More financial support should be available to artists in the periods where they are not working, the former Coronation Street actor Julie Hesmondhalgh has said, as research revealed universal credit is pushing the creative workforce into destitution.
The study by the performing arts union Equity and the University of Warwick found that of those subject to the universal credit rule known as the “minimum income floor” (MIF) – an assumed level of earnings for a self-employed person on which benefit is based, even if actual earnings are less – 41% had gone without essential items such as food or utilities.
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