Below the Breadline

For the past decade, austerity policies have reigned supreme in Britain, where they’ve typically hit people living with disability the worst.

Words: Frances Ryan
Illustration: Tyla Mason

The extent of Britain’s descent into austerity-fuelled inequality is well established: by and large, the wealthy minority have been able to grow their cash in recent years, as wages are squeezed, benefits cut and prices increased for parts of society already living in hardship. Few cases demonstrate this better than that of people living with disability.

In 2019, the UK is in what can only be described as a quiet epidemic of disability poverty. Four million disabled adults are now living below the breadline, according to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) in 2018. To get a picture of the scale of this, that number accounts for over a third of all adults in poverty in the country. Go to your local food bank and, odds are, the queue is likely to be filled with cancer patients and wheelchair users. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) shows that one in five disabled people in Britain are currently in food poverty — that’s twice as many as non-disabled people. One in six disabled people now report having to wear a coat indoors in winter, Scope has found. They can’t afford to put the heating on.