The benefit system

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The benefit system

Disablilty and lone parenthood - from Together Magazine issue 4

Lone parents with disabled children are disproportionately reliant on benefits but they incur extra costs as a result of their children’s needs. Research reveals that it costs three times more to bring up a child with severe disabilities than a child without a disability.5 All too often poor or inadequate services and problems within the educational system make things worse on a daily basis.

The Government recognizes that families with disabled children incur extra costs. The main source of additional support is Disability Living Allowance. Families on Income Support whose child is awarded DLA may see their income almost doubling. However, take up of DLA is notoriously low – between 40 per cent and 60 per cent.

Lack of information and a complex system prevent many low-income families receiving their full benefit entitlement. And families who do receive the maximum benefit income often find that it falls well short of the minimum budget needed to care for a disabled child.

Given the problems mothers have in accessing employment, it is clearly important that benefits provide security. However, while mothers I spoke to note a very welcome rise in income when their child is awarded DLA, they report a sudden and sometimes catastrophic drop in income when it is downrated or withdrawn – something which happens with depressing frequency.

As a result, the majority of the families I spoke to are sucked into an endless round of time-consuming and stressful benefit tribunals. While the majority of these result in DLA being reinstated, families worry that it will simply be downrated or removed again in the future. This financial roller-coaster undermines feelings of security and generates significant fluctuations in family income.

However, despite ongoing concerns about the adequacy and reliability of DLA, it is an invaluable source of financial support:‘I would not be able to cope if I didn’t get DLA and extra support – I would not.’

5 Dobson, Barbara. Middleton, Sue (1998) Paying to Care: The Cost of Childhood Disability, YPS for JRF and YPS for JRF and Dobson, Barbara, Middleton, Sue, and Braithwaite, Ian (2001) The Impact of Childhood Disability on Family Life, Life YPS for JRF

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