Disabled Women Facing 11% Drop in Living Standards Sparks WBG’s Call for Urgent Government Action

Disabled women face a disproportionate decline in living standards, standing to lose 11% or the equivalent of over £4,000 a year, to tax and benefit changes and public spending cuts since 2010, reveals new research from the Women’s Budget Group (WBG).

Responding to these findings, the feminist economics think tank urges the new government not to delay investment in social infrastructure and to restore the social security system to adequate levels, warning that without intervention, vulnerable women in England, including Disabled women, will face deeper financial hardship towards the end of this parliament.

These findings are part of a new report titled “Where do we go from here?” released today by WBG that sheds light on the impact of 14 years of austerity on women. The report looks at the combined impact of changes to tax and benefits plus changes to public services from 2010/11 projected to 2027/28 broken down by gender, income, race/ethnicity, disability and household type.

Key findings

• Overall and on average, women experience a higher annual loss in living standards than men, losing 9.4%, equivalent to £3,162 per year, to men’s loss of 5.8% (£2,395 per year).
• For Disabled women, the decline in living standards goes up to 11%, equivalent to over £4,000 a year, compared to 8% for Disabled men (nearly £3,500) and 5% for non-Disabled men.
• Gender and disability intersect with income inequalities: The poorest Disabled women stand to lose around one-fifth of their living standards.
• While the impact on living standards decreases as we move up the income distribution, the pattern persists across all income brackets: Disabled women experience the greatest losses, Disabled individuals lose more than their non-Disabled counterparts, and women lose more than men.

Figure 1: Impact of changes to social security, taxes and public service spending from 2010/11 projected to 2027/28 by sex, disability and income quintile

Other key figures:

• According to the DWP, families where someone is Disabled have a higher poverty rate than families where no one is disabled, 24.34% and 19.67% correspondingly ¹ .
• According to the Census 2021, 23% of women are Disabled versus 19% of men. Women represent 55% of Disabled people in England and Wales ² .
• Almost 55% of PIP claimants are women.
• According to latest ONS data, Disabled women are more likely to experience domestic abuse, showing that among Disabled people, 10% were victims of domestic abuse, versus 5% of non-Disabled people ³ .

Ignacia Pinto, Senior Research and Policy Officer at WBG, said,

“Today’s findings expose the systemic inequalities that have deepened as a result of more than a decade of austerity politics. 14 years of reckless underinvestment have weakened our public services and torn apart our social safety net – but the impact of this has not been felt equally across society. It is Disabled women, working class women, Black and Asian women and single mums who are taking the biggest hit in living standards.”

“Our analysis shows that unless the Government takes action now and commits to investment to rebuild our broken public services and restore the social safety net, Disabled women will be significantly poorer towards the end of this parliament.

“Since the introduction of the Equality Act in 2010, we’ve called on successive governments to properly assess the impact of their policies on different social groups. Our research shows the importance of evaluating and disclosing how policies affect men and women, and different groups of men and women, differently. The start of a new government is a chance to change course, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves has the opportunity to show that she’s serious about making the economy work for women in the upcoming Budget.”

Kym Oliver, Disabled Women’s Collective Sisters of Frida, said,

“Disabled Black & Brown Women, in all their expansive identities, have been suffering at the sharpest edge of the government’s unethical austerity measures, even prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. They, alongside the wider Disabled community, have long been trying to warn local authorities, media, and the government of the long-term dangers to other members of the population, should Disabled people become a ‘necessary sacrifice’ for so-called reductions in government spending. The government, instead of revising its approach, doubled down on its refusal to address the ableism, racism and misogyny that drive the policies which are leading its citizens into ruin, and in many cases an early grave.

“Laws like the Equality Act 2010 do not by themselves protect the wellbeing and or security of this nation’s most marginalised people. We cannot legislate our way into an equitable society. We require robust, transformational policies, rooted in an understanding of equity and the diversity of experiences within this nation; policies and interventions led and developed by those who live at the intersections of oppression. The government must invest in relevant research conducted by Disabled scholars from marginalised backgrounds, as well as provide long-term funding to grassroots community organisations – many of which have stood in the gap, and continue to develop strategies for communal care, in an age of rugged individualism.”

Based on today’s findings, WBG calls on the new Government to

• Make substantial changes to the social security system including
  • Retaining PIP and related disability benefits as cash payments and as a vital contribution towards the additional costs of disability.
  • Increasing the real value of benefits and retaining regular uprating of social security benefits to at least match cost-of-living increases.
  • Abolishing punitive policies such as the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ condition, ending the Universal Credit five-week wait and introducing a second-earner work allowance.
  • Abolishing the High-Income Child Benefit Charge and increase Child Benefit to £50 per child per week.
  • Raising the Local Housing Allowance to the 50th percentile of rents with regular uprating to continue to match local average rents.
• Introduce fairer taxes to increase revenue such as equalising Capital Gains Tax and Income Tax rates, and introduce taxation of wealth.
• Invest in public services to promote gender equality, including prioritising the building of more social housing, and increase public service spending to at least pre-austerity levels.

ENDS

Notes to editors

• Full report available to read here.
• This report examines the cumulative impact of changes to social security, taxes, and public service spending between 2010/11 and 2027/28 in England. It is an update on our previous work in 2017 with Runnymede Trust, which focused on the impact of austerity on Black and minority ethnic women in the UK (Intersecting inequalities: The impact of austerity on Black and Minority Ethnic women in the UK).
• Microsimulation and distributional analysis by Howard Reed, Landman Economics.
• For this report, living standards were measured by combining net income with the cash-equivalent value of public services. This method acknowledges that living standards depend not only on financial resources but also on the availability and access to essential services such as transport, health and social care, and education.
• To arrive at the figures, we compared two scenarios: one with the impact of policy changes as they have happened since 2010 and are planned until 2027/28, and another hypothetical scenario as if those changes hadn’t happened. All monetary values are in April 2024 prices.
• For further information, please see the Methodology Appendix and the Technical Note.

Spokespeople are available for interviews.

Please contact

Viktoria Szczypior at press@wbg.org.uk / viktoria.szczypior@wbg.org.uk / 7553663144

About the Women’s Budget Group

The UK Women’s Budget Group (WBG) is the UK’s leading feminist economics think tank, providing evidence and analysis on women’s economic position and proposing policy alternatives for a gender-equal economy. We act as a link between academia, the women’s voluntary sector and progressive economic think tanks.