Wednesday 9 February 2011

How do you spend yours?

There's a striking slideshow on the Society Guardian website in which a number of disabled people explain how they spend their DLA.

But, for me, the most striking bit of all is how many of the people photographed need to spend their DLA on essentials. Mahri says she needs to spend her DLA on toiletries and deodorant, Johnny says he spends his on clothing, food, toiletries and hair cuts. Kofi says he spends his DLA on his shopping, Lorraine spends hers on clothes and Rubina says she worries about how she'll afford clothes without it. Tony says he needs his DLA to buy food.

DLA is supposed to be for the extra costs associated with being disabled and is not classed as "income". Your Incapacity Benefit or ESA or JSA or wages if you work should be enough for you to pay for life's essentials leaving you to spend your DLA on the costs you have that a non-disabled person doesn't incur.

That disabled people are living on so little that they need to spend their DLA on the basics is scandalous. Or it should be.

Of course, sometimes disabled people need to spend more on the basics. One example is people who need to buy ready meals and takeaway instead of ingredients to prepare our own food, because we can't prepare our own food. One friend of mine who has what she describes as a "freestyle" walking technique spends a fortune on shoes because she wears them out so quickly; another "basic" that's more expensive for us. So using your DLA to pay the difference between what a non-disabled person would spend and what you need to spend is absolutely logical. But we shouldn't be so impoverished that we can't meet normal expenses at all without our DLA.

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that in 2010 a single person needed £14,400 a year to reach a minimum standard of living. This equates to £277 a week. That’s just your average single person, not a disabled person who needs to fund the extra costs of being disabled.

If you disregard my DLA (because it's supposed to only cover the extra costs of being disabled and not everyday things) but include my housing benefit (which I don't see a penny of because it gets transferred straight from the HB department at the council into the council's rent collection department) then my income falls short of that £277 by £67.

You may think "well, she gets more than she'd get if she was on Job Seekers Allowance." But you have to remember that JSA is intended to only be a short term measure until you find a job (and I agree it's a paltry amount). My incapacitation has lasted 4 years so far and there's no end in sight. I actually have to live my life in the long term with monies falling short of the minimum income needed. There's no "we'll just pay you a poxy amount until a job comes up."

So it's not really any wonder disabled people end up using their DLA to pay for food and clothes, because if we're living on benefits we don't have enough money to actually live. And the government want to cut it back even further.

18 comments:

  1. Our combined income both my partners earnings and my student loan only just scrape above that. Bearing in mind that is for two of us and the extra costs of disability as well. We have to pay full price for everything as well, so no free prescriptions, full rent etc.

    Currently because of our low income my DLA has been used to pay for food, bills and essentials. We've been deemed too rich for ESA and because I've been at university for the last few years I don't have enough contributions to qualify for contribution based.

    I worry that when I leave university, if I can't find a job or am too unwell to work by that point that I don't know how we will survive. I can't see my condition improving given the rate of decline that I am currently seeing.

    A lot of disabled people that I know locally are really worried about the cuts and are living close to the edge already. These people have very little now, before the cuts have really bitten.

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  2. my ib+hb=157 pounds a week. Despite being told i qualify for hrm+mrc, I get both at the low rate. I have to use my DLA to eat anything, or get prescriptions as I applied for assistance but don't qualify.

    I don't get to buy clothes, or toiletries, or to go out, or to heat the house. I wouldn't know what to do if my income almost trebled to 14k, thats like a lottery win to me.

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  3. I never got above that in 10 years and that was with a wife and child

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  4. My DLA covers the huge cost of taxi fares because I can't use public transport ( the taxicards only cover about 50% per yr ) - plus help at home and the cost of having all my shopping delivered here. Also emergency help when I'm too ill to cook for myself as well as house repairs that I would previously have been able to do myself. My carefully constructed life would fall apart without it.

    Recently someone who I support with the same condition found that her DLA had been taken away because a locum doctor had written an incorrect report without her consent. As a result, after paying her housing costs she is now left with £14 per week!

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  5. I spend mine on independence. I'm fortunate that I can do a little work and my partner works so we can keep the bills paid - but DLA is the money that means I don't have to go begging to my partner for pocket money every time I need to pay for a taxi, or replace clothes damaged in falls, or use a laundry service because I can't wrangle wet sheets by myself.

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  6. My ESA + HB = £149 a week. I use my DLA to pay for my petrol, car insurance and servicing. To pay for ready meals, instant heat packs, splints, continence products, to save up for a wheelchair.

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  7. MY DLA covers Taxi fares, HEATING as I cannot let myself get cold at all as it makes the pain worse, foods that I do not have to do much to, or I wouldnt eat at all and having lost over 7st since i was ill, methinks it wouldnt be good to lose more. Toiletries etc, wet wipes and the like. Shopping is delivered - So much - My DLA = My LIFE!

    (And Mr Cameron I know in your eys I don't deserve a life cos OBVIOUSLY i got up one morning and thought to myself ''OOH I know - I'll get a progressive lifetime disability cos I dont wanna work - WELL I DID WANNA WORK AND I WAS GOING TO TEACH FITNESS YOU STUPID LITTLE MAN)

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  8. My partner and I worked out (for social services) that I spend over £100 per week on my disability-related expenses (not including costs of running my Motability car). That's over twice my DLA care component. The government's argument that we have DLA and it covers everything, which they use to deny us Winter Fuel Allowance, is a complete joke.

