Don’t punish people working illegally out of need, not greed.
February 25th, 2009 by Moussa Haddad Posted in Livelihoods
Yesterday, I attended the launch in the House of Commons of the Need Not Greed campaign on the informal economy, convened by Community Links.
The informal economy – sometimes called the black economy – describes work which would usually be legal, but is not legal as it is either not declared for tax and national insurance purposes, or it is carried out by people who are on benefits or who are not allowed to work, perhaps because of their immigration status.
The vast majority of people working in the informal economy are doing what they need to do in order to get by. Mothers doing a few hours so that they could buy their children a new pair of shoes and still pick them up from school, or young men who can’t get a full time job, but manage to find the occasional day’s work to top up their £47.95 a week Jobseeker’s Allowance. No-one is saying it’s okay to defraud the system to live a life of luxury, but cases like this in the Daily Mail yesterday really are the exception rather than the rule – most people working in the informal economy barely eke out an adequate living.
In the developing world, informal work is an important part of many people’s livelihoods. Often governments understand its importance in helping poor people to get on. But in the UK, the government reaction has been to criminalise people. This means that the potential for people to build on informal work in the formal economy is often lost, and can mean that people are left more vulnerable to exploitation.
In the UK, benefits are set too low to live on, so Oxfam thinks that informal work should be understood for what it is – people building a livelihood as best they can. Once they start thinking in those terms, policymakers will be better able to reform the system so that everyone can get enough money to live on – either through formal work or benefits.
The recession makes this campaign more timely than ever. People are being forced into working cash-in-hand as employers try to cut costs to stay afloat. As full-time work dries up, people are taking the bits-and-pieces that are available. More people are experiencing life on benefits for the first time, and given how low benefits are, are realising that the only way to make ends meet is by taking on whatever work they can and not declaring it. Instead of criminalising such people, we should harness their industrious spirit and use it to help the economy out of recession.
Oxfam fights poverty all over the world – and when it’s the system that’s keeping people poor, then the system should change. That’s why we’re proud to support the Need not Greed campaign.
