Disability benefits should be the equivalent of a full time job on living wage. Things don’t cost less because you’re disabled - in fact you often have additional costs of living. You shouldn’t be forced into poverty because you are disabled.
Before anyone comes in with ’ but then ppl would lie so they didn’t have to work!’
Two responses
Universal basic income + better wages is the way forward
Who fucking cares? Not me. This insistence that ppl lie to get benefits and as a result benefits should be a fucking pittance that it’s humiliating to apply for just fucks over disabled people and is inhumane
Added to this:
No retesting of permanent disabilities.
It is huge stress for people with autism or lost limbs or so forth to be retested, especially when they’re often denied - every two years or less - their benefits and forced to appeal and then get back what they originally had (or less) … it’s weeks without income, which has sent many people homeless or forced them into short-term loans and debt they can’t escape. It’s barbaric.
Also, payments made during appeal - if they don’t deserve the cash, they can repay over time, but if they do then you’ve stopped them from going into debt and/or being made homeless. The whole system needs a huge overhaul, especially with the assessors being paid per person chucked off the system.
It’s absolutely dehumanising to say the least.
And no more marriage/cohabitation policies so that people whose only source of income is those benefits can use them to contribute to a partnership instead of having them yanked away on the grounds that “your spouse can support you now.”
Make basic living income a thing.
Just so people understand how ridiculous disability assistance can be:
I live in BC Canada. For one person, I get $1,185.42 exactly. Not every week, mind you. We get one payment per month, on the last Wednesday of the month, providing there are three business days after. (meaning if the month ends in a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, we get it the week before. It’s a confusing system.)
What does that mean? Well, it means that we frequently have ‘months’ between paychecks that are five weeks long. So let’s do some math.
Assume I am a perfectly able bodied person, working 40 hours a week, for five weeks. At the current minimum wage in BC of 12.65 an hour, before any taxes, I would be making $2,530. More than DOUBLE what my assistance is.
So let’s reverse that. 1185.42 / 200 hours worked (five weeks of forty hours) is, if we’re being generous and rounding up, $5.93 an hour. If I’m lucky and it’s a four week month? $7.41
But we should just be grateful for what we get, right?
