Enabling work: Disabled people, employment and the UK economy
This new Scope report recommends that disabled people must be considered in employment and economic growth strategies. Although they have the same talents and aspirations as everybody else and present enormous untapped potential, they face systematic barriers which require intervention in order to be overcome.
If, by 2030 there were half a million more disabled people in work there would be a gain of £6 billion to the Exchequer.
An increase in the disability employment rate would also significantly reduce the rate of relative and absolute poverty among disabled people, with a five or 10 point rise in employment reducing absolute poverty by either two or three percentage points, and relative poverty by three or five points.
If the disability employment rate stays the same and there are no changes in how the benefits system works, wider societal changes mean by 2030 the incidence of relative poverty for disabled adults below pension age will rise from 19 percent to 30 percent, and absolute poverty will rise from 20 to 24 percent.