Welfare reform on the Web (January 2007): Services for the disabled - Overseas

Dismantling the poverty trap: disability policy for the twenty-first century

D.C. Stapleton and others

Milbank Quarterly, vol.84, 2006, p.701-732

Current US policies on the support of working age people with disabilities are paternalistic and encourage welfare dependency, thus trapping disabled people in poverty. They should be replaced with policies which encourage self-sufficiency and promote the entry of disabled people into paid employment. Such reforms may be the only way to protect disabled people from probable loss of benefits if the federal government cuts funding for entitlement programmes.