To ask you all the take a minute to look at the proposed Green Paper on work & welfare, particularly the cuts to PIP.

[MarvellousMonsters]

The Government has published a green paper which amongst other things proposes to change the PIP eligibility, which will ‘save £5b’ by removing financial
support from those who don’t score 4 points in a single criteria in the daily living component of PIP.

green paper in full

It’s estimated that it can cost up to £1000 a month in extra living expenses as a disabled person, and the daily living allowance of PIP is designed to help towards these costs. The lowest rate is £72.65 a week, (£290.60 a month) and this is a literal life line to those who have a limited capability for work, are ‘not disabled enough’ to qualify for full support, but do need help. It allows people to pay for things like cleaners and domestic help, to buy ready prepped veg etc to allow them to eat proper healthy food, to heat their home if they have poor body temp control, and so on. The proposed changes will push these people into acute poverty, and also reduce their quality of life, not just financially, but because being in receipt of PIP makes people eligible for other types of practical support.

You may feel this isn’t something that affects you, but disability can happen to anyone, as those previous fit healthy people who are now incapacitated by Long Covid can confirm. You could be in a car accident, or become sick, it could literally happen to anyone, so this truly does concern everyone, even if you are currently able-bodied and well.

Please, if you do nothing else, please fill in the consultation form and lobby the DWP not to introduce the ‘4 point rule’. If you only do that you’ll help thousands of people who are currently at risk of losing vital support.

consultation form

TLDR: please tell Liz Kendall not to remove vital welfare support from disabled people.

I really hate how the term disabled has been so expanded.

The whole point is we are saying that this very subjective term "disabled" has become so broad in its usage as to lose its effectiveness.

If everyone is disabled no one is

Please read the pip points criteria and educate yourself on the level of disabled you have to be to qualify.

It’s getting to the stage where pretty much everybody is.

No, if you are in the LCW group after 2017 then is the same rate as jobseekers. Some people can be on that for years.

The process itself is an expensive mess. I can’t understand why it has built into 2 levels of appeal. Mandatory reconsideration and the Appeal. So effectively someone’s claim could be assessed 3 times with all the bureaucracy involved in it. For an Appeal an actual Judge sits on the panel. Imagine how much it costs to pay judges to be part of PIP appeals. It would be interesting to know the numbers. I see people who want to appeal. We do warn them that there is a risk that there award could go down as well as up but for some people it’s like a throw of the dice. They think they might as well give it a go. Some people definitely need PIP/LCWRA to pay for living costs not just extra help to do with being disabled.

The cost of living crisis has been talked about for years but even many working people’s wages are not touching the sides now.

I'm sure the vast majority of unemployed people are doing their best to find jobs, because what's the alternative?
Trying to eek out an existence on UC?
What happens if it takes 6 months to get a job? A year? How are these people meant to survive?
For some, claiming LCWRA or PIP means they can survive! For many people, being unable to pay bills and the stress associated with being unable to make ends meet for an unspecified amount of time means these people suffer with depression and their mental health takes a nose dive!
A diagnosis is not needed to claim PIP or LCWRA!

@feelingbleh I disagree.

Disability is a huge spectrum and contain many people who have various advantages in life as well as their difficulties - wealthy family background, good geographical location, good support, good education, attended university, have professional qualifications and job, able to work from home, has supportive employer.

They could of course have none of these and instead have come from a poor background, poor geographical location, no qualifications, no support.

Having a disability does not necessarily mean that your life is worse than others, it may well be better than many people.

It is perfectly possible to be a successful happy person with a disability and to be someone who is unhappy, poor, unsuccessful and suffering severe deprivation without.

Wouldn't that suggest the basic amount of UC is not enough?

Of course it's not enough - it's not designed to be enough to survive long term. It's supposed to cover a short break between jobs.

How do you think someone who can't even wash themselves is going to be able to just move and travel long distances to work

Ive got a colleague with a physical disability (totally wheelchair bound) who needs support with this sort of stuff who also... manages to work full time.

I do agree the government may need to consider financial grants and support schemes to facilitate people moving to areas where there are more jobs. I'd also like to see training opportunities for those out of work to access skills needed to gain work.

Means that number of unemployed people supported by state should be twice less than it is now?

Trust me being disabled is shit. Yes some people make the best of it but it's still shit. Nobody want their child to be born disabled and have to watch them repeatedly nearly die having to go through surgery after surgery. Nobody want to be in a car crash that leaves you not being able to wipe your own ass. Nobody want to feel like they have nothing left to live for so they attempt to take their own life, Nobody wants to take 50 pills a day all with different side effects just to stay alive. Nobody wants to use all their holiday from work for hospital appointments. Nobody wants to lie in a hospital bed for months at a time.

What constitutes a short break? I couldn't survive on UC for 1 month!!

But who washes her is she lucky enough to have family help which she would then lose if she had to move or does pip pay for her carers which if she loses she won't be able to afford carers so won't be able to wash which means suddenly she can't work anymore see how that works pip is literally a lifeline to help people like your friend live and work independently

People do realise that the jobs available do not match the skills and qualifications of those looking for work.

They are also in the wrong places.

Not really. A lot of those jobs will be part time time or low wage so people will still need UC top ups anyway.
According to Google there is 761,000 job vacancies in the UK. That does not mean someone looking for work will be able to do all of those.
Once you narrow it down to where you live and your qualifications/experience, shift pattern and things like that then someone looking for work will find there is no much out there at all
Lots of threads on here right now about people struggling to find work and that is people who are not disabled with massive gaps in their CV.

@feelingbleh That's one particular kind of disabled. It is far far from universal.

There are lots of people with very shit lives.

We don't pay people for pity.

What you have written makes no sense what do you think disabled is have you read the pip criteria to see how disabled you have to be to be entitled to pip. None of what I wrote accept needing help to wipe your own ass would be enough to entitle someone to pip

And other benefits! For the second time I was not referring to PIP in the post that you are going on about. I did not mention it.

The change proposed seems like a simplistic tweak of the scoring which is likely to result in no award for many more applicants. The natural consequence of which will be a shed load more MR’s and Appeals..

It rather depends how hard you've worked at making yourself fit the criteria and how well you understand what you need to do to achieve that.

You can make the best of a situation or you can make the worst of it.

If you have heart disease you can continue smoking/drinking or you can change your lifestyle. With a bad back you can lie in bed all day, knocking back opiates and reduce your ability to function in life or you can get up, move about and do the physio exercises and improve your function.

In short in some situations, it is possible to control just how disabled you make yourself.

Are you saying there is no one that has made decisions that have made them more disabled rather than less?

This!

Yep which will cost an absolute fortune

That sounds dangerously like you are saying some people wont help themselves or do all the "wrong things" so they can stay on benefits.

No the most vulnerable should absolutely not share the burden.

It's potentially the difference between life and death for them ffs.

I agree there should be a review of the system. It’s really not sustainable and is being abused. Also, the fact that it’s not means tested, so that someone who works and might get £100k per annum can claim is madness. If you can hold down a job that pays you £100k, then pay for the extras yourself.