The Insecurity of Disability: What is My Place in Society?

by Heather Mew

Within the current climate of Conservative welfare reforms and widespread cuts to social security, finding myself in a position where I am currently too ill to work has caused a dramatic increase in how precarious life feels. I am not alone in this feeling — with a recent vote to cut Employment Support Allowance by £30 per week from April 2017 and punitive changes to the fit-for-work assessments, applying for ESA has become an increasingly daunting and worrying ordeal.

For many, the support offered through the welfare state is barely enough to cover the necessities — for me, the £57.90 a week I receive for the first three months of my ESA application does not cover my rent and utilities. Especially if one is transitioning from a well-paid job or full time employment, the sudden drop in financial support available hits hard, and the £150 a month shortfall I have has definitely not helped with anxiety levels. Various studies highlight how people in receipt of disability-related benefits often have financial shortfalls that force them to accept a reduced quality of life, and how even small delays between benefit payments can have devastating effects (Heslop, 2013; Morris, 2013). Furthermore, following welfare reforms and the government’s attempt to ‘clamp down’ on benefit fraud, new fit-for-work assessments and the ever present fear of being sanctioned adds further levels of insecurity to the situation. Research conducted through Thrive* (2016) highlights how many people who have been sanctioned do not fully understand why they were sanctioned, were not warned in advance of their payments stopping, and were not informed about emergency hardship payments available.

This new found financial insecurity has led my partner and I to search for cheaper accommodation once our tenancy is up in August. This is when I discovered problem number two — around 70% of the adverts on property search websites contained the following phrase — “NO PETS, NO SMOKERS, NO DSS**”. Widespread stigma about the type of individuals who claim benefits, compounded with concerns over changes to housing benefits meaning tenants might default on rent payments, has led many landlords and letting agents to refuse applications from people in receipt of welfare benefits. The thing I find most worrying about this development is the complete legality of it all — whilst some would argue that landlords have the right to protect themselves and their assets, once again it is people who rely on benefits who suffer the most, this time in the form of finding affordable accommodation.

So far my transition from employment to claiming ESA has resulted in my inability to fully pay my rent and utilities, caused increased anxiety over impending fit-for-work assessments and the possibility of my claim being rejected, and will hinder my potential to find more affordable accommodation. However, perhaps the more challenging insecurity which has arisen is the change in how I define myself as a person, and subsequently my place in society.

The very first question I asked myself when applying for ESA was ‘what will I tell people I do when they ask me’? Previously I would have replied that I am a geographer or I am a barista, but the label I am disabled as a defining statement does not sit comfortably with me. The fundamental problem here is that I define myself in terms of my occupation — I am only worth as much as my economic productivity. In a society which constantly defines peoples worth in terms of their ability to work, those who are unable to financially support themselves without government aid are characterised as less than, as waste or abject populations.

Throughout her book Revolting Subjects (2013), Imogen Tyler discusses how these characterisations of abject subjects distances people from citizenship and justifies stigma and punitive policies against these individuals. It is through this process that landlords are able to justifiably write ‘NO DSS’ on their adverts — government and media rhetoric of ‘work shy shirkers’ alongside cuts to welfare helps create an atmosphere of people on benefits being undeserving of support, of being waste populations, and most definitely not being the type of upstanding tenant one would want in their property.

It is important to note that, whilst I talk more specifically about ESA throughout this article, these insecurities created by being dependent on welfare support apply just as equally to many claiming Job Seekers Allowance, or Housing Benefit for example. Being unable to financially support oneself and therefore requiring government assistance brings with it economic instability, increased anxiety as a result of welfare reforms and harsh sanctions, and insecurity as to ones place in the world and how others view them. For myself and many others, finding myself in a position where I need support now more than ever has caused my life to become increasingly precarious, with only more worries about the future to come.

* Thrive is a Teesside based charity which works with community members to alleviate the effects of poverty and to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.

* DSS is an outdated term for the Department of Social Security, now called the Department for Work and Pensions.

You can follow Heather on Twitter here.