FEATURE: Black disabled women worst impacted by the cost of living crisis by LeahMahon_
AS THE cost-living-crisis tightens its grips on UK households, those that identify as being black, disabled and female are battling the unfolding cost of living crisis in more ways than one. Black households are reported to have less than £1,500 savings and make up the 34% of people from ethnic backgrounds whose salary won’t cover the mortgage, rent and energy bills.
“Some people who aren’t disabled in the same way that I am, might be able to, for example, filter out a conversation that’s happening on the next table to them because they’re not interested in it. Since relying on her car to travel for work, Lydia says that the £40 a month she spent to fill up her car has skyrocketed to at least £60 or more wherever work needs her to travel as far as Wales or Devon.
“I don’t think we’re ready. I don’t think anyone knows what’s going to happen yet. I don’t think we feel it yet – and this is not to seem like a victim – but to be frank we are already living in food poverty and health poverty in this country and emotional poverty in this country…it’s either you eat or your children eat,” she admits.“The pandemic and working from home has brought so many benefits, but it also means that my bills have rocketed.
“We have to restore the £20 or the £25 uplift to Universal Credit and make that permanent. We need to make sure that working tax credits for disabled people still exist and that people are still able to apply for them. “There’s the Personal Independence Payment [formerly known as Disability Living Allowance] and that is another thing that really annoys me, because it’s saying that it’s personal and it’s meant to make you allow you to be independent, but they’re judging you.
For Lydia, her experience living day-to-day at this complex intersection means she faces the invisibility of her disability, and of her race and gender.When we’re talking about disability, typically we’re referring to things that are visually marked. “So, when we are asking for these things [disability support] that don’t fit in with what a conventional understanding of what disability is then we’re even less likely to be believed to be and even less likely to get support because of the prevalence of various stereotypes that exist within society,” she adds.
“We also know that even prior to Covid over a third of disabled workers were having to cut back on food and heating, and that this was exacerbated by Covid.
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