The citizen's income is the only solution to inequality/ the poverty trap/ social immobility.

[weatherall]

The concept of the citizen's income is a universal benefit everyone receives.

It provides a basic standard of living eg housing/food/clothes/fuel.

Any income earned above this is kept. There is no taper.

Although this is all hypothetical, I don't see it being enough to make people feel like they didn't need to work. I see it being enough to rent a room in a shared house and enough for food and basic clothing, but not much else.

I see it being enough to rent a room in a shared house and enough for food and basic clothing, but not much else.

Exactly. So whatever changes in your life, whoever you divorce, whoever sacks you, whatever is stolen, you can eat and scrape by while you work to improve your lot. No need for destitution. Nothing to apply for to feed yourself. You can always escape DV. You can always afford a bus ticket or pay for ink to print a CV. The administration costs it saves the state are huge. It really is much cleverer than it looks at first glance. It is like taking an enormous can of WD40 to society

But where would all the money come from to give to every 18 year old?
?

TBH I think it would need the State to have control over more things than now - rents for example, and food prices.

Also would require some major admin to ensure no-one could fiddle the system by claiming under false ID's to get multiple CI's. This system would of course be a major draw to every crim in the world.....

It is an interesting hypothesis but to my mind has one fundamental flaw - Human Nature. Must be my age - am so much more jaded about people than I was in my youth

Bmw6- dla isn't means tested and is given to disabled people in and out of work- do you realise that?

With CI the disabled person themselves can choose how much work they can do. No more atos!

Caroldecker- I imagine that self employment would suit a lot of disabled people. This means they can work as and when they can. Given the popularity of zero hour contracts/agency workers (who are se) with employers I think lots of them would prefer this to the burden of ft employees who have frequent sicknesses.

The CI is quite similar to student grants (back in the day) and the over 80 pension. Everyone gets it, millionaire or impoverished. No one complains about these systems so why not roll it out to the full population?

Manic- we give 'something for nothing' when it comes to health and education. Why should social security be different?

The arguments here against CI are a lot like the arguments against universal health care in USA. We can't imagine not having the NHS now. Maybe in 50 years we won't imagine how we ran social security without CI.

Ok. I have just gone out and blown my family income for a year on a £10,000 car.

What happens next?

My family starve? Or do I get given some more money?

ppplease

Why would it paid annually pplease? Very little else is.

Why are you assuming you get all the money in a lump sum? What would happen if you got yourself a 10K loan and couldn't pay it now? What would happen if you blew your wages at the beginning of the month and couldn't pay for food now?

I dunno. Why don't you nip for a little hol to North Korea or Cuba and let us know if you are still interested when you get back?

I dunno. Why don't you nip for a little hol to North Korea or Cuba and let us know if you are still interested when you get back?

Cuba's a bit rainy this time of year.

Weatherall - you haven't said what level it would be set at.
To work it has to replace all non-disabled benefits (otherwise you have just as much means testing as you have now, and no admin savings)
If we set it at £15k a head, for 50 million people, that is £750bn a year, broadly the total tax take.
We currently spend £500bn (non social security), so this would need to come from income tax (to avoid raising other taxes)
Income tax (and NI) currently raises c £250m
To double this income, tax rates would have to be c.60% of your earnings, rising to 84% at the middle rate and over 90% at the top rate.

So a married couple have £30k between them tax free for nothing and a 60+% tax rate on anything earned? Not a great work incentive.

Oh, and as far as I am aware, all the research done on this has been in circumstances where there is no benefits available, so people were starving without it.

carol I'm no expert... but 10K has been bandied around rather than 15K. Also, under this system ALL income could be taxable so would that make a difference?

All income except the CI obviously.

Highest Student loan available in the upcoming year will be £7751 (living away from home in London). That's higher than annual JSA, IS or ESA. So an annual CI of £8k, for example, would do away with the need for any of those payments ant the admin that goes with them.

Questions assuming this replaces all benefits etc.

Does it only pay out for over 18's or is there also an allowance for children?

What level would you think suitable?

What additional help would be provided for someone who was so severely disabled that they were unable to work at all and consequently had additional costs?

I don't think it's supposed to replace all benefits. Maybe a list of yes and no would help:

Yes: JSA, IS, possibly HB, student loans/grant possibly, pension.
No: DLA or whatever the powers that be turn it into, HB possibly not, carers' allowance.

What do people think?

If people who were too disabled to work were provided with free care, free transport, free suitable housing as well as any aids they needs, they really wouldn't need that much more than the basic citizens income.

There would be no need to give people any more for having children. It takes two to have a child, £20k between two adults is enough to bring a child up on, especially bearing in mind that this isn't supposed to stop people from working so people having children would have to think about whether or not they can afford it.

If you've gone out and blown your £10k on a car, then you have the option of starving and living on the streets, or selling your car. Either way, it would be your choice and your responsibility, no one else's. We wouldn't be in a position where people who can't afford their own car are paying for others to stay at home when they are capable of working, which would create a fairer society.

On a side note, it would be VERY easy to get child support from the NRP in this system, wouldn't it?

It does take 2 people to make a child however it is not unheard of for one to refuse to financially support the child and if the ci is deemed as the minimum needed then surely you can't touch that other than a minimal amount for maintenance. This could potentially leave a woman with children stuck in an abusive situation that she couldn't afford to leave.

Depends jacks. You could say that 10K is enough to raise a child or not. If not, the child has it's own allowance which goes with the RP, if it is, you can take some of the 10K to give to the RP.

Or it could leave women in a situation where they never have to worry about being stuck in a financially abusive relationship because they are automatically given their own money and there is always money available to take from NRPs for maintenance. It's got to be better than people being able to avoid maintenance because they live with enough other children or because they work self employed cash in hand, or they're on JSA so only have to pay pennies.

Maintenance would be able to be collected directly to a persons NI number, and people who have children then abandon them without paying anything would automatically have something to lose.

Dawndonna, being disabled myself, in receipt of dla, I am well aware of how a civilised society treats its most vulnerable, and I promise you that being in receipt of CI for life would be far far better than what we are subjected to at the moment. The insecurity I live with atm, not knowing whether ATOS or whoever will call me up, drag me in to see them at their 'local' office which is a train trip and 3+ bus rides away plus a long walk, taking hours and hours and hours and no public loos along the way, then to wait for some unqualified person to tell me that yes I do still have MS but maybe just maybe not badly enough on that day to continue to get dla, or maybe change the rates or heaven knows what. No I'd rather just have CI like everyone else thank you, and not have to feel grateful to people who resent me because their taxes are being spent on people like me.

What about people with disabilities who want children?
What about people with disabilities who want the odd bottle of wine, or a holiday?