The disability benefits system is broken. It has not adapted to a world where disability and ill health are more prevalent, and more complex in terms of the variation of impact on people's lives or the support that could help.
Disability often results from medical conditions, and is worsened by challenges accessing health services and social care. It is also exacerbated by the barriers to participation in society and the economy – such as limited access to education, poor quality transport infrastructure, employment discrimination, and inflexible workplaces – that disabled people face.
Over the last 20 years the main policy response, in the face of rising costs, has been to make claiming disability benefits more difficult.
Additional Links/Reading: CWs in spoiler
CWs: ableism, discussions of trauma, medical ableism, neglect and abuse, eugenic and capitalist undertones/viewpoints
Disability Benefits in Different Countries
Half of disabled people ‘humiliated’ during benefits assessments, new research finds
Center For American Progress - How Dehumanizing Administrative Burdens Harm Disabled People
Disability News Service - UN committee asks government: ‘Why are you demonising disabled people?’
Friendly reminder to please use
for sensitive content that falls under Hexbear's Code of Conduct. You can find the spoiler tag here:
spoiler tags and content warnings [cw]
Hexbear CoC
Alt Text of image
Alt text of image: a screenshot of a comment box and its editing options, with a dark theme, grey and dark grey background with white text. A skinny white arrow points to the "spoiler" option, which is an exclamation point inside of a diamond, and the 13th or second-from-the-last icon in the middle of the photo and at the top of the light grey comment box that reads "Type here to comment..." in white italic font
After clicking it, substitute the second "spoiler" with your content warning and the three underscores ( ___ ) with your sensitive content.
As always, we ask that in order to participate in the weekly megathread, one self-identifies as some form of disabled, which is broadly defined in the community sidebar:
"Disability" is an umbrella term which encompasses physical disabilities, emotional/psychiatric disabilities, neurodivergence, intellectual/developmental disabilities, sensory disabilities, invisible disabilities, and more. You do not have to have an official diagnosis to consider yourself disabled.
Mask up, love one another, and stay alive for one more week.
top 50 comments