05/12/05 - Scottish social exclusion report finds one in three disabled people in poverty

Monitoring poverty and social exclusion in Scotland 2005

One in three disabled adults of working age in Scotland is living in poverty - double the rate for adults without disabilities and above the poverty rate for either pensioners or children, according to a report by the New Policy Institute think tank carried out for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Disabled people are being kept in the grip of poverty by high levels of joblessness, despite the fact that a third of those who are not working have declared they would do so if they were given the chance. Their out-of-work benefits have also been rising at a much slower rate than average earnings.

Guy Palmer, Director of the New Policy Institute and co-author of the report, said: "Benefit levels are in the hands of the Westminster government, but it is up to the Scottish Parliament and the Executive to make its social inclusion and equality agendas a reality by effective measures that ensure that disabled people who want to work can do so."

 "Even if they find work, disabled people are more likely to be low paid than their non-disabled counterparts. This points to an employment market in which discrimination effectively operates."

Monitoring poverty and social exclusion in Scotland 2005 - the latest in an annual series tracking 40 different indicators of social exclusion - also emphasises that being in a job is no guarantee of a rescue from poverty. Two-fifths of all children and working-age adults living in poverty in Scotland are in households where someone is in paid work.