and lying in a pile of your own bodily fluids 23 hours per day you should be able to work.
And I don’t think those two make sense.
Now, on one hand, I do agree that there are many people on benefits who could, in theory, do some kind of work. I do, however, feel that at present there are probably relatively few of them who could actually get a job.
Let me try and explain this with a theoretical example.
Let’s say we have a disabled person. Let’s call her Alice. The nature of her disability isn’t important; she could have mental or physical disabilities. Let us say, however, that the nature of Alice’s disabilities are such that she could, in theory, do some form of work. She wouldn’t be able to work all the time. Shall we say that she would probably be off work sick for between 60 and 80 days per year on average, due to the variable nature of her condition. The kind of work she could do would be limited. She can sit at a computer, sure. She can’t, however, get up and move around the office much, and she really can’t lift things. So, even doing the filing isn’t really feasible, and helping lift boxes, or shift desks around is totally out of the question. She also, for some reason, isn’t really able to deal with customers or members of the public. Perhaps she has a speech impediment which makes her very hard to understand, or perhaps she has an anxiety related condition which means she can’t cope with people. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that she can’t deal with the public at all.
Oh, and because of Alice’s disability she sometimes has difficulty getting into work and will regularly be late into the office. It’s not her fault; say there are only a few specially adapted buses she can get, or maybe she relies on getting a lift with a friend or family member because she can’t manage public transport. She is willing to work later to make the time up, but Alice tends to get tired and is a bit useless after 4 pm anyway.
Alice isn’t a genius in her field. She’s not that one brilliant scientist who could cure cancer. She’s not that amazing writer who could change the world with her pen. She’s just a fairly normal 20-something. She has a 2.2 in English Literature and Sociology from Hull University, or maybe she’s got a General Science Degree from Edinburgh University, or perhaps she’s got a Third in Theology from Heythrop College in London. She’s done a couple of data entry jobs in the past, but her CV is pretty thin apart from that and she’s not worked in three or four years.
First of all, can Alice work? Should Alice be signed off on incapacity benefit?
And if you said ‘yes’, what should Alice do? What kind of job would be suitable to her, with her limitations? And finally, if you were an employer, would you hire her?
no subject
Date: 2011-07-27 11:06 am (UTC)Honestly, I think Alice should be able to work. I think she’d be better off, happier and generally saner if she had some kind of employment. However, I think that in the current employment climate it’s pretty much impossible for her to do so, and I think any job she did manage to hold down would be so stressful as to be actively bad for her health.
I think the basic premise of the ESA is good; focusing on what people can do, and not what they can’t. I think the way it has been implemented, the ATOS tests, and the use of GIANT BIG STICK applied to the disabled, whilst offering employers no reason whatsoever to hire anyone disabled, is absolute shite.
I think there are ways to get Alice into work. I think offering employers financial incentives to create networks which enable people to work from home, maybe investing more in virtual infrastructures, would help. I think putting in legislation which actually bans employers for sacking anyone for taking time off sick, or severely limiting their capacity to do this would help. I think giving employers incentives, like saying that they do not need to pay sick pay, but the government will, instead, cover the pay of anyone off sick (and at a better rate than SSP which is impossible to live on and is a huge cause of stress if anyone is off sick for more than about a week) would help, or maybe just saying that if you’re on ESA, you won’t be penalised for working part time, and can still claim ESA at a slightly reduced rate in order to top up your salary to help people who can work part time but who might find full time work a bit too much would be really helpful. Actually, I think my ideal solution would be to say that you can work for a set number of hours per week (maybe five or something) and get paid for it without having your ESA reduced at all, because I think that would do wonders for letting people learn more about what they could do, what their capabilities are, and would be actively helpful in letting disabled people feel like they can work.
But as far as I’m aware this isn’t happening. Right now, there is a dichotomy which says ‘if you are capable of pushing a button, you can get a job’. And I don’t think this is the case. I think what the government is doing is pushing the disabled and their families into poverty. And what annoys me the most is that there is this noisy and vociferous little pile of people out there who simultaneously complain about anyone who currently has their own head attached who aren’t out there working, who would absolutely not make a single one of the accommodations which would actually make it possible for many disabled people to have some kind of working life or employment.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-27 11:26 am (UTC)I think that the overall aim of helping people to find the level and type of employment they can manage is a noble one, it is good for both the individual and the wider community. How it is being presented and handled however leaves a lot of that goal either badly implemented or poorly represented and it does look like a cost cutting exercise largely because a large and important chuck of the process was outsourced to the private sector two decades ago.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-27 11:06 am (UTC)I also find it painful how hideously skewed the system is against the unwell. Her latest case featured a client who had his benefits cut because he was now being fed only through a tube. Previously, his carer had had to feed him by hand, which was difficult as he tended to spasm and thrash around at times. Once the feeding tube was put in, it was decided that the carer’s care allowance should be cut as changing a bag at the end of a tube was much easier and therefore they didn’t need the higher rate of care allowance. This wasn’t appealed because there would be no point. Apparently this is standard. I can kind of see the logic but it feels sort of inhuman; your loved one deteriorates to the point where they can only be fed through a tube and you lose money?