What ‘levers’ could best influence employers to improve disabled people’s employment and pay?
This is one of the key questions which is explored in the November 2018 report from the London School of Economics which seeks to answer, whose responsibility is it to improve disabled people’s employment and pay?
The report finds:
- Disabled people’s policy agendas have changed since the financial crash of 2008. The agenda has shifted from largely positively framed campaigns, i.e., calling for “what we want” (full and equal participation, rights to independent living, accessibility, equality in education and employment) to a larger focus on “what we don’t want” (tightened eligibility for social care and social security, as well as benefit sanctions)
- Disabled people are over 60 times more likely than employers to face sanctions for noncompliance with requirements. In 2015-16, disabled people were sanctioned 69,570 times for missing appointments or infringing work related conditions of benefit payment, with resulting reductions in benefit
- Work-related requirements of disabled people, backed by sanctions, have been widely described as unfair because disabled people are sanctioned more than non-disabled people, resulting in financial hardship.
