“There are too many people on Disability Support Pension”
There has been much made of the fact that now a “record 832,000 Australians receive the DSP”. This high figure is seen as a proof that the DSP is filled with people taking advantage of the system. However, if you consider that our population is also at ‘record levels’, this figure suddenly does not seem so shocking.
A look at the number of DSP recipients as a percentage of the working age population shows that since 2002 there has been a slight increase – from just over 5 per cent to now just under 5.5 per cent. This figure is in line with other OECD countries.
The biggest factor behind this slight rise is not due to an “army of DSP bludgers” as some claim, but Australia’s aging population.
In 2002, 60+ year olds accounted for 21.3 per cent of people aged over 16. In 2012, they accounted for 24.3 per cent. Consequently we have seen a corresponding rise in DSP recipients: while in 2002 while in 2002, only 0.5 per cent of DSP recipients were over 65, in 2012 it was 3.1 per cent.
Another important factor behind this increase was the fact that a number of payment categories that covered older women, like the Mature Age Allowance, were scrapped, and the age pension age for women was raised. In 2012, 14 percent of women aged between 60 and 64 were on DSP. Most of them would have been put on age pension prior to 1995.
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