Tag: Benefits

Working for free on benefits

On By Katy DalyIn Blog, My Disability TruthLeave a comment

Image if your worked stopped paying you as soon as you earned what someone else decided was enough for you to live on.

You then had to live off your savings until someone else decided that you didn’t have enough money to live on so you should be paid again.

All the while you were still working.

This is the reality for many disabled people.

While if you’re lucky you’re on one of the few disability benefits that aren’t means tested, most are.

Benefits are the only source of income some disabled people have. Even if they are able to work, despite there conditions and the ableism they face in society. They still need the benefits to pay for the disability tax. The increased cost of living in society as a disabled person.

And yet if you what someone else seems is too much money, most if not all of your income is taken from you.

A work complication

On By Katy DalyIn Blog, My Disability Truth2 Comments

I have been looking at getting some work, mainly because in all honesty I just want something to do with my time and a little extra income would be nice. But I do not have the ability, the energy, or the opportunity to work a full time job.

So I have to be sure that any work I find must not cost me the benefits I receive, as I need them to ensure all bills are paid. But they don’t make that easy.

Working within the benefits system is just so complicated, that yet again I feel like it isn’t worth what it will cost me, for what I’ll get out. It’s just too much.

It doesn’t make sense really, a system that claims it wants to get people into work, to be so difficult to navigate.

I wish I could just go and work in a shop, that that would be something I would be able to do. That I could just have something to do that would bring me enough income to be self-sufficient. But my disability, society, has to make things so much more complicated for me

I honestly don’t know why I keep trying, and yet I do.

But people who do not know better call me lazy, say I have not tried, when all I have done is try. I’m tired of trying.

I’m tired of not being able to work.

I’m tired of the system being so complicated.

I’m tired of it all being down to me to try, when it is clear others want me to fail, so I will.

I’m just tired.

Money.

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

So money is tight but I have got in very good at making it work by now.

Many people would say that as I am on benefits this is how it should be. Benefits are supposed to buy you the essentials and not keep you comfortable. Those in charge of the benefits system will tell you that this is an intentional setup to motivate people to get into work. But this doesn’t consider people who can’t just go out and look for work to improve their situation.

To prove a point to those who could get a job to provide their income, those of us who can’t are made to suffer.

I would love to work. I have tried to get into work. But an ableist society, or my disabilty, depending on how I’m feeling about myself in the moment, have made this incredibly difficult if not impossible for me to do.

Society doesn’t want disabled people to be included. An how we are judged for being on benefits is a prime example of this. If we are able to brake free from the box that they want us in, to get a job and make money. Most of our benefits are taken from us at a rate that isn’t really proportionate to the cost of living in the world.

The UK does allow us to keep one benefits as disabled people, even if we find employment. But this doesn’t cover the deficit of disability, the disability tax, the reality of being disabled.

Though I started writing this post a few days ago, in relates to the topic I choose to write about when fulfilling yesterdays writing prompt. You can read that here.

It focuses on a specific area of the disability tax, food. Food often costs more money when you’re disabled because of the type of food that is accessible to a disabled.

Often ready-made food is needed over the cheaper ingredients that can be bought by some to make the meal for yourself. For me, this plays out in a reliance on microwave meals and takeaways.

Money is more of a balancing act when you’re disabled. You’re only allowed a small amount of it before you’ll be penalised for having it. Yet the things you need, the help you need; a cleaner, ready-made food, taxis, to name a few that apply to me, cost more money.

It doesn’t really make sense when you think about it that way. But I’m sure many people will tell you that things cost more when you have less money. But it definitely has a different impact, and sometimes a bigger impact when you’re disabled.

I hate that my independence isn’t always affordable.

I don’t want to be disabled.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

Someone made a comment on how benefits are spent, because they have a job and the person they were talking to does not. You know the classic, you dont work, I do, and thats what you’re spending my money on. I am one of the reasons this person isn’t working, so I feel guilty.

They then said they would like my life, to not have to work, and to sit doing nothing all day. I made the point that they would then have to take my disability from me. And I would rather have their job than my disability, so I could do what I want with my own house.

