Assessing the distributional impact of reforms to disability benefits for older people in the UK: implications of alternative measures of income and disability costs

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

February 15, 2014

Summary:

The UK Attendance Allowance (AA) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) are non-means-tested benefits paid to many disabled people aged 65 + . They may also increase entitlements to means-tested benefits through the Severe Disability Premium (SDP). We investigate proposed reforms involving withdrawal of AA/DLA. Despite their present non-means-tested nature, we show that withdrawal would affect mainly low-income people, whose losses could be mitigated if SDP were retained at its current or a higher level. We also show the importance of the method of describing distributional impacts and that use of inappropriate income definitions in official reports has overstated recipients' capacity to absorb the loss of these benefits.

Published in

Ageing and Society

Volume and page numbers

Volume: 34 , p.232 -257

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X1200075X

ISSN

144686

Subjects

Notes

Not held in Res Lib - bibliographic reference only

#521382

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