To think a basic income/citizens wage is a blinding idea?

[Littlefluffyclouds81]

For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, the idea is that each adult citizen, regardless of their working status, money in the bank etc, gets a basic amount of money for free, each month, for example £1000.

Sounds a bit nuts, but bear with me.

The benefits would be that everyone, whether they are homeless, or whatever, knows they have the security of this money coming in each month. There are no costly administrative procedures in determining whether someone is eligible for benefits, or sanctions for those who break the rules.

But, surely everyone will just sit on their arses and not work? Well no, because actually most people have an innate desire to be successful and do well, and let's face it no one is going to be living the high life on a grand a month. It would actually get people out of the benefits trap, because as it stands people are hesitant to come of benefits because if the job doesn't work out, they have to start their claim all over again, or they might have worked out that they would be hardly anything better off by working, so it's not really worth it. With a basic income, they could work as much as they liked knowing that they will still have this money behind them.

So how will it be paid for? Once you have removed the humongous costs of means-testing benefits, and assessing fitness for work with disability benefits, and all that, well that's the government a good few quid up, right there. Also bear in mind that the fund currently used to pay benefits would just be transferred to pay basic income. Raise corporation tax which the coalition sneaked down, and maybe a little bit more tax for the very highest earners, and that's job