People with disability in Australia

Introduction

People with disability, and their households and families, are less likely than people without disability to have a high level of income, and are more likely to receive their income from government sources than from salary or wages. At the same time, many people with disability have greater costs of living than those without disability. A recent Australian study by Vu and colleagues (2020) estimated that, to achieve the same standard of living, people with disability needed to have adult-equivalent disposable income 50% higher than those without disability (Vu et al. 2020).

This section looks at people’s financial situation during the COVID-19 pandemic, and at their expectations of future changes to their household finances and savings.

Financial stress

People with disability were more likely than people without disability to report: that

• their household finances had worsened over the previous 12 months (28% compared with 18%, in February 2021)
  • 8 in 10 people (regardless of disability status) whose financial situation had declined attributed the decline at least in part to COVID-19
• their household was unable to pay one or more selected bills[1] on time in the previous 3 months due to a shortage of money (14% compared with 5.5%, in January 2021)
• they drew on accumulated savings or term deposits in the previous 4 weeks to support basic living expenses (13% compared with 6.9%, in January 2021)
• they had borrowed from family or friends in the previous 4 weeks to support basic living expenses (5.5% compared with 0.9%, in January 2021) (ABS 2021a, 2021b).

People with disability were less likely than those without disability to say that:

• their household expected to be able to pay all bills received in the next 3 months (85% of adults with disability compared with 93% of those without disability, in January 2021)
• they would be able to raise $2000 for something important within a week (74% compared with 82%, in January 2021) (ABS 2021a).

Expected changes in household finances

In June 2021, people with and without disability had similar expectations of changes to their household income and spending (Figure COVID.9):

• 2 in 3 adults with disability (66%) expected their household income to stay the same over the next 12 months, 22% expected income to increase, and 12% expected income to decrease
• 6 in 10 adults with disability (62%) expected their household expenses to stay the same over the next 12 months, 32% expected expenses to increase, and 6.2% expected expenses to decrease
• response patterns were similar for people without disability (ABS 2021e).

However, people with disability were (Figure COVID.9):

• more likely to say they expected household finances overall to worsen over the next 12 months (17% for adults with disability compared with 8.7% for adults without disability, in May 2021)
• less likely to say they expected their household to be able to save money over the next 12 months (39% compared with 58% in June 2021) (ABS 2021d, 2021e).

Of those who expected their household spending to increase over the next 12 months (at June 2021), people with and without disability were equally likely to say the increase would be due to:

• increase in food or grocery expenses (22% for adults with disability and 18% for those without disability)
• increase in rent or mortgage (6.3% and 6.8%)
• increase in housing costs other than rent or mortgage (12% and 14%)
• increase in energy expenses (7.5% and 7.4%)
• increase in expenses other than those related to housing, food or groceries, or energy (27% and 24%) (ABS 2021e).

Economic stimulus payments

The Australian Government introduced a range of measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to support individuals and businesses and stimulate the economy. These measures included lump sum payments, fortnightly supplement to eligible payment recipients, and support for businesses to keep people employed.

 As reported in the Income and finance section of this report:

• 39% of people with disability aged 15–64 received government payments in 2017; of them 45% received Disability Support Pension (DSP) and a further 5.2% received Carer Payment
• 80% of people with disability aged 65 and over received government payments in 2017; of them 89% received Age Pension, 3.6% received Carer Payment, and 2.3% received DSP (DSS and MIAESR 2019).

This suggests that a large proportion of people with disability was likely not eligible for the fortnightly Coronavirus Supplement, either because they did not receive any government payments, or because the payments they received did not qualify for the Supplement.

The lower employment rate among working-age people with disability (48%, compared with 80% for those without disability in 2018, as reported in the Employment section of this report) (ABS 2019) suggests people with disability were also less likely to access the JobKeeper payment compared with people without disability.

Between November 2020 and March 2021, people with disability were about as likely as people without disability to be receiving temporary Coronavirus Supplement (Figure COVID.10):

• In March 2021, 12% of adults with disability reported receiving the Coronavirus Supplement compared with 8.0% of those without disability (ABS 2021c).

Fewer people with disability received the JobKeeper Payment than the Coronavirus Supplement (Figure COVID.10):

• In March 2021, 2.6% of adults with disability reported receiving the JobKeeper Payment compared with 12% of adults with disability receiving the Coronavirus Supplement (ABS 2021c).

Housing

COVID-19 had a relatively modest impact on the living arrangements of people with or without disability:

• Small proportions of people with and without disability reported that they had moved into another household due to COVID-19 since 1 March 2020 (3.6% and 4.2% in December 2020).
• People with and without disability were equally likely to have someone stay temporarily in their household due to COVID-19 since 1 March 2020 (6.9% and 6.8% in December 2020).
• Nine in 10 adults with disability (93%) and without disability (92%) reported their household did not experience changes to rent or mortgage payments between March and December 2020 (ABS 2020).

At the same time, people with disability were more likely than people without disability to report rental stress – difficulty in paying rent or fear of eviction (7.5% of adults with disability compared with 2.6% of those without disability) (ABS 2020).