to think we could solve poverty by simply giving everyone money?

[aufaniae]

This article makes a compelling argument for giving everyone a "mincome".

Why we should give free money to everyone

The basic idea is that poverty costs society money, and that it's cheaper, and of great benefit to society if everyone has a basic income, no questions asked - so no one ever drops below the poverty line. The intro says.

"We tend to think that simply giving people money makes them lazy. Yet a wealth of scientific research proves the contrary: free money helps. It is time for a radical reform of the welfare state."

They actually did a study in Canada where a whole town was on a mincome for some years, and it seems it was a great success.

I must say I find the idea compelling. What do you think?

(Please have a look at the article before responding if you can, there's some surprising and thought provoking stuff there).

Fuse dog - What's communist China got to do with anything? This is not actually a communist principle and China is only nominally communist anyway.

Your objection to me seems to be that poverty won't be beaten if people piss their money up the wall. I agree. But, actually, most people don't do that now, so why assume they will then?

Most people - probably more than 90% - who are on benefits now use their money properly...food, bills, clothes for the children.

Of course, with a scheme like this, it's possible some people will settle for a basic standard of living in return for not working, but all the evidence thus far seems to indicate that this is not likely.

I am a right lazy bugger. But I like my car, my holidays and being able to treat myself and DS and I'm prepared to to work hard to keep them. I would be surprised if the majority of us didn't feel the same if it came to it.

there was a "successful study in Canada" based on what - 1000 households? NOT everyone in the town got the money ONLY those below the poverty line (30% of the town's households)... how did those who did not get the money feel..... oh, the research does not say..... those people who DID get the money were economically trapped - they could not move out of the town or they would lose the money....

a mincome would stifle immigration, do we have a free for all that allows "outsiders" to also have a mincome or can we have poor foreigners here to do the crappy jobs we won't want to because we have enough money not to HAVE to.... and reduce emigration - we are not an isolated entity in the world.

as a "poor" student I did all the crappy jobs because I had to - with a mincome, I wouldn't have to..... who will clean toilets, wipe bums, wash greasy pots?

Ah, OK, sorry that's misleading.

The minimum income link above is not about Mincome. Instead it's "So that your income, after tax and benefits adjustments, is enough to cover what the public think is needed for a minimum acceptable standard of living". It gives a level if income higher than what a Mincome would likely be.

The Canadian experiment level of mincome would equate to about £10.5K for a family of 5.

Very interesting thread, thank you OP :)

I could of envisaged this 20 years ago when property was not so inflated, but with this principle myself and many others of my generation or older are asset rich but income poor ( relatively compared to asset). I am a SAHP but also a carer the new mincome would not be offset by taxes but just increase my families living standard which would be nice but ridiculous as I am nowhere near poverty.

Re who would clean a toilet if they didn't have to work, I imagine you'd find that sort of work attaching a premium in wage to reflect that it's not something generally done for love -whereas jobs with more obvious satisfaction would need to pay less

Who would clean toilets? People with expensive hobbies / tastes / pets and no other skills.

So basically everyone is so poor that trying to live on the free money is only something that's possible if you have no hibbies or pets or want holidays......

That's even more draconian than the current benefits system.

I did read the article. I found it very hard to believe that they had encountered such aspirational sample of 'guniea pigs' and that none had a drink/drugs problem and that they were aboe to turn their lives around.

Anyway, if you took all the money in the world and gave everyone an equal share there would always be those who blew it immediately and then demanded you re-shared it all out again.

The only way is to make work pay substantially more than 'free money'.

"The only way is to make work pay substantially more than 'free money'."

I see nothing to say that work wouldn't pay substantially more than the mincone, where do you get that from?

The current government are "making work pay" by pushing people on benefits further into poverty, and kicking thousands of disabled people off their benefits unfairly (the amount of appeals overturned shows people are being unfairly denied disability benefits).

Is that the kind of making work pay you mean?

Or do you mean making sure the minimum wage is significantly more than benefits? Surely the only way that is fair is if universal employment is available? Do you accept that there are fewer jobs than people, and therefore any such policy based on wages has poverty for many designed into it?

I said expensive hobbies/holidays/pets. The general idea is that the mincome might cover a week in Benidorm/moggy/night down the pub but if you wanted a fortnight at Sandals/several pedigree Labradors/champagne at Boujis you'd need a job.

Poverty is either already almost non-existent in the western world, or it's very prevalent and defined as a relative measure. You cannot move everyone out of a relative measure of poverty without everyone getting almost the same, so the incentives to work are removed.

If you're talking about an absolute measure of poverty - what value do you believe, and what groups are failing to get that under the current benefits system in the UK?

For me the underlying principle is that a modern technologically advanced society ought to provide a basic living for all its citizens.

We have machines to do the work and yet we are still of the mindset that everyone should work full time.

