The myth of PIP claimants goes like this – ‘the system is too easy to game, too many people are claiming it fraudulently, and a crackdown is long overdue’. It is told by right-wing politicians on social media platforms, by commentators in newspapers, and it has seeped so thoroughly into public consciousness, that there are disabled people who are now ashamed to claim a benefit specifically designed for them, to help with the significant extra costs being disabled can bring.
That’s what PIP is. It’s not an out-of-work benefit and it’s not means tested. It exists because being disabled is expensive and, let’s face it, those of us fortunate enough to be able bodied are feeling the cost of living pinch ourselves right now.
PIP can be used to pay for anything, but the sort of extra expenses that disabled people can incur include specialist equipment, adapted transport, and additional care; the things that make daily life manageable when your body or mind works differently. These costs exist whether you are working or not, and PIP is designed to help meet them.
I know this because I have two disabled relatives, neither of whom was born with a disability. One developed a severe mental illness when he was 30, the other had a catastrophic stroke following surgery. Basically, both were just bloody unlucky.
Getting VS keeping a job
One of them is someone who can work and he does get jobs. What he cannot do is keep them, because his psychosis intervenes, unpredictably and catastrophically, and then the job is gone.
He applied for PIP five times between 2010 and 2020, and five times he was turned down. Each time he was rejected, he felt like they were saying that he simply wasn’t unwell enough, despite his almost daily struggle with his thoughts and his demons and the additional costs he was incurring because the NHS wasn’t able to provide all the support he needed in a timely fashion.
He became deeply depressed on top of his psychosis. He felt like he’d been categorised as a skiver, one of the ‘shirkers’ that David Cameron spoke about so loudly and so often when he was prime minister. My relative couldn’t face the PIP appeals process because standing up in front of strangers and having to talk about one of the most stigmatised mental illnesses there is, felt too hard.
He was frightened about what they would say, or do, that he could end up in a worse situation than he was. He decided he would rather save money by never going out and eating less, than face an appeal that could make him feel even worse than he already did.
Eventually, I engaged a specialist to help him complete the form. Within weeks, he was awarded the full amount, for the longest possible period without having to reapply. The specialist told me she had never seen PIP awarded so quickly, and said it indicated that they had realised their mistake.
She was deeply sorry he had endured five rejections, because she could see the impact those rejections have had on him. The heartbreaking thing is that nothing about his condition had changed. What had changed was that someone who understood the process helped him describe what happens on his worst days, not just his best ones.
The PIP application isn’t asking how you are on a good day, but most applicants want to say ‘well, it’s not always this bad’. They want to be scrupulously honest about their condition, they don’t want to exaggerate, or be thought of as exaggerating. They also don’t want to talk about the days when perhaps getting out of bed is impossible, when the psychosis is loudest, or when the stroke you’ve had makes it impossible to speak, or to move like you used to.
But those days are real, and these are the days that you need to talk about on the PIP application. There is nothing fraudulent about describing them, but it somehow it makes applicants feel like that. On top of this, questions on PIP applications and from assessors can be extremely vague, leading people to not know whether to answer the question based on their ‘good’ or ‘bad’ days.
Being denied the PIP assessment
My other relative has worked since he was sixteen. He joined the RAF, then moved to the police force and, after having taken a degree as a mature student, he had a career at sea. He suffered a catastrophic stroke in November 2024 following surgery. It was, the surgeon told us, just one of those things. He is exactly the person PIP was designed for, but sadly, he felt too ashamed to claim it and put off doing so for months.
The process for applying for PIP involves a phone conversation with an assessor, which is very difficult when aphasia (difficulties with speech) is one of the symptoms you’re struggling with. I called the PIP people to see if I could sit with him on this phone call and be his voice, but they said no. When I said that it was going to be impossible for him to apply otherwise, the person on the phone agreed with me, I was stunned.
She said there was no alternative but for him to speak to them, despite the fact that he couldn’t speak at this point.
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When he regained some of his speech, through private specialist physiotherapy, he did apply, but he told nobody. To this day, I am the only person who knows he receives it, because the rhetoric has convinced a stroke survivor that needing help makes him one of the ‘scroungers’. The impact of the stress surrounding the conversation he had to have was significant, and lasted for weeks once the date of the call was set.
He was so worried that he might not be able to speak at all, which happens sometimes when he’s stressed, or that he would say the wrong words, which also happens. The process of applying for PIP induced levels of stress that are completely unacceptable for people who are already really struggling.
The extra costs of living with a disability
The price tag for having a disability is high. In their latest Disability Price Tag report for 2025, the charity Scope explains that the extra costs incurred by a disabled household are on average £1095 a month. That’s the cost of maintaining the same standard of living as a non-disabled household. PIP is meant to help, but the average PIP payment is £465 a month across households, which means there’s a current shortfall of £630.
That shortfall is set to reach £703 by 2030.
The DWP’s own annual report, ‘Fraud and error in the benefit system, Financial Year Ending 2025’, found the PIP fraud rate is so small it rounds to 0%. The total overpayment rate for PIP from all causes including fraud is just 0.4%. Around 70% of PIP decisions that are challenged at tribunal are overturned, meaning the initial assessments are getting it wrong at scale. The system is, for many people, impossible to navigate without professional help that most people don’t know is available, and often couldn’t pay for even if they did.
So, when politicians stand up and declare war on PIP, when they talk about tightening eligibility and reducing the bill, I want to ask them a question: How are you benefiting from demonising disabled people?
There is a cost to this rhetoric, and it’s paid in the shame felt by the disabled for needing support. The cost is being paid by a lovely man with severe mental health problems who has spent years believing he simply wasn’t sick enough, and it’s being paid by a stroke survivor who is too ashamed to tell his friends he needs support.
I don’t believe that these men are unusual, I think they’re experiencing exactly what this right-wing rhetoric is designed to make them experience. Them and everyone like them – every disabled person in this country who has absorbed the message that needing help is a moral failing.
Politicians like Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe, and their ilk, should be ashamed of themselves for targeting vulnerable people’s PIP, because the people they are hurting already have enough to deal with.
Of course, I’m assuming that shame is an emotion they can experience, and I’m probably wrong on that front.