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  9. From being turned down for benefits and wrongly assessed at only low rate care when I should be at middle + high rate mobility, my low rate DLA + housing benefit comes to £84 a week.

    My boyfriend (and carer) works at minimum wage to try and support us, leaving me without care most of the day, and between us we're still falling short of that £277 by about £40.

    So yes, my DLA goes on food and other basics. I don't buy clothes - I rely on asking for them on my birthday and christmas and hoping they'll last the year. I can't remember the last time I had a hair cut that wasn't done at home by a friend or family member.

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  10. Goes towards my rent (tops up HB), otherwise I`d have to live in a rat-infested chav-hole. (Had enough of that and the harassment thanks).

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  11. I added up my disality with IB for both of us wife and myself, and we get £550 a week.

    If we were both working on the min wage we be getting about £180 for me £180 for her. thats £360 a week which is about what we did have.

    We do not get housing or rent allowance but do get child credits, DLA full my wife gets low.

    The loss of DLA would be serious any loss it.

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  12. It just goes to show how the daily mail and governments hate the disabled campaign has worked, it shows that in this country more people care about libraries and trees than they do for their fellow human beings, it makes me want to cry.

    How can we as a supposedly civilised society allow the most vulnerable in our country suffer without so much as a thought, and yet care so much about our forests? Please don’t get me wrong I love the forests and trees especially they are a large part of my life and come with my love of Bonsai trees, but the very fact that nearly half a million people have signed the save our forest petition (http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-forests) and yet only just over 4000 have signed the save our disabled petition (http://www.petitiononline.co.uk/petition/petition-the-minister-for-disabled-people-to-recall-the-public-consultation-on-dla-reform/569/0aa4fc2026635b34c32b57a1e644d746) appals and disgusts me.

    Is there no room in society for the disabled? Have we as a nation lost all of our compassion? Have we stopped caring? It does make me wonder if we disabled people should be put down like the scum we are portrayed to be, perhaps the government could introduce a help your country campaign volunteer for euthanasia and save our country! I would probably volunteer, it would save me so much pain and suffering that I sometimes know it would be a relief to not face that every single day.

    I cannot believe though that the people of this country have become so self cantered and uncaring that they would allow that to happen (or have they?) the campaign against the disabled by the media and government has to stop, and the non-disabled of this nation must stand alongside the disabled and allow us to live with dignity, if they have the slightest spark of feeling or compassion, if they cant do that to protect the weak and vulnerable then please someone give me the injection now because I really don’t want to continue to live in a world where compassion is nonexistent.

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  13. I am scared. I fear for my life because I feel my life is under threat.

    I fear this because at every turn this Government who SAY they care - Are trying to do me in - Because they say I am unsustainable and in my words that means I am worthless.

    So now I wait until they take my DLA and that signals the end of my life.

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  14. You might like to have a look at a post I sent last year on My Life as a 'Benefit Scrounger'.
    http://leonora-opera.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-life-as-benefit-scrounger.html

    It's just going to get worse....

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  15. I too am scared. I am deaf and have cerebral palsy. My husband had a cruel streak in him and periodkically attacked me and my daughter. I had a benefits advisor call on me and told me that I was entiteld to the high rate of both conponements. It helps inmany ways. She also told me that it was compensation for the life i could jave led without C.P.etc...

    I am now AN OLD AGE PENSIONER LIVING ON MY OWN-I use dla to ma,e my life more comfortable, taxis...do you think this government will take it away forcing me to try and sue it for hospital mismanagment during the war??? quite frankly i am totally fed up. it is making me worse... I have not felt like doing anything for days i feel sick of it already!

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  16. I HAVE BEEN A CARER FOR MY WIFE SINCE 1996 , SHE HAS HAD 2 STROKES & DIABETIC
    I,M DIABETIC MYSELF I LOST THE SIGHT IN MY LEFT EYE 9 YEARS AGO
    I,M WORRIED ALSO I HAVE BEEN HAVING TREATMENT TO MY FEET BECAUSE OF ULCERS 7 BLISTERS & LOW CIRCULATION I HAVE HAD A TOE AMUTATION
    WHAT WORRIES ME THE MOST
    WHO WILL LOOK AFTER MY WIFE IFF I,M FORCED TO FIND A JOB
    THESE EXAMINATIONS ARE FRIEGHTNING
    WE ARE TOLD NOT TO WORRY
    STOPPING DLA & INCAPACITY
    EVEN IFF A PERSON PASSES THESE TESTS
    OTHER BENEFITS TO REPLACE INCAPAITY & DLA
    WILL STILL FALL SHORT WHILE WE WERE GETTING THE DLA 7 INCAPACITY BENEFITS
    THE GUENIUN DISABLED PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SUFFER
    DISABLED PEOPLE WILL HAVE TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES
    MY WIFE & I SPEND THE MAJORITY OF OUR DLA SHE GETS HIGH RATE
    I GET MIDDLE RATE
    ON EXTRA DIETS
    FOR BEING DIABETICS
    TRANSPORT
    HOUSEHOLD GOODS THE ESSENTIAL THINGS THE BENEFIT IS FOR
    THANK YOU
    TAKING THESE AWAY WOULD BE SUICIDAL
    TO THOUSANFS OF DISABLED PEOPLE
    TAKE THE JUNKIES & ALCAHOLICS
    WITHDRAW THEIR DLA,S
    LETS SEE HOW THEY COPE

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  17. It clearly states on the dla form that it is for care needs and is not to be spent on bills

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