Inequalities in Standards of Living: Evidence for Improved Income Support for People with Disability

To the best of our knowledge, would close the gap in income by nearly 50% as the this is the first Australian study to apply the standard current total annual cost of disability for households of living approach where households with a member with a family member receiving the DSP is estimated with disability are matched to households with similar to be $6.8 billion. [...] While the DSP of the CRPD and NDS are to promote an enhanced quality remains the main social security payment for working- of life for people with disability and their carers including aged individuals with disability, the evidence base on opportunities for people with disability to fully and the impact of policy changes to the DSP since 2006 on effectively participate in all aspects of economic,. [...] In Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and general, policies are being developed in Australia within in Australia’s National Disability Strategy? the framework of a social model of disability, but the actual regulatory specifications of the policy measure are This Report is set within the social model of disability defined using the medical model of disability i.e. [...] Thus, under a social the strategy to estimate the additional costs based on model of disability, this Report focuses on the differences the SoL, and the income and characteristics of groups of in the cost of maintaining the same SoL experienced by people with and without disability. [...] 15 INEQUALITIES IN STANDARDS OF LIVING: EVIDENCE FOR IMPROVED INCOME SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY INCOME VARIABLE STANDARD OF LIVING (SoL) The measurement of income needs to reflect the The first step in the estimation modelling is to derive a resources that are available to households to spend on robust measurement of the standard of living which is ‘necessity’ goods (products and services.