About the Brief
This first Disability Policy Insights brief argues that disability social protection policy needs to move beyond poverty-line means tests. Written by CIP’s Daniel Mont and Maria Antonella Pereira, it explains why persons with disabilities face higher poverty risk and extra costs of living, and sets out six concrete recommendations for building genuinely inclusive social protection systems, including separating disability determination from supposed work ability and addressing disability extra costs.
Most social protection systems ask one question: is this household poor enough to qualify? This first brief in the Disability Policy Insights series, Policy Brief No. 1, argues that disability social protection policy needs a different starting point entirely. Written by Daniel Mont and Maria Antonella Pereira of the Center for Inclusive Policy (CIP), it lays out why standard poverty tests miss what persons with disabilities actually need, and what a genuinely inclusive system would look like instead.
Where Can You Watch and Download This Brief?
This Policy Brief No. 1 is available as a full PDF report, and CIP has also produced an accompanying video walking through its main findings. Both the report and the video should be embedded directly in this article so readers can access either format without leaving the page.
What's Wrong With How Disability Social Protection Works Today?
Most programs are built around a means test: does household income or consumption fall below a set poverty line? Some countries have added disability-specific programs on top of this, but many are still designed around charity, not rights. A common assumption, that persons with disabilities can’t generate their own livelihood, shows up directly in program rules: many benefits are only available if the recipient is certified as unable to work, and some require another household member to manage the funds, stripping away the person’s own autonomy.
Why Do People with Disabilities Need Social Protection in the First Place?
The brief gives three reasons:
1) Persons with Disabilities More Likely to Be Poor
Yes, though the gap varies by country when measured only by income. The real picture is wider than money alone: multidimensional poverty, which also counts deprivations in education, health, and living standards, tends to show a bigger gap for persons with disabilities than income statistics alone suggest.
2) Persons with Disabilities Face Higher Living Costs
Substantially higher, and the numbers are striking. Raising a child with cerebral palsy in Malaysia, for example, was estimated to cost between 68% and 100% of average household income. Once those extra costs, on assistive technology, rehabilitation, accessible housing, healthcare, transportation, are subtracted from income, measured poverty rates jump sharply. In some low- and middle-income countries studied, accounting for these costs raised the poverty headcount by more than 15 percentage points.
3) Persons With Disabilities Meet Do Not Often Meet These Needs on Their Own
Often not. Even when families spend more, many still can’t reach the level of goods and services needed for equal participation. Assistive technology providers are scarce in many low- and middle-income countries, driving prices up, and the same logic applies to personal assistance. Data from Georgia shows just how much these needs vary: the cost of goods and services required by a child with complex medical needs and high support needs can run several times higher than for a child with milder needs, meaning a flat cash benefit will always be poorly matched to at least some of the population it’s meant to serve.
What Would Inclusive Social Protection Actually Require?
The brief lays out six concrete recommendations: implement disability assessments that capture actual support needs, not just diagnosis; move away from one-size-fits-all cash benefits; develop in-kind programs for hard-to-reach necessities like personal assistance and assistive technology; eliminate eligibility rules that penalize working or require someone else to manage a person’s benefits; involve persons with disabilities directly in policy design; and make every step of applying for and receiving benefits accessible, backed by trained staff and reasonable accommodation.
