The degree to which disability benefit programs provide an adequate standard of living to those with work-limiting disabilities has long been overlooked in social policy research. This paper presents a framework for assessing disability-related decommodification and then applies that framework to an analysis of the Social Security Disability (SSD) programs in the United States. The paper draws on survey data from the Health and Retirement Study linked to administrative records from the Social Security Administration, and further compares the U.S. estimates to those from 27 other countries. The results indicate that more than 50 percent of older adults of working-age with work-disabilities in the U.S. do not receive SSD benefits, though rates of benefit receipt are higher than the average across other high-income countries. Those that receive SSD benefits, moreover, experience greater difficulty achieving an adequate standard of living, as measured by an index of financial security, than those with similar characteristics in the U.S. who do not receive disability benefits. The paper thus provides a framework for future policy research on benefit adequacy, while evaluating the availability and generosity of disability benefits in the U.S.

Studies on the development of social policies have provided us with a rich body of knowledge. However, being based mostly on class, gender or racial analysis, this body of work has seldom used disability as an analytical framework. This article proposes a systematic research agenda for addressing this lacuna. Drawing on the political and institutional approaches, this article illustrates how mainstream theories on social policy development cannot be assumed applicable to disability policies ‘as is’. To apply them effectively, we argue, students of social policy need to rework them in light of the insights of disability studies. Such conceptual work would involve closer attention to the uniqueness of disability as a socio-political category. Integrating these social policy theories with disability studies will allow us to better identify the unique political and institutional factors behind the trajectories of disability related policy. We conclude this discussion with suggestions for future research.

This introductory article offers an analytical framework to understand the limits of approaches that stress the diffusion and transfers of international norms within the field of disability policy over the last three decades. It also aims to provide alternative ways to frame some of the important changes that have occurred through the concept of layering, in order to better account for the intricate processes of national translation but also for the contradictions, conflicts, and obstacles that the promotion of disability rights have faced in different countries. Finally, this article serves to introduce the contributions that make up the themed section in this issue of Social Policy and Society.

This essay criticizes recent trends in disability policy as restrictive of individual liberty and informed by too narrow a definition of what constitutes human flourishing. I defend the value of intentional community settings as one legitimate residential option for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Recent federal regulations (HCBS Final Rule) define intentional communities or disability-specific housing as presumptively institutional in nature, misunderstanding the positive, noninstitutional features of intentional, integrated communities created by and for people with developmental disabilities. In addition, current disability policy, despite its stated concern for the autonomy of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, limits individual liberty by strictly defining the types of settings eligible for Medicaid waiver funding, expressly excluding agricultural communities, disability-specific residential settings, and intentional communities. A robust commitment to the autonomy of people receiving Medicaid waiver services would allow them to choose to direct their program dollars, recognizing that some individuals may choose a life in intentional community or with others facing similar challenges to themselves over an illusory “integration” into a wider society that remains too often unwelcoming and difficult to navigate.

Applying a political economy lens, this article examines the impact of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), within a political context marked by crisis and austerity. Taking the case of Portugal, a country that faced a financial crisis and underwent an austerity plan, the article seeks to understand the impact of the CRPD at domestic level. What has changed, what has remained the same and what has deteriorated? And how has the disability movement responded and resisted to the crisis? This article addresses these questions and discusses the challenges of implementing disability rights in times of ‘enduring’ austerity.

This article explicates two approaches to the basis of moral worth and status: Eva Kittay’s relational view and Jeff McMahan’s psychological personhood view. It is argued that these theories alone do not provide adequate support for the conclusions Kittay and McMahan want to draw concerning individuals whose entitlement to fundamental protections can be challenged—infants with severe cognitive disabilities and infants without the support of their families and social environments. The real justification can in each case be found in deeply held convictions regarding entities that must and entities that must not be included in the core community of moral equals. Philosophical discussions about these convictions would be more useful for the advancement of our moral thinking than vain attempts to show that the absolute truth lies on either side of the ongoing debate.