No evidence of ‘welfare shopping’ among long-term unemployed

A Department of Social Protection study to be published soon has found no evidence of a "flight" of people moving from jobseekers' payments to more generous disability benefits.

The number of people in receipt of welfare benefits associated with disability or long-term illness has climbed from 160,000 to about 240,000 over the past decade.

Other countries have experienced a rise in the number of jobseekers seeking to maximise their incomes through “benefit shopping” during times of recession.

But a draft report has found no evidence that the rise is linked to long-term unemployed people claiming disability benefits in order to stay on welfare and avoid looking for work. Instead, the study indicates the rise in the number of recipients of disability payments reflects the increase in the working-age population over the past decade. In fact, the numbers have fallen slightly in the past two years.

The findings are likely to be welcomed by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton as a sign that welfare spending is being targeted at those who need it.

She has argued that long-term unemployed people are returning to work in greater numbers since new “pathways to work” measures were introduced two years ago.

Support
These reforms are aimed at providing greater support for people on welfare to seek employment, education or training.

Unlike many other forms of welfare, recipients of most disability or carers’ benefits are not obliged to seek work, education or training in order to continue to receive payment.

This is on the basis that recipients may not be able to work and do not have the personal resources to sustain themselves or their families.

New figures show the number of people in receipt of the main disability payments – including the invalidity pension, disability allowance and illness benefit – plateaued during the height of the recession and has declined slightly since then.

Carers
Separately, there has been an increase in the number of working-age recipients of carers' payments over the past six years.

This has been due primarily to the introduction of the “half-rate” carer’s payment, the report adds.

This option allows a person on another welfare scheme to claim a carer’s payment at half the standard rate while retaining their full payment on their primary scheme.

The report shows that transfers from jobseeker payments to disability-related payments account for between 0.25 per cent of all closures of jobseekers claims.

Overall, its states that the rate at which people transferred from jobseeker payments to disability-related payments remained low over the period under review.

This reflected the “tight controls” such as medical assessments to try to ensure that people who do not satisfy the medical conditions do not get access to the payments.

“The medical assessment process appears to be working effectively to ensure that only legitimate claims to long-term disability payments” are being approved, the report states.

“Overall, therefore, this is no evidence of a flight from jobseeker payments to inactive illness/disability payments.”

The draft report was drawn up as part of a review of the “pathways to work” programme.