In reality much of the work that is done is sisyphian', just a way of keeping us occupied so that we're too stressed or busy to fully realize the various ways that we are oppressed, manipulated and exploited by those who have control.

"We have machines to do the work and yet we are still of the mindset that everyone should work full time."

Yes, and we punish those who do not have full time work (e.g. by making them work for free in mind-numbingly boring jobs, even if they're way-overqualified) even though there is no such thing as full-employment.

FredFredGeorge you live in a very sheltered world, with big blinkers if you think there is no poverty in the Western World.

Save The Children says "In Britain today there are a shocking 1.6 million children living in severe poverty ... Families living in severe poverty often have to choose between heating and eating as they struggle to live"

I think it''s a good idea.

It'd involve a massive overhaul of working patterns and wages, and living locations and rents. Who'd want to pay most of their mincome to live in a crappy high-rise in london?

You could probably remove a fair bit of worker protection legislation, like minimum wage, maybe this would make it more attractive to big business who love a 'flexible' workforce. But on other hand, if you treated your staff crappily, they'd find it easier to walk out.

The country would definitely be a different place.

(Wasn't 'quantitative easing' just printing money by another name?)

Suzannewithaplan this quote from Buckminster Fuller might appeal to you:

"We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living.

We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living."

^ That's nothing to do with mincome btw, before I derail the thread!

Well not directly anyway, just thought Suzannewithaplan might like it :)

The Green Party has and still includes this as part of their economic policy, they call it the Citizen's Income.

I recall ages ago, the buzz was that technology would revolutionize work and we'd all be working 20 or so hours per week, work would be divided up across more people and machines would take more of the load. Obviously, this hasn't happened for a long list of reasons, mostly around the systems of the elite benefit from people working more and being in poverty. Money and the value of things are all human constructs that are controlled by people with the systems (look at the diamond industry - the value of them has nothing to do with the supply but by its control). A citizen's income type of policy would be a good part of a wider revolution (or a stepping stone to a star trek like economy).

Part of the problem is that the system rhetoric relies on us presuming that the poor can't take care of themselves or money and scapegoating parts of them for the problems within society through the image that poor people are just lazy and those that are rich are that way through hard work (when neither is the typical case). We need to take back and change the rhetoric. We also need to change the rhetoric that poverty is only about places away from here (many parts of the so-called third world are wealthy and many parts in the UK are in poverty - in that their lack of money damages their health, well being, and access to society).

aufanie Those statements are about relative poverty, so you believe relative poverty can be reduced - given that relative poverty is defined as a percentage of the average, you cannot move everyone out of relative poverty unless everyone is paid the same.

Indeed the quickest way to move people out of poverty with a relative definition is to make everyone poorer.

"How would you encourage anyone to achieve anything? Train for years to become a barrister or a surgeon? We'd have no legal or health care system, amongst other things."

Many millions of people currently work to maintain a lifestyle far beyond that of basic essentials. The people who train for years as lawyers dont do that to survive- they could work part time in asda and survive- they do it to achieve a standard of living beyond that of basic so they have a better standard of living, disposable income, educational opportunities for their children, savings etc. all those people would still want all those things and would still work for it.

There are also many people who do volunteer work proving that working isnt driven by the need to survive in all circumstances.

Many people want to work.

Very ignorant to think the nation would just down tools. And worrying that you dont know anyone who wouldnt if this was implemented.

No Fred, I'm talking about the kind of poverty where people must chose between heating and food, where parents regularly go hungry so that their DCs can eat, and elsewhere, children go hungry. Where children's lives are blighted by disease and social problems caused by poverty.

Do you accept this kind of poverty exists in the UK?

The statements from Save the children were based on a minimum income level, living below which they define as poverty, so an absolute measure, not a percentage.

The Canadian experiment and others deal with absolute poverty, I do not know the details, but suspect an unemployed family of 5 get at least £10.5k of benefits (including housing) already.
If you want a system of universal credit, with one payment and reduced restrictions when you start work - see here

I don't see how this situation would be much different in 5 years time,where there would be haves and have nots then. The people who choose or are in no position to add to their 'mincome' would still be the poorest people, on some arbitrary figure. They will still be looking up at the people who have more which leads to people gaining personal debt through credit cards and loans trying to achieve that capitalist dream lifestyle for themselves. The mincome won't go so far when it's paying off monthly minimum interest payments.

It sounds completely insane to me & a lot of people would totally blow the money (like the drug addicts in my family). The refusal of private landlords to take those in receipt of housing benefit recently is partly due to a high profile minority of recipients who are in chronic economic straits who don't manage their money well, which includes not making paying the rent high priority.

Plus the OP opened by saying "everyone" should have a mini-income; there is no way people like me need handouts from the state.

I'm open-minded & thread is too long for me to follow, I will pay attention to concise discussions in future. I can believe that giving cash straight to some of the poor is excellent idea. But that's the system we already have.