Separating fact from fiction in the disability support pension debate

The single largest population increase in DSP recipients is seen among older women, who have been impacted by the closure of Wife and Widow pensions and Partner Allowance, and changes to Age Pension and Parenting Payment eligibility.While interested in working, negative employer attitudes and work capacity assessment issues create barriers. For a single person in rental accommodation approaching age sixty, security of income is paramount to survival. 

Work capacity assessment requires applicants to demonstrate that they are unable to work in order to qualify. An attempt to work, if ultimately unsuccessful, can jeopardise the assessment of inability to work, and future payments. This perverse motivation is a policy issue that will need to be resolved if people with declining abilities are to attempt to learn new skills, enter new areas and improve workforce participation.

Financially secure people with an unresolvable disability aged over 50, with employment history and family support show little desire to work.However, women who have spent their adult lives in caring roles have generally had less relevant work experience and lower workforce attachment, and may not be able to enter or re-enter the workforce as they grow older, especially women who become single at a later age.This is not an argument about incentive so much as ability and policy.

Young disabled people and services

People whose disabilities cause employment or education restrictions are less likely to have family or friends visit,causing many to view social interaction, involvement, and making a contribution to society as a greater incentive to employment than financial gains. Young people with a disability (PWD) are more likely to experience anxiety if they are unable to find work, and view employment as critical,suggesting that for them, incentive not only exists, but also is very high. Young PWD also have a lower level of education, and experience a lower capacity to manage.

They are less likely to have social connection, relevant experience, workplace attachment or other characteristics that will enhance employability. Spending more on training, support services and equipment to provide independence, increases employment participation of people with a disability; those attempting to enter the workforce now will need support to do so.

The OECD Report Transforming Disability into Ability, Policies to Promote Work and Income Security for Disabled People(2003, p29) reports Australia having the lowest average personal income for people with a disability. Reduced access to transport and accommodation exacerbates this situation, and disability itself is often expensive. Failure to address these issues ensures that PWD often survive at a subsistence level, unable to access the community at large. An inability to access medical services, or access appropriate equipment is, in itself, a barrier to employment.

Improved identification of disabilities such as mental illness

People with a severe disability are more likely to have serious health problems, and at an earlier age, and more likely to suffer mental health problems,and the prevalence of DSP claims for psychological/psychiatric disability has been increasing.

Diagnosis does not create unemployment. As noted above, the overall welfare population is actually decreasing overall, suggesting that identification of mental illness simply impacts the type of welfare paid, not whether it is required.

Lower mortality rates after accidents

Lower mortality rates after accidents could be expected to increase the population of DSP recipients with employment experience and education, and who are more likely to return to employment. At the same time, reductions in the road toll and increased workplace safety protections have also reduced the number of accidents occurring. Injured Australians are more likely than those of other OECD countries to transition onto welfare rather than remaining employed, suggesting that structural barriers play a part in preventing a return to employment.