There is something uncomfortable about the way we talk about disabled children when money enters the conversation. A child becomes a claimant. Their care becomes a cost. Their diagnosis becomes a potential financial incentive, something a parent might pursue because apparently there is money to be made in having a disabled child. Before long, the child begins to disappear behind all the numbers being used to describe them.
That stayed with me while reading Iain Duncan Smith’s argument in The Telegraph that the number of seven-year-olds receiving disability benefits should “stop anyone in their tracks.” He points to 69,799 seven-year-olds receiving disability benefits and raises concerns about the rise in Child Disability Living Allowance, particularly claims associated with behavioral disorders and ADHD. The increase is real. What I find much less convincing is everything we are being asked to conclude from it.
More disabled children receiving support does not tell us that those children should not be receiving it. It does not tell us that parents have suddenly discovered a profitable route through the benefits system. It tells us that more children are receiving support. There may be several reasons for that, and understanding them requires considerably more curiosity than looking at a rising number and deciding that something has gone wrong.
I have received Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, since I was 16. But receiving disability benefits inevitably shapes the way I read arguments like this. There is a considerable distance between seeing a benefit payment written down on a page and understanding the life that exists within it.
Receiving SSI did not make me disabled. It did not create my needs, and it did not decide what I was capable of becoming. SSI has been part of my life. It has never been the definition of it.
Sometimes I wonder what somebody would have assumed about me at 16 if all they had been told was the fact that I received SSI. It would have told them nothing about my ambitions, the kind of work I wanted to do, my passions, or the future I imagined for myself. Getting benefits tells you very little about someone.
I think that is part of why the suspicion directed toward disabled children bothers me so much. There are legitimate questions to ask about diagnostic practices and why childhood disability claims are increasing. But there is a considerable distance between asking those questions and deciding that families are pursuing diagnoses because there is money attached to them.
Somewhere in that distance, suspicion starts to take over. Perhaps the child is not disabled but poorly behaved. Perhaps the parent simply needs to parent differently. Perhaps ordinary childhood difficulties have been given medical names because the benefisystem rewards them. Those are enormous conclusions to draw about families whose lives we know almost nothing about.
Maybe the number of seven-year-olds receiving disability benefits should stop us in our tracks. I just wish our first question wasn’t how so many children managed to receive benefits. I wish we were more curious about who those children are and what their days actually look like—what their families might be doing every day that cannot be captured by a government statistic.
A seven-year-old receiving disability benefits has a life beyond a line in a government, just as I had a life beyond becoming an SSI recipient at 16. Before deciding that we are supporting too many of them, perhaps we should understand those lives a little better. Because the benefit is only one part of the story. It is only one part of mine.
Sources:
Annual DWP Benefits Statistics Compendium: 2026. Department for Work and Pensions, GOV.UK, 15 Sept. 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-dwp-benefits-statistics-compendium-2026/annual-dwp-benefits-statistics-compendium-2026.
Change the Prescription: Update: Transforming Support for Children in the Welfare and Education System. Centre for Social Justice, June 2026, https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/CSJ-Change_the_Prescription-Update.pdf.
Colivicchi, Anna. “GPs ‘Under Pressure’ to Diagnose Autism and ADHD for Benefit Entitlement, Report Finds.” Pulse Today, 8 June 2026, https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clinical-areas/paediatrics/gps-under-pressure-to-diagnose-autism-and-adhd-for-benefit-entitlement-report-finds/.
“Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for Children: Eligibility.” GOV.UK, Department for Work and Pensions, https://www.gov.uk/disability-living-allowance-children/eligibility.
Duncan Smith, Iain. “The Explosion in Child Disability Benefits Is a Betrayal of My Moral Mission.” The Telegraph, 16 Oct. 2026, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10/16/explosion-in-child-disability-benefits-betrayal-welfare-uk/.
Fraud and Error in the Benefit System: Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2026 Estimates. Department for Work and Pensions, GOV.UK, 19 May 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-ending-fye-2026-estimates/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system-financial-year-ending-fye-2026-estimates.
“GPs Poll: Centre for Social Justice: 7 June 2026.” Savanta, 7 June 2026, https://savanta.com/knowledge-centre/press-and-polls/gps-poll-centre-for-social-justice-7-june-2026/.
Preventing, Detecting, and Recovering Improper Payments. Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General, July 2024, https://oig.ssa.gov/~assets/uploads/072401.pdf.
SSI Annual Statistical Report, 2025. Social Security Administration, Aug. 2026, https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/ssi_asr/2025/index.html.