文章基本信息

标题：The Evolution of Disability Benefits in the UK: Re-weighting the basket
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作者：Tania Burchardt
期刊名称：Distributional Analysis Publications
印刷版ISSN：1352-2469
出版年度：1999
卷号：1999
出版社：Suntory Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines
摘要：This paper attempts to clarify the significance of reforms to disability benefits proposed by the New Labour government in 1998, by setting them in the context of the development of disability benefits since the early 1970s. The first section charts the creation, extension and subsequent series of reforms of disability benefits, and shows that while ‘compensatory’ benefits like Industrial Injuries benefit have played a steady role, ‘extra costs’ benefits like Disability Living Allowance have become an increasingly significant component. Expansion of benefits designed to replace earnings was followed by a contraction in the 1990s, the latter phase accompanied by an increasing emphasis on ‘targeting’. The following section details the latest reforms. These two sections are brought together using hypothetical case studies to illustrate the changing balance between different kinds of benefit – the ‘benefit basket’ – for disabled people, from before the introduction of specific disability benefits through to the system as it might be in 2001. The paper concludes that, in accordance with the guiding principle of welfare reform, “work for those who can and security for those who cannot”, the government’s reforms are designed to reward paid employment, while offering relatively generous provision for those who are obviously unable to work. The question raised is the extent to which altered incentives will be sufficiently powerful to eliminate the category inbetween – those who are deemed capable of work but who do not have a job – or whether large numbers of disabled people will fall between the stools of “work” and “security”.