“wanting to make ill people work!” There’s nothing wrong with helping disabled people

Comment on General Election 2010 Poll Results by David.

“wanting to make ill people work!”

There’s nothing wrong with helping disabled people to work, many want to work, but can’t without assistance and if government can help disabled people feel more ‘normal’ and be able to contribute more to society that’s a good thing and should be encouraged.

I’m disabled, had to drop out of Uni in my final year of a 3 year degree (just had exams to sit). With help I might have been able to finish my degree and maybe have been able to follow my career of choice (research geneticist).

After a few years on the equivalent of incapacity benefit (I’m a hard worker and didn’t want to be on benefits doing nothing!!!) I started my own business online (started an online shop selling sexy lingerie and sex toys :-)) and with help in the form of working tax credits (disabled tax credits at the time) I was able to build up a successful online business (I no longer sell lingerie and adult products, found something I enjoyed doing: search engine optimisation) that I run from home while still being able to claim benefits (tax credits) until the business was doing well.

Without that sort of help provided under a Labour government I might still be claiming benefits (I still can’t work in a standard 9-5 capacity) like housing benefit, living in council houses instead of being a business owner, home owner and well on my way to providing for myself and my wife in old age: been in business about 10 years, so I ‘lost’ 10ish years of my working life to studying and disability and so wasn’t able to save for old age or anything until the last 10 years.

It’s not wrong to help disabled people back into work. It concerns me at what then Conservatives have planned though. They are not known for their caring side and I fear it’s going to be a case of throwing people off disability type benefits to save money (it’s cheaper to have them on JSA/income support).

Labour have brought in new schemes to help disabled people back to work, instead of being incapable of work period, they are looking more at the individual to see what they can do rather than what they can’t do. I think this is a good idea, but don’t know much about it beyond knowing it exists?

On a similar note I find it disturbing that skills held by old people are lost at age 65 for men and 60 for women. I see a lot of people of that age that are more capable of work than I am (I still can’t sit in a chair without pain) and they are taken out of the job market just because of their age. Such a waste of talent, skills and ability to contribute to society :-(

David