7. Income
An adequate income is considered a basic right, there is a national minimum wage, there are government policies to tackle poverty but still many disabled people are on subsistence incomes. Direct payments are not an income but a way of living in the community in the same way that non disabled people do. It is designed to both increase choices round services and reduce costs for Local Authorities, however, as the DRC notes: 21,574 adults in England were receiving direct payments by September 2004 to enable them to live independently by organising their own support arrangements. This is a positive step but has to be compared to the 277,000 adults local authorities support in institutional care.There are also concerns about whether direct payments are reaching or suited to all disabled people. Take up is lower for people with learning disabilities and mental health conditions, at just 10.9% and 2.4% of all direct payments recipients respectively.|Many benefits have been eroded since 2002 when certain benefits are stopped or reduced when local authorities intervene in Disabled People’s living. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation states: “Almost a third of working-age disabled adults live in income poverty. This is higher than a decade ago, now double the rate for working-age non-disabled adults and higher than the rates for either pensioners or children
