Disability, independance and labels...

Im sure I’m not alone in remembering the time that it dawned on me, I am disabled. Whether that is as a child going to school or in my case it was when I was first entitled to Disability living allowance. That name, my new label. Disability.

Let me be clear, when I was first deemed disabled there was no party. It isn’t like getting a job or graduating where people are actually happy about it. It isn’t a status symbol. In a lot of cases it is about the accepting of a new way of life, one of pain, shame and illness. It is, at first a pretty negative experience.

I haven’t seen long queues at the doctors wanting to be labeled as disabled, because of some perverse desire to be considered somehow as ill.  It isn’t (contrary to some newspapers) an easy life. It is a difficult life and one that involves a complete shift in perspective if you have become disabled after birth.

Now I admit there are financial “benefits” to this label. However,  these financial benefits are far outweighed by the additional costs involved with disability. Whatever sort of disability it may be. There are other, more personal costs as well. I may have a free bus pass, but it comes with the knowledge that I will never be able to drive.

I don’t know how many other disabled people have come this far in their journey or even to the same point as I have. But I have moved along way from that initial realisation of disabled.

For me, my disability was my own, completely circling around me and my lifestyle and my choices in life. I can’t say I blamed myself, but I did feel blamed and I guess in someway accepted that. I had been discriminated against because I wasn’t well enough to go to uni, yes, it might have been wrong, but the onus was always on me to change.

Until I started studying disability studies and slowly I came round to social model thinking, that actually society could go a long way to adapting to my disability and it was them that was making it harder for me.

And then I started to fight back.

I remember a particular conversation with my GP. She said to me that she didn’t consider me disabled, and that she knew of others worse off than me. At this point I was pretty clear on the social model and so I explained to her that in fact it was opinions like that which made society disabling. Apart from not knowing me personally she was trying to judge me differently to what I perceived to be true. After coming away from that appointment I considered, I am on DISABLED students allowance, DISABILITY living allowance,  I have a DISABILITY bus pass. If those things didn’t make me disabled I don’t know what does.

The worrying thing for me is that the welfare reform bill, and even ESA is actually going to make it easier for people to consider claiming falsly for these benefits. By taking away the label DISABILITY or INCAPACITY from the new benefits it also takes away the feelings associated with acceptance of  that particular label.

When I got my DLA it was a weird experience, as I was happy that I received it, but it was making a reality that I was really disabled. By changing this to personal independence payment it  refocuses it away from disability and blurs the lines quite considerably.

I am not saying this to be negative, just to be critical.  When a person receives Disability Living allowance there is a certain stigma attached and I hope, and I guess this might be behind the low fraud rate. As I said before, no one is queuing up to be labeled as disabled, and this Disability living allowance does exactly that. Personal independence payment simply takes the disability out of the benefit and replaces it with independence. The scary thing is that the opposite of independence is dependence, and there will be 500,000 sick and disabled people not entitled to be independent, and therefore, by default will be dependant. 

yesterdays protest

First I want to start by saying how worried I was that yesterdays protest would somehow damage the reputation of the new disabled peoples movements and create headlines and stories off message and distracting to the main cause. I am really glad that this hasn't been the case, as I have seen some really great stories and coverage of the day yesterday (it was only twitter that seemed to get a bit negative).

I was really impressed that everyone decided to move off in a peaceful way and that there were no arrests or any disturbances. I LOLed at the police vans not being able to take wheelchairs and I am really amazed and in awe of those who took part. As with any protest, the participants take a great risk to their health and the personal sacrifice for a greater cause is appreciated.

However, and I say this tentatively because I don't want to hurt feelings or create tension, I am concerned. I speak from a disability studies angle, and I hope you appreciate that with this degree I am being taught to be critically aware of issues surrounding disability and to 'look beyond' the surface.

Yesterdays protest in my opinion was all about the wheelchairs blocking the road. Although many other disabled people were involved in this protest and stood alongside non disabled ukuncut activists there was little focus on them. It is a little bit of a bugbear of mine (which I apologise for) that people (IE society) sees disability as people in wheelchairs. Yesterdays protest, in my opinion only perpetuated that belief. There appeared to be no equality with other disabled people, and in my opinion they were the ones who took the greater risk. If the police were to start clearing the protest they would have started with the standing protestors under the assumption that these people were not disabled and part of ukuncut.

