A Route Out of Poverty? Disabled People, Work and Welfare Reform

 A Route Out of Poverty? Disabled People, Work and Welfare Reform
 Gabrielle Preston (ed),
 Child Poverty Action Group, www.cpag.org.uk
 ISBN 1901698939,
 £11

 STAR RATING: 4/5

Disabled adults of working age are twice as likely to be living in poverty than their non-disabled counterparts, writes Elaine Argyll.

The government’s green paper on welfare reform, A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering People to Work, aims to weaken this causal link by increasing the employment rate of disabled people and reducing their reliance on welfare benefits.

This book provides a critical response to these developments. Despite its specific focus on child poverty, parenting and employment, its strength is that it recognises that disability can not only be a cause of poverty but is also a consequence of it with low incomes tending to increase the likelihood of disability and ill-health.

As a consequence, the book argues that government policy should not just focus on narrowly defined employment issues but should also adopt a more preventive  approach. This is so disabled people can receive the support they need regardless of their employment status.

This book is likely to appeal to anyone with an interest in the relationship between poverty and disability and the way in which policies respond to this.

Elaine Argyle is researcher, University of Bradford