Disability Price Tag 2024. Living with the Extra Cost of Disability
This work, compiled by Scope, can be accessed in full here
In 2024, disabled people and their families face a daily battle for financial and emotional survival.
Disabled households face a wide range of extra costs. These are inescapable costs associated with managing conditions and supporting accessibility.[1]
Disabled households also spend more on household ‘essentials’ than non-disabled people.[2]
Our latest Disability Price Tag calculations show that extra costs for disabled households continued to increase in the 2022 to 2023 financial year.
We define extra costs as the additional money a disabled household needs to have the same standard of living as a non-disabled household.
Our analysis shows:
- On average, disabled households (with at least one disabled adult or child) need an additional £1,010 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households.
- If this figure is adjusted for inflation over the current period of the 2023 to 2024 financial year, these extra costs rise to £1,067 per month.[3]
- On average, the extra cost of disability is equivalent to 67% of household income after housing costs.
These figures account for disability benefit payments. Such as the Personal Independence Payments (PIP), designed to help address these extra costs.
The pressure on disabled households to meet these extra costs makes it harder to have an acceptable standard of living. And it is very difficult for them to build savings, manage financial shocks and plan for the future.
Rising living costs have negatively impacted most people in recent years. We wanted to know more about how disabled households are managing existing extra costs within a cost of living crisis. As well as the physical and emotional impact this had on disabled people and their families.
Scope asked disabled UK households about their lived experience of managing the extra cost of disability. We found that disabled households experience significant extra costs.
Disability-specific benefit payments rarely cover these in full. This contributes to poor financial security for disabled households. Other challenging factors contributed to this difficult situation:
- Rising living costs
- Existing barriers to employment
- A drain on savings and the presence of existing and new debt
Disabled households had cut costs wherever possible. But reducing spending was particularly difficult for them. Some disabled people need to spend more on essentials, like energy, water, specific food, or transport.
- These essentials are needed to effectively manage their conditions or to provide support for accessibility.
- Costs that might be categorised as ‘optional’ spending are often essential for disabled people.
Disabled people are forced into making very difficult decisions about their household spending. This includes sometimes going without things that they need. With significant negative consequences for mental health. And the emotional wellbeing of them and their families, including:
- Stress, anxiety and uncertainty
- Shame and social isolation
- Hopelessness, and even suicidal ideation
There are also negative consequences for physical wellbeing. Disabled people often miss out on or avoid medical treatment or support due to concerns over costs.
The constant financial struggle with extra costs is ongoing for disabled households. This has a detrimental impact on the health and wellbeing of disabled people and their families. At the very worst, this can be life-threatening.
Policy Recommendations
Immediate policy changes are required to tackle the extra costs disabled people face. Our findings show that improving the benefits system and addressing essential utility costs are important factors for disabled households.
Scope recommend 6 solutions:
- Fix the broken benefits system so that it is fairer, more transparent, and better supports disabled people with their extra costs.
- Work Capability Assessment (WCA) must be replaced with an improved alternative. This must be based on input from disabled people and include fairer assessment criteria.
- Work alongside disabled people to design a new positive vision for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). At minimum, the benefit must be enhanced so it covers the essentials and assessments must be fairer.
- Make sure essential utilities are always affordable for disabled people. This must include introducing a discounted energy bills scheme. Disability benefits must also be included in the eligibility criteria for the Warm Home Discount.
- Introduce a government-funded ‘help to repay’ scheme. This will help disabled people to clear their debt on essential utilities.
- Government must make sure energy efficiency spending is better targeted towards disabled households.
Content Warning
This report contains disabled households’ experiences of financial, physical, and emotional distress.
If you are affected by any of the content in this report, and want to speak to someone about it, please contact Scope’s helpline on:
- helpline@scope.org.uk
- 0808 800 3333.
If you need to contact someone urgently:
- Call Samaritans on 116 123
- Call Mind on 0300 123 3393
- Text Shout on 85258
[1] Scope (2023) The Disability Price Tag 2023: Summary report.
[2] Scope (2024) Life Costs More: The extra burden of essentials for disabled people.
[3] Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate between the 2022 to 2023 and the 2023 to 2024 financial years was 5.7%. This was used to express the Disability Price Tag figure at prices of the current 2023 to 2024 financial year.