Thats what I really liked about the hardest hit march that I went on in october, and the internet based campaigning on twitter. There is equality of participation. In October the slowest walkers went at the front of the march and it was at a slow pace for everyone to feel involved. Everyone felt a part of it and had equal role to play.

On twitter, and on the internet, no one knows whose in a wheelchair and whose got what impairment, or even if they are impaired. The internet doesn't discriminate on the grounds of disability. Again everyone was able to take part equally and contribute equally to the action.

Now, as I have said before I have great admiration for yesterdays protest. It was daring and it was an amazing thing to have pulled off. I am just thinking that in future things like this could be less focused on using wheelchairs as barricades and focusing more on a way for all disabled people to participate equally?

26,000 pounds and all that jazz

I wrote this blog earlier. http://allbigideas.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-fake-family.html In it I used the figure that has been claimed to be the average uk wage. Or so I thought? Since posting, people have catergorically stated to me that 26k is the average HOUSEHOLD income.

Heres a summary of my findings below. The average british family income is 40,000 pounds according to the BBC (based on 2 adults working). The average salary for a UK worker (full time) is 26,244 gross (BEfORE tax) about 20 K after tax.

And the UK government is expecting whole familys to live on the gross earnings of one full time worker (who would be entitled to benefits to top up their income in my calculation above) regardless of their size or household rent or mortgage? Shouldn't the government be looking to the BBC article that clearly demonstrates that even on 40,000 pounds the average family struggles?

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my train of thought and sources...

So, I got twitter to help me after I did some digging and found this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15197860 
which clearly states

"The average income for a British family with two adults working is £40,000 a year. But while there are people who feel well-off living on this, for others it is a daily struggle."

Obviously I got confused and so asked for a source of the 26,000 figure. Which thansk to Queerpup I got. http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/23/uk-household-earnings-fall

from the link: 
"The median salary for a full-time worker in the UK rose 1.4% in 2011 to £26,244,  "

so again, is that net or gross?

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/ashe-results-2011/ashe-statistical-bulletin-2011.html

"Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees (including those whose pay was affected by absence) were £26,200, an increase of 1.4 per cent from 2010 "

so its gross...

my fake family...

It concerns me that the government caps benefits at 26,000. They argue that this is the average wage in the UK and no one should earn more on benefits. Fair enough you say? Apart from the obvious problem that the cap is being applied per household and not per person (as the average pay is for one person not a household). I wanted to see whether a person earning 26k after tax would be entitled to benefits. As the government deems it enough to live on for one group, surely the answer would be no?

meet my fake family. A single parent, earning 35k a year (26k after tax) with 3 children. They live in this house in sheffield. I chose the cheapest rental 3 bedroom house on in sheffield. They pay 495 pcm. As the parent works I have estimated 100 pounds a week is spent on childcare (say 2 children need childcare, 5 pounds an hour for 10 hours a week). Council tax band A in sheffield is: £983.49 a year. They have no other income.

So, putting all this into http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

  

That is a total of 7,300 pounds of benefit entitlement. Ok, so lets say this single parent looses their job? They'd get more, or the same right? Thats what the government says, the government is cracking down on benefit entitlement being too high. Wrong...

So, my fake family would be better off in work. 33,268 pounds would be their income if they were in work, and if they are out of work this drops to only 21,168.37.

Even on 26,000 pounds a single parent would be entitled to benefits. There is a big difference in the income you receive if you are not working.

article from pulse...

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/comment-blogs/-/blogs/13347229/working-without-enthusiasm-is-the-best-we-ve-been-able-to-come-up-with
to save you registering il put it here:

 

 

'Working without enthusiasm is the best we've been able to come up with'

