From Incapacity Benefit to Employment and Support Allowance: social sorting, sickness and impairment, and social security

Abstract

This article focuses upon the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as a replacement for the main income replacement benefit, Incapacity Benefit (IB), for sick and/or disabled people in Britain. The article argues that the process of claiming ESA, a process that is dependent upon medicalised perceptions of capability to work and which is aimed at managing the perceived economic and social costs of sick and impaired people, is a means of sorting sick and/or disabled people into subgroups of claimants. The article goes on to discuss the implications of this observation with regard to explanations of the disadvantages that sick and/or disabled people face and their implications for the income of such people. The article concludes that because the shift from IB to ESA is premised upon a number of mistaken assumptions, it represents a retrograde development for people who are sick and/or who have impairments.

Shifting the Goalposts: A Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Study of the Health of Long-Term Incapacity Benefit Recipients during a Period of Substantial Change to the UK Social Security System

“…These changes are accompanied by the popularised media, public and policy assumption that many recipients are not sufficiently sick or disabled to 'deserve' welfare benefits, drawing on notions of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor (Bambra and Smith, 2010). The separation of people receiving ESA into either a 'support' or an 'employment' group reinforces such distinctions, with certain types of illness or disability perceived as less deserving of unconditional public support than others (Bambra, 2008;Bambra and Smith, 2010;Bambra, 2011;Grover and Piggott, 2010).…”

‘The unwilling and the unwell’? Exploring stakeholders’ perceptions of working with long term sickness benefits recipients

“…Overnight, individuals classed as 'sick' are being told they are now fit for work. For Grover and Piggott (2010), ESA is effectively a form of 'social sorting', separating people who are sick and/or who have impairments into subgroups of claimants dependent upon medicalised perceptions of their sickness and/or impairment, thus reviving old discussions of 'deserving' and 'undeserving'.…”

‘If this wasn’t here I probably wouldn’t be’: disabled workers’ views of employment support

“…This contrasts with some activity suggesting that the social model of disability had some currency amongst New Labour politicians and policy-makers; for example, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 with its requirement that employers make 'reasonable adjustments' to accommodate the needs of employees with impairment (Grover and Piggott 2010), the Disability Equality Duty 1996, and early formulations and rhetoric of the New Deal for Disabled People (Roulstone 2000). 2.…”