Letters: We're all 'economically active' whether working or not – even my dog contributes to GDP

Big Issue readers suggest a change of thinking around cutting benefits for people not working.

Working it out

I have been a welfare rights caseworker for the last 25 years and currently work for Norfolk Community Law Service, a charity. Isabella McRae’s excellent article, tells the government the way it is, in reality. We are all ‘economically active’ whether working or not. Take the DWP budget out of the economy and see which way the share price of most supermarkets would go. Even my dog was economically active; he had dog food and had trips to the vet! He contributed to that hallowed GDP that the chancellor wants so desperately to grow.

It doesn’t have to be this way, though, and we certainly don’t need to be cutting welfare benefits. We do need to be doing things differently. Doing things the same way has brought us global warming and widespread social injustice.

The DWP, in partnership with pension funds, could set up a not-for-profit, third-party financial instrument, a community discount card (or existing bank card!) for all those in receipt of welfare benefits, to capture bulk discounts on behalf of those in poverty. This would increase the purchasing power of existing benefits.

Unfortunately, the DWP is punching below its weight in the marketplace by just distributing the DWP budget among the financially weakest members of society. This could be turned on its head. It’s not rocket science.

Vaughan Thomas, Norwich

Doesn’t work

The DWP seems to be a far more ruthless entity under the Labour government. We all know the Conservatives really like to make it hard for benefit claimants, but I get the feeling that Labour seems to be much worse and has a real hatred and contempt towards anyone unable to work.

John Smith, Facebook

Stop the pigeon

Here is a picture I did inspired by a dream/nightmare sequence from vendor André Rostant’s astounding novel The Muffin Man. André often sells Big Issue outside my place of work at Foyles on Charing Cross Road, which is where I first came across him.

I didn’t know quite what to expect from the book, and there is always some trepidation when one reads a friend’s novel; the worry that one will not like it and have to cook up some bland pleasantries to appease. I needn’t have worried as The Muffin Man is a fantastic work and it immediately became one of my favourite London novels. 

The drawing depicts a nightmare sequence in which a Big Issue vendor transforms into a giant pigeon and violently attacks another man who is verbally abusive towards him.

Patrick Wray

Goose loose

On reading your Christmas issue, I came across a picture of Big Issue vendor Mark Dransfield, and the two geese who share his pitch. On a trip to Hebden last April, I was accosted by these two, and had to run into the Co-op to escape!! Sounds as if your vendor Mark gets on with them – maybe they were defending his pitch?

Clare Compson, Stockport

Tech notice

For Britain to survive it needs to maintain a competitive edge in the training of its technical workforce. Technical colleges need to be upgraded, putting more emphasis on the technical trades which change with the rapid advances. You can no longer expect to be in the same job for a lifetime.

TJ Thorp, Ipswich

• We can make the four-day working week a reality – and make it work for everyone. Here’s how
• Plans to ‘modernise’ working life will allow employees to request flexibility from day one
• Disability benefits cuts would be ‘devastating’ and ‘increase absolute poverty’, Labour warned

Good news for once

I loved this year’s Changemakers. It’s why I read Big Issue, to hear of social enterprises and people making a difference.

Liz Mostyn

RE: 80 homeless children have died in temporary accommodation in just one year

Keeping children and under-18s in often abhorrent conditions in temporary accommodation and for way longer than the legal limit has been going on for years. Happened to me over 15 years ago. I was swiftly moved out after I was assaulted. I was 16. Not even an apology and when I was 18 I was chucked out of my lodgings back into the same kind of temporary accommodation.

u/Littlerabbitrunning, Reddit 

If a family is moved into temporary accommodation without even a cot, then it is very difficult to follow safe sleeping guidelines. And without a kitchen not only would it be hard to
feed your children healthy food, it would be really difficult to wash and sterilise baby bottles. 

u/OnHolidayHere, Reddit 

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