4.00PM 26 January 2012

As the British Medical Association draws up plans for industrial action over pension reforms it remains far from clear exactly what form this action should take.
A BMA representative says: 'Working without enthusiasm is the best we’ve been able to come up with. Forget banner-waving and looting Asda, we’ve decided that the best thing we can do to send the government a clear and consistent message is to behave in exactly the same way that you do every Monday morning.'
'Refuse to smile, sign scripts really slowly with a pencil, tut at patients when they ask for a sick line because their knee is a bit tingly and just let those forms for disability living allowance gather dust in the depths of your pigeon hole. In fact we suggest that you do what every member of the working British public does on a Monday morning and Friday afternoon.'
In order to get some feedback about working without enthusiasm, which is a concept unheard of in the medical profession, the BMA consulted Julie who works part time at the Croydon branch of Topshop.
Julie won the Working Without Enthusiasm award for three years in a row and last year she spent half of her shift smoking fags out the back which is a branch record.
Julie says: 'Working without enthusiasm is really very simple if you get the basics right. First of all, you need a slack expression ... like this ... then you need to chew gum like it’s going out of fashion and then you need to perfect the art of wrinkling up your nose in disbelief if anyone asks you to do anything.
'The next step is to develop an overwhelming addiction to Facebook, and show more interest in Katy Perry than kidney cancer. That last one might be difficult for doctors but it’s amazing what you can do if you just apply yourself.'
We also tried to contact the Professor of Procrastination studies for his views, but he replied: 'I’m out for lunch, call me back sometime.'

normal people are really sick...

My new years resolution for 2012 was to become well.

Nothing too serious though, I don’t want to be an out and out normie or anything, perhaps just a touch of ableness, so perhaps I could work or something?

I hear theres a lot of money to be made from being normal. Aparantly you can even get a job, you know a proper one, not just one of those workfare ones. One that pays tax and everything.

And it is far easier to be seen as normal these days than was ever the case, just go and see ATOS and you’l be instantly cured, fit for work!

Also, I am nothing if not a creature of fashion, a cool and with-it hipster, daddy-o, who is always up to date with the latest trends.

And being normal is incredibly fashionable. The number of people who claim to be normal has doubled in the past ten years. (again, thanks to ATOS for that)

And who can blame them? Not only do you get a hell of a lot more money from working than being on benefits- but if you play your cards right you might even be able to afford a brand new car of your own and perhaps even a week or two in the sun. You could even afford to park wherever you want and not have to go home if there are no spaces near the shops.

Ahh, the shops, if I was normal I might be able to actually buy things in them, you know, with real money? And I could use a normal toilet, without having to wait for the only disabled loo that’s usually taken up with a parent changing her kid or a wayward MP. And no guilt either! Amazing!

The latest figures regarding employment and being normal came out this week. It is now estimated that the majority of the population are normal, and are fit to work. What’s more, almost all of them have been able to do so for more than a decade! WOW shocker!

When you suggest this is a public scandal, the government get very cross and accusing you of victimizing the normals.

But I’m not. I’m vicitimising the people who are normal in order to claim handouts from employers. Disgusting behaviour, is working.

Or at least, I’m trying to: I don’t suppose it will have much effect. Just water off their supposedly straight backs.

Then the right wingers will say- hang on a minute, you fat old leftie, more money is lost to the country through sickness benefits than from tax avoidance. And then I would point them in the direction of the facts…

And the Government should deal with that misleading statement with a bit more vigour than they do right now.

But it still doesn’t make normals ok does it?

Its like saying we shouldn’t get worked up about not being able to work, because working is so much worse.

It’s a silly argument, we all know normals have it too good.

More than anything, though, the people who find that people are normal are doing a disservice to their country, ATOS are denying people who are truly disabled or ill, and forcing them out into the workplace. It has become easier for ATOS to do this, partly as a consequence of the government who, out of their own self-interest, insist that an ever-greater proportion of the population is normal.

I think we should all try and be disabled for a month or so, try and claim benefits and see how hard it really is. Then hopefully it might persuade the government to sort out the mess. 

http://www.freezepage.com/1327578079WVBGACETGC  (a parody of this article)

who would you demonise?

I am desperately trying to think of another real life example to prove how ludicrous the idea of attacking tenants for the cost of their rents that landlords have set. I think it would be akin to having a go at the passengers of an airplane for the cost of the plane tickets.

You wouldn't have a go at the passengers. After all they didn't chose the price of their ticket and its set by the airline. Equally you wouldn't have a go at the air stewardess for the price, but perhaps the government for the ammount of taxes and charges but mainly the airline itself.

In the same way, a tenant very often has little choice over their  acomondation, the ammount they pay for it etc etc. it is set by local rates and landlords out to make a profit. It should always be the fault of the landlord and perhaps the government for allowing this to continue.