I’m sure you know by now you might have figured that this person is someone close to me, someone who should have known better. And yet they still think disabled people are playing the system.

I don’t know how many times I need to say it to have someone believe me. But I really want to work, and I don’t want to need to rely on benefits. To suggest otherwise is a harmful assumption, and is just unfair. To judge people on benefits for how they spend their money is cruel, to say the least.

If you want to have the benefits, and the perks, you also have to take the bad stuff, the reality.

You have to take the fact that you will never be able to help people as much as they help you. You will always need them more than they need you. Your control is conditional. Being viewed as an adult is conditional. You’re only a person when they want you to be.

Being disabled or being unable to work, is not a ride to an easy life. In fact the reality is the opposite. And I hope when you have to deal with this yourself, because disability is a when not an if, that no one makes you feel the way I was made to feel.

Please excuse this one, its a little more rant like than thought out. I don’t really have the energy for thought out today.

Things that are inaccessible to you if you rely on benefits.

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Anyone reading this who thinks that people choose to be on benefits can keep their opinion to yourself.

I will probably always rely on benefits, this has something that has taken me a lot of time to come to terms with, and I’m still working on it honestly. I have tried to get a job, but despite my qualifications my disability seems to be a massive barrier that I’m not sure I will ever overcome. Even if I were to get a job there would be certain benefits I would still receive and rely on. But that’s not the point of this post.

I write this post, with a little shame towards the jealousy I feel that fuels it. As I’m unable to get a job, there are many things in life that will remain inaccessible to me.

I will not be able to buy my home.

I will not be able to decorate the home I do have in a way I actually like.

I am unlikely to be able to go on holiday.

Or have any experiences that cost money.

Essentially being unable to work means I will always be on a low income and then have to live by that income.

Though I don’t like it, I understand the economic motivations behind this. The fear would be that if you gave people a comfortable life that they could enjoy on benefits, that no one would want to work. Therefore working is a motivator for a more enjoyable life.

And while I don’t feel that this is the case, even if it were true, it doesn’t consider those who are unable to work. Therefore those who are unable to improve there life in any way.

Now don’t get me wrong, my life isn’t bad. And I am relatively comfortable. But I am frustrated by the fact I am stuck in this life and unable to improve it because working is inaccessible to me.

Anxiety sucks

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

Sometimes I can’t help but think how might life might be better if almost everything I try to do didn’t make me anxious. The part that snnoys me most is that I’m not always anxious about doing things. It’s like I get bouts of confidence in doing something, where I know if I act now, I’ll be able to get it done. But these bouts of confidence never bappen when i can actually do the thing that needs to be done. It’s like my brain, emotions and being adult can never be on the same page.

Right now I need to make a phone call to get proof of my disability to renew my bus pass. But I cannot make the phone call until tomorrow. And even though I know that I’ll be fine making the phone call I know waiting until tomorrow is just going to cause me more anxiety. I just want to get it done.

The Disability Tax – Sometimes it feels like everything is inaccessible.

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

So today I spent a significant portion of time figuring out how I could do something in the most simplest way possible. The instructions for which would be pretty easy for most non disabled people to follow and complete.

I then decided I couldn’t do it, and so spent an even longer period of time seeing if I could justify paying someone to do it for me.

Exactly what I was trying to do is not important to this post. What I’m trying to explain is the general understanding that I as a disabled person often have to pay for things to be done that non-disabled people are able to do themselves, and can therefore do for free. The cleaners that I have come to the house, as I have written about in a previous post are one such example of this. But there are many of them.

This is known as the disability tax, or the extra cost involved when you live in an inaccessible world as a disabled person. In the UK the disability benefit known as Personal Independence Payments (PIP) is supposed to cover such costs. But unsurprisingly it doesn’t cover it, but it does help, and this is the reason you can still be on this benefit while in employment.

Sometimes it feels like everything falls into this category of “things I need other people to do for me”, whether or not I have to pay for it. And if I’m being honest today was definitely one of those days.

Sometimes the cost of the disability tax, of the Innaccessiblity in society, is emotional as well as monetary.