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Self-employed surfers, universal credit and the minimally decent life
Chris Rowe 
Legal Studies, Volume: 42, Issue: 1, Pages: 81 - 98
Swansea University Author:
Chris Rowe
Full text not available from this repository: check for access using links below.
DOI (Published version): 10.1017/lst.2021.36
Abstract
As part of its response to Covid-19 the government paused the use of the ‘Minimum Income Floor’ (MIF), which restricts the Universal Credit (UC) entitlement of the self-employed. This paper places the MIF in the wider context of conditionality in the social security system and considers a judicial r...
| Published in: | Legal Studies |
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| ISSN: | 0261-3875 1748-121X |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
2022
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa65921 |
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| Abstract: |
As part of its response to Covid-19 the government paused the use of the ‘Minimum Income Floor’ (MIF), which restricts the Universal Credit (UC) entitlement of the self-employed. This paper places the MIF in the wider context of conditionality in the social security system and considers a judicial review which claimed that the MIF was discriminatory. The paper focuses on how UC affects the availability of real choices for low-income citizens to limit or escape from wage labour, with two implications of the move to UC highlighted. First, the overlooked labour decommodifying aspect of tax credits, which provided a minimum income guarantee and a genuine alternative to wage labour for people who self-designated as ‘self-employed’, even if their earnings were minimal or non-existent, has been removed. Secondly, UC has in some respects improved the position of low-paid wage labourers in ‘mini-jobs’, who are not subject to conditionality once they work for the equivalent of approximately nine hours a week on the minimum wage. |
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| Keywords: |
social security law, social rights, discrimination, Universal Credit, basic income |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Issue: |
1 |
| Start Page: |
81 |
| End Page: |
98 |