Minimum Income Standard<\/a> (MIS) approach and is based on detailed group discussions among people with sight loss about what items would need to be different for someone is visually impaired, compared to those in the MIS budgets for a sighted person, in order to reach a minimum acceptable standard of living.\u00a0 The additional amount a severely sight impaired pensioner needs to spend comes to over \u00a3135 a week.<\/p>\nWhere do all these additional costs come from, and why are they so high?\u00a0 One clue comes from the nature of the costs involved.\u00a0 Those involving human help, for example paying for help in the home with domestic tasks or paperwork, or the cost of getting a taxi, when used on a regular basis add most to the weekly budgets.\u00a0 These recurring weekly costs can add more to a budget than large less frequent outlays, such as for expensive equipment, when costed over time.<\/p>\n
Sight loss brings extra costs whenever it is experienced, in life, but our research shows why they are especially high for many pensioners.\u00a0 Participants in our groups explained how older people who have acquired sight loss later in life can need more of such help as they face the joint impact of adjusting to deteriorating sight and lower mobility, even with relatively less severe sight loss.\u00a0 Difficulties with balance, being less steady on their feet, concerns about falling combined with having to adapt and learn new ways of doing things, relying on others to do tasks that they previously did themselves, loss of confidence and feelings of vulnerability or isolation all contributed to additional costs for help in the home, safety and security measures, food preparation, and taxis.<\/p>\n
A key feature of MIS is that it describes living standard that allows people the opportunity to participate in society, and this was important across all groups.\u00a0 Our research highlights that this can involve, not just extra taxis or the cost of activities, but a potentially \u2018hidden cost\u2019 \u2013 the cost of reciprocation.\u00a0 Being able to get out and about, or go on holiday can mean accepting help from friends or family, but people in our research stressed the importance of being able to contribute to their costs \u2013 to treat someone to a drink or a meal, or towards some holiday costs for a someone who accompanies them, who enabled them to \u2018have a life\u2019.\u00a0 Being able to reciprocate made it easier to accept help and provided dignity.<\/p>\n
This research has made an important step in providing evidence about the additional costs that visually impaired people face.\u00a0 These are exactly the sorts of costs that make Attendance Allowance such an important benefit, and evidence such as this recently helped to see off a government proposal to reforms that raised concerns about its future.<\/p>\n
But what does this mean in reality, on a day to day level for the many people living with sight loss?<\/p>\n
We are now embarking on a new phase of research to place these findings in context.\u00a0 This will use in-depth interviews to look at the experiences of visually impaired people whose incomes fall under the MIS level, to explore how this affects their ability to meet their needs, and how people adapt and cope in their daily lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One in five people aged over 75 experience sight loss.\u00a0 This can be an upsetting experience in itself, but all the more daunting because of the additional cost that it brings to everyday life. \u00a0When your failing vision means that you have to get help cleaning your house, or use more taxis because getting the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-income","category-mis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}