This includes an investment of Employment Assistance of € 240 million, and job coaches provide intense and personal support for tens of thousands of beneficiaries.
However, the “uncertainty” of sick benefits is people with disabilities and seriously ill people – many of whom are unable to work because of weakening health conditions – fearing that the money they trust is to tear.
Ross Barrett, Policy Manager at MS Society, says: “We strongly convey cruel cuts to disability benefits because there is a real risk of pushing more of those who are struggling with poverty and aggravating people’s health.
“Living with MS can be deteriorating, exhausting and unpredictable, not to mention expensive. PIP is a life line for so many, helping them manage their space for enormous additional costs – from mobility aids to physiotherapy.
“Although many people with MS rely on artificial benefits, such as general credit and employment subsidies to survive. MS Helpine is flooded with community calls asking what these proposed changes can mean to them. We encourage the government to reject all plans to cut the benefits. “
The big question spoke to two applicants of disability, both of whom have multiple sclerosis (MS), their future concerns.
Dave Johnston, 57, Suffolk
I feel horrified. It is alleged that Pipp must be the most stressful process I have ever had to go through. I was so relieved when I was given an advantage. It has had a huge difference to continue participating in society. I get improved interest, which means I’m eligible for a mobility car so I can still go out.
But what are being planned now, waking up and thinking, “What now?” It’s uncertainty. I just mark the news all the time.
I’ve had MS for 29 years. During that time it has been weakened. It has progressed from waking up one morning and couldn’t see my right eye on the right side now where I’m now. It affects the right side of my whole body – my ability to walk any distance, my cognitive ability and my ability to think, my memory. It has just continued me over time over time and there is no cure for it.
Every three years you will receive a review for PIP to see if there is progress and you have to fight every step. I had to complain about getting improved interest.
And now you get news that Labor wants to cut billions of weakest to encourage people back to work. It would have helped me in 2011 if I still worked. Now I’m so scared that if they take a pip from me, I will lose my ability to be part of society.
Losing £ 430 per month, more or less, would be devastating. I spend more money on food and energy, only for daily living than I was coming. I use my heating sparingly. I prefer to walk on a blanket. I only put my heating four or five times when it was very cold in winter to stretch things.
It’s like living in a george orwell novel – like 1984. You are afraid of what the future holds for people.
MS is not a pleasant illness. Your body is attacking you. Every day is different, you wake up in pain or you don’t sleep at all. I constantly return to the word ‘horrifying’. I didn’t ask for this.
I was a baker when I was originally diagnosed with this. I was basically the railway from my last employment. I had been with the company for 18 years and tried to get reasonable changes. The pressure was incredible at the time. My mobility worsened. I used AIDS to get around. I wanted to drop some responsibilities and I was pushed out of work.
I despite how weak are punished. Why do so many people scare you how to fill the hole of hundreds of pounds? I have to look at the sale of my property to get the money to go further.
Ellie Pavonne, 38, Basingstoke
I am very worried about what surgery they come up with. It feels insecure. It’s very scary.
First I applied for PIP in 2021 and at that time I didn’t know I had MS. I lived with fibromyalgia, and I recently had autism and ADHD. I got help from a local autism charity to apply for PIP and could not have done it without their support.
Still, my claim was rejected. Until July 2023, the normal amount of PIP received.
By that time I had a diagnosis for MS. The application process does not allow conditions for circumstances, such as ms. They ask how you control the tasks – but on a good day I’m fine and on a bad day I can’t do it at all. It was only when I reached the court of the court that I can explain it.
From time to time, the left side of my body is with numbers and needles. It usually triggers huge stress or weather.
I get a double view and I have to use an eye patch or a temporary Prisma lens in the recipe. I have to go to the hospital every four weeks because of the infusion, and this cycle is so sewer. I have to arrange my whole life around getting infusions.
I got my salary back on my first application, but during that time I had no income. I couldn’t work. My son is 11 and autistic, and we had to train him at home because he would not survive the mainstream school. My husband is working, but it’s difficult because his salary has not really risen.
Pip helps me cover extra costs, such as supplements and treatments. It meant that I could buy a treadmill to keep me mobile in winter because my pain is shooting when it’s cold so I can’t really leave the house. Last year I got so much weight and I can’t put my body through it again. I use the armpit as often as I feel blurred.
I have tried to work over and over again, but I’ve been in retail and I will never be able to catch it because of my autism. There is a lot of rhetoric with beneficiaries that are applicants or lazy or choose from society, but the reason that we cannot participate in it is because society is so capable.
It’s so difficult because I don’t want to live this life. I just don’t want to exist. I want to be able to succeed and I want my son to succeed.
The effect of the cuts would be huge for me. Many audiences seem to think that if you are sick, you get medication and get better, but it’s not for me. Continuous uncertainty is terrifying for anyone, but you don’t know your home to tear away or whether reliable money is extremely scary.
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