While disability benefits make up the largest group of claimants in high-income countries, we know surprisingly little about which disabled people are seen as ‘deserving’ benefits, nor whether different people in different countries judge deservingness-related characteristics similarly. This is surprising given they are increasingly the focus of retrenchment, which often affirms the deservingness of ‘truly deserving’ disabled people while focusing cuts and demands on those ‘less deserving’. This article addresses this gap using two vignette-based factorial survey experiments: (i) the nine-country ‘Stigma in Global Context – Mental Health Study’ (SGC-MHS); (ii) a new YouGov survey in Norway/the UK, together with UK replication. I find a hierarchy of symptoms/impairments, from wheelchair use (perceived as most deserving), to schizophrenia and back pain, fibromyalgia, depression and finally asthma (least deserving). Direct manipulations of deservingness-related characteristics also influence judgements, including membership of ethnic/racial ingroups and particularly blameworthiness and medical legitimation. In contrast, the effects of work ability, age and work history are relatively weak, particularly when compared to the effects on unemployed claimants. Finally, for non-disabled unemployed claimants, I confirm previous findings that right-wingers respond more strongly to deservingness-related characteristics, but Norwegians and Britons respond similarly. For disabled claimants, however, the existing picture is challenged, with, for example, Britons responding more strongly to these characteristics than Norwegians. I conclude by drawing together the implications for policy, particularly the politics of disability benefits, the role of medical legitimation and the legitimacy challenges of the increasing role of mental health in disability benefit recipiency.

尽管残疾补助金是高收入国家中最大的索偿者，但令人惊讶的是，我们对哪些残疾人被视为“应得的”补助金知之甚少，而且不同国家的不同人是否也同样地判断与受益人有关的特征，这一点令人惊讶。令人惊讶的是，他们越来越成为裁员的焦点，裁员通常肯定了“应得的”残疾人的应得之物，同时将削减和需求集中在那些“不当之人”上。本文使用两个基于小插图的析因调查实验来解决这一差距：（i）九个国家的“全球背景下的污名–心理健康研究”（SGC-MHS）；（ii）在挪威/英国进行的一项新的YouGov调查以及英国的重复调查。我发现从轮椅使用（被认为是最应得的）的症状/功能障碍的层次结构，精神分裂症和背部疼痛，纤维肌痛，抑郁症以及最后的哮喘病（最不值得）。对与应得性有关的特征的直接操纵也会影响判断，包括种族/族裔群体的成员身份，尤其是罪责和医疗合法性。相反，工作能力，年龄和工作经历的影响相对较弱，特别是与对失业求偿者的影响相比。最后，对于无残障的失业求偿者，我证实了先前的发现，即右翼分子对与应得性有关的特征的反应更为强烈，但挪威人和英国人的反应相似。但是，对于残障索偿者而言，现有情况受到了挑战，例如，英国人对这些特征的反应比挪威人更为强烈。