Purple Shoots is constantly advocating for changes in the benefits system which will enable and encourage self-employment instead of stifling and destroying entrepreneurship. Below is an account by someone who has struggled through – it is anonymous indicating the level of fear there is around speaking up about the system and around the stigma that still attaches to people who need to claim benefits to survive. Read on and be surprised if you are someone who believes that people on benefits are lazy and choose to be there:
In March 2020 I was working full-time for a start-up in London when COVID hit. We were severely understaffed as it was (I was the only person in the entire marketing department) and being ill just wasn’t an option. Then, in June of that year I was signed off sick with burnout for the first time in my life. The doctor advised me to take a month off, but less than two weeks later the CEO said they needed me back, offering to trial part-time until I was told one week later it wasn’t working for them. I had no choice but to hand in my months’ notice as I was nowhere near recovered, but the day after my birthday I was told I was only needed until the end of the week as my contract stated they could terminate my contract earlier without pay, of course.
My story is far from unique. In 2021/22 approximately 36.8 million working days were lost, with stress and depression accounting for 17 million days.[1] Is it any wonder that myself and thousands of others are making the transition to working freelance? Overworked and undervalued seems to be the modus operandi for many companies, with ‘workload, lack of support, violence, threats or bullying’[2] commonplace. I am an actor and writer by trade but with the number of cuts to funding in the arts on top of a global pandemic that saw the job market turn into the Hunger Games, I was left with no choice but to find other streams of revenue.
After that traumatic experience I decided to go back into education and was lucky enough to gain a place doing a master’s at Cambridge University. For many people on the outside, getting into such a prestigious institution must mean you’ve made it, right? Unfortunately, that isn’t the case – did you know that you aren’t allowed to work during your degree and can potentially get kicked off the course? My reality was using up my life savings as there was no funding available and working for two freelance agencies, on top of doing my master’s and trying to fit in other social activities. That meant waking up at 5am most days and hitting the hay around midnight, whilst many of my peers were jetting off to Europe or Asia. I wasn’t the only one, in fact it seemed the working-class students were the most burnt out trying to keep up the façade of living a lavish lifestyle. My mental health suffered with the cost-of-living crisis exacerbating the issue as clients were withdrawing their budgets left, right, and centre.
With networking opportunities non-existent and having had no success joining other agencies who were also feeling the strain, I found myself in the position where I needed income support to help pay the bills. The amount of shame I felt about having to apply for Universal Credit was immense; I felt like I’d failed, and I knew I couldn’t tell anyone else of my situation (apart from friends that also work in the arts) for fear of being ostracised. My experience was admittedly neutral; they understood my situation and found me ‘gainfully self-employed’ a term that, in my opinion, is loaded with insidious undertones of what is considered gainful. A lot of unnecessary jargon included the minimum income floor, which to this day I’m still not entirely sure what it means, but the jist was if I earn less than they expect me to make, I’ll only receive support based on my ‘expected’ income.
I recall asking the advisor if they had funding for helping self-employed people expand their skills; for instance, web-design, development, or other sought-after roles that would certainly see fewer people needing to access their services in the first place. The answer was, of course, no. What struck me was the distinct lack of any real desire to help self-sufficient people who knew what tools they needed to succeed. It felt like inhabiting some perilous quagmire that people would step into, never to return.
The facts are damning; over 17 million people in the UK don’t have proper access to financial services. Indeed, there were absolutely no allusions that the benefits system wants you to succeed, not just to teeter on the poverty line on a minimum wage salary, but to cultivate a viable career and save enough money to get on the property ladder. Oh, and if you have more than £16,000 in your bank then you aren’t eligible, even if that money is going towards a deposit that offers the person a more stable future.
The support I mentioned lasted for less than two months as I decided to temporarily move into my sister’s place whilst I found my feet again. One dreary September morning my accounting app gave an aggressively ping. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and saw a notification for how much I would be receiving that month…
£25.
Wait, that can’t be right? Yes, regardless of if you’re paying rent at a family member’s house, you get close to nothing. I promptly informed them to remove me from the system and I’ll be honest, a part of me felt relieved that I didn’t have to deal with that shame anymore.
What I find astounding is the number of people I hear calling freelancers and people on the benefits system lazy. For one, freelance work enables me to support my mental health, the number of unpaid hours I spend doing admin work is more than you think, and overall, I likely spend more time each week doing my job than they do. But the archaic rhetoric is that anyone who chooses a different path than the 9-5 is a vagrant, and that needs to change. Think about it this way; if more people are given the chance to build a business, then that business will expand and create job opportunities for those who do want a 9-5 which also has a positive impact on the local community.
I wouldn’t choose that level of denigration on anyone, and I highly doubt those who have been on income support long-term (due to ill-health or any number of reasons) feel overjoyed at receiving such a small amount, only to be further penalised when they do begin to earn but offered no support on how to get back on their feet. This is why organisations like Purple Shoots is so important for the community; building people up by providing them with loans (over £2m to date) to help them start their own enterprise and reclaim their autonomy. My hope is that incentives like this are rolled out nationwide and on a wider scale.
[1] ‘Working days lost in Great Britain’, Health and Safety Executive, <https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/dayslost.htm>
[2] ‘Health and safety at work Summary statistics for Great Britain 2021’, Health and Safety Executive, <https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overall/hssh2021.pdf>
