Posted on 11/07/2011 11:53:29 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Almost one million people will be stripped of their incapacity benefit payments and forced to look for jobs under major reforms to the welfare system over the next three years, research has found.
The Coalition’s tougher rules on who can claim incapacity allowances will be felt most strongly in Labour’s heartlands of the north of England, Scotland and Wales, according to the study, which criticised the plan.
The report from Sheffield Hallam University, in the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s constituency, warned that that “vast numbers” of people will be impoverished and left in distress as a result of the reforms.
Over the next three years, major changes are being introduced to incapacity benefit, including a tougher medical test for claimants, the re-testing of existing recipients of payments, and a limit on the length of time individuals are entitled to non-means tested benefits.
Disabled groups and charities have claimed the new tests are stigmatising the disabled and mentally-ill as “scroungers” in order to save money from the welfare bill.
Ministers insist that the reforms are not an attempt to stop “scroungers” but will help more people currently deemed unable to work find jobs.
The Sheffield Hallam report, which analysed pilot schemes and the Department for Work and Pensions’s own calculations, found that the impact of the reforms has so far “barely been felt”.
The current total of 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit will fall by about one million by 2014, under the reforms, although this is not a sign of “widespread fraud” in the existing system, according to the study.
Professor Steve Fothergill, co-author of the report, said: “The large numbers that will be pushed off incapacity benefits over the next two to three years are entirely the result of changes in benefit rules.
“The reduction does not mean
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
You would think that advocates would applaud such a move, since it would either free up funds to increase payments to the sincerely disabled or, at the very least, make the program more viable by dropping able-bodied.
We're moving towards this model with governments (or like) giving out reduced real estate taxes, 50% not paying taxes, home heating assistance or providing space heaters, free breakfast, lunch and dinners in schools, free backpacks, collections of can goods and clothing for the poor, in-state tuitions for illegals, on and on and on.
2.6 million Brits out of 50 million are incapacitated? that’s 5%. Pretty large.
About 300,000 welfare recipients disappeared.
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