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Public support for older disabled people: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing on receipt of disability benefits and social care subsidy
- Authors:
- HANCOCK Ruth, MORCIANO Marcello, PUDNEY Stephen
- Publisher:
- University of East Anglia
- Publication year:
- 2016
- Pagination:
- 35
In England, state support for older people with disabilities consists of a national system of non-means-tested cash disability benefits and a locally administered means-tested system of social care. Evidence on how the combination of the two systems targets those in most need is lacking. This study estimates a latent factor structural equation model of disability and receipt of one or both forms of support. The model integrates the measurement of disability and its influence on receipt of state support, allowing for the socio-economic gradient in disability, and adopts income and wealth constructs appropriate to each part of the model. This paper finds that receipt of each form of support rises as disability increases, with a strong concentration on the most disabled, especially for local-authority-funded care. The overlap between the two programmes is confined to the most disabled. Less than half of recipients of local-authority-funded care also receive a disability benefit; a third of those in the top 10 per cent of the disability distribution receive neither form of support. Despite being non-means-tested, disability benefits display a degree of income and wealth targeting, as a consequence of the socio-economic gradient in disability and likely disability benefit claims behaviour. The scope for improving income/wealth targeting of disability benefits by means testing them, as some have suggested, is thus less than might be expected. (Edited publisher abstract)
Assessing the distributional impact of reforms to disability benefits for older people in the UK: implications of alternative measures of income and disability costs
- Authors:
- HANCOCK Ruth, PUDNEY Stephen
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 34(2), 2014, pp.232-257.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
The UK Attendance Allowance (AA) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) are non-means-tested benefits paid to many disabled people aged 65 + . They may also increase entitlements to means-tested benefits through the Severe Disability Premium (SDP). The authors investigate proposed reforms involving withdrawal of AA/DLA. Despite their present non-means-tested nature, they show that withdrawal would affect mainly low-income people, whose losses could be mitigated if SDP were retained at its current or a higher level. The authors also show the importance of the method of describing distributional impacts and that use of inappropriate income definitions in official reports has overstated recipients' capacity to absorb the loss of these benefits. (Publisher abstract)
The distributional impact of reforms to disability benefits for older people in the UK
- Authors:
- HANCOCK Ruth, PUDNEY Stephen
- Publisher:
- University of Essex. Institute for Social and Economic Research
- Publication year:
- 2010
- Pagination:
- 26p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Colchester
The UK Attendance Allowance (AA) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) are non means-tested benefits paid to many disabled people aged 65 and over. They may also increase entitlements to means-tested benefits through the Severe Disability Premium (SDP). This report investigates proposed reforms involving the withdrawal of AA and DLA. It uses data from the Family Resources Survey to simulate the losses which current AA and DLA recipients would incur if AA and DLA were curtailed. It also considers the extent to which these losses could be mitigated if the SDP were to be retained or increased. It examines how average losses vary across the income distribution using different definitions of income and investigates the impact of potential reforms on the proportion of older people with incomes below various thresholds. The report finds that the abolition of AA and DLA would have a large impact on the poorer parts of the older population. Retaining or increasing the SDP within means-tested benefits could mitigate these losses to some extent. The report also shows the importance of the method of describing distributional impacts and that use of inappropriate income definitions in official reports has overstated recipients’ capacity to absorb the loss of these benefits.
Disability and poverty in later life
- Authors:
- HANCOCK Ruth, MORCIANO Marcello, PUDNEY Stephen
- Publisher:
- Joseph Rowntree Foundation
- Publication year:
- 2016
- Pagination:
- 44
- Place of publication:
- London
This report explores the relationship between disability and poverty among the older population. It provides an overview of the current system of disability support for older people which involves both nationally-administered disability benefits of Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance, and local systems of social care provision. It then looks at measuring poverty, emphasising the additional living costs that disabled people face, and the importance of taking disability costs into account when making assessments. The report considers three scenarios for the system of public support within the existing level of government spending which involve changes to levels of mean-testing and reach of support. It casts doubt on some of the suggestions that have been made for improving the targeting of public support for older disabled people. The report concludes that: effective targeting does not necessarily require an extension of means-testing; the present benefit and social care system is reasonably well-targeted, but falls far short of full support for the most severely disabled; there is a case for tailoring the structure of disability benefits more closely to the severity of disability; and there is a need for caution in considering proposals that would scrap national disability benefits in favour of an expansion of local authority social care funding. (Edited publisher abstract)
Participation in disability benefit programmes: a partial identification analysis of the British Attendance Allowance system
- Author:
- PUDNEY Stephen
- Publisher:
- University of Essex. Institute for Social and Economic Research
- Publication year:
- 2009
- Pagination:
- 40p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Colchester
In the UK, state support for older people with disabilities comes in two forms: means tested help with the costs of specific care services arranged by local authorities and non-means tested cash benefits, which include the system of Attendance Allowance (AA). This study examines the workings of the AA system with the aim of understanding better the problems of targeting raised by the failure of some disabled pensioners to bring forward potentially successful AA claims. The empirical analysis combines household-level survey data on family circumstances, disability and receipt of AA with aggregate administrative data on the average success rate for AA claims, to analyse the factors influencing individuals' probabilities of claiming and their chances of success. There are two main findings: the probability of an individual pensioner making a claim for AA appears to rise strongly with his or her degree of disability, irrespective of personal and household circumstances. Second, there is evidence of a substantial volume (possibly 30% or more of the over-65 household population) of unpursued but potentially successful AA claims.