'Fraudulent' disability in historical perspective - Executive
summary - The deserving and undeserving disabled poor - Social
and sympathetic sorting: good and bad disabled types - Work,
welfare and medical testing - Images of disability and welfare
under the New Poor Law and beyond - Further reading - About the
author - Related papers - The coalition government aims to
reduce the number of claimants of sickness or disability
benefits, raising concerns among disabled people and their
supporters. In particular, the policy of more stringent medical
testing, combined with government rhetoric implying that not all
current claimants deserve state assistance, have fuelled media
images of widespread benefit fraud. - Incapacity benefit fraud
undeniably exists, but accounts for a small proportion of the
total welfare bill. However, the image of the benefit fraudster
exercises a disproportionate hold over media reporting of
disability and welfare. - The state has supported people with
disabilities since the Elizabethan