ISME: Welfare penalises self-employed

CHANGES to the social welfare system to enable the self-employed to access benefits and boost entrepren-eurship are being demanded by the Small and Medium Enterprises Association.

ISME said the current differences in the social welfare system meant the self-employed struggled to access any benefits, with the knock-on effect of disincentivising entrepreneurship at a time when the economy needed it to create jobs.

ISME chief executive, Mark Fielding, described the current social welfare system as “completely unfair, based on antiquated, bureaucratic and cumbersome legislation, which penalises the self-employed and denies their social welfare entitlements: