I’m sorry (not sorry). I need to talk about the cost of living again.
I know it’s good to have some distraction from something which causes so much stress, but today we’ve had almost good news.
Which, as it turns out in practice, is as good as bad news.
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced today that benefits will increase in April in line with inflation. Hurrah? The inflationary measure is September’s rate of 10.1%.
We’re currently at 11.1% and we’re still months away from April. So it’s a start, but we know what’s coming.
And we have to get to the next increase on current benefits which were determined when inflation was 3.1%.
So little money, so much maths.
Before the cost of living crisis, four of the fourteen million disabled people in this country lived in poverty.
That figure is not going down.
Disabled people aren’t going to get much extra help with energy costs either.
Just £150, compared to £300 for pensioners, and £900 for people on Universal Credit. I’ve already written about Carolynne and Freya, whose energy bill looks set to rocket up to £17k this year because of Freya’s needs.
£150 is a few meagre nights of life saving breathing apparatus.
How do the Freyas of the world physically keep breathing when they’ve run out of money?
Carers are struggling too. If you care for somebody for over 35 hours a week and they are on certain disability benefits, you get just under £70 a week for your efforts.
So carers can’t cut back without endangering those they care for. What is there to cut when you live on that little?
Austerity is already responsible for tens of thousands of excess deaths in the UK.
The UN Committee on the rights of Persons with Disabilities found that austerity measures cause gross and systemic violations of disabled people’s human rights.
How many people are going to die this winter because of stress, a lack of food, a lack of warmth, or a lack of public services?
A few billion has been pledged to support education and social care through Local Authorities.
The sums sound huge, but the need is greater. It certainly won’t lead to more or better provision.
With year on year cuts in these areas going back to George Osborne, the investment will be running to stand still, or more likely running to be several laps behind where we should be.
The PM Rishi Sunak said he wanted to “protect the most vulnerable”. ‘Most’ is an interesting word.
Who are ‘the most’? People on Universal Credit? Because that’s not all of us living under the poverty line.
Disabled people hate the V word. But we do need financial protections to bring us up to the same living standards as non-disabled people. Where are they? Why are we not in this ‘most’ bracket?
Where is the extra, meaningful boost to disability benefits or energy payments?
Without living the life of a disabled person, or listening deeply, it is too easy to look at inflation, and numbers, and fail to understand just what we need on a day to day basis to survive.
And surviving is no way to live. We want to thrive. But this winter? The chances are slim to none. With a horrifying emphasis for a yet to be determined number on the none.
Work This Way
In happier news, Heart FM DJ and Flex Appeal flexible working guru Anna Whitehouse has just launched Work Your Way – a new website to hook up flexible working-friendly employers with people who need to work flexibly.
Disabled people and our carers struggle to find work to fit round our lives.
For those of us who can work, flexible working is often the dream.
It doesn’t matter how skilled we are, if employers are set on a nine to five, they are missing out on what we can offer.
Perhaps, with a website like this in the employment mix, we can dare to hope that such land of the dinosaurs working practices become just one of many instead of an outdated, work prohibiting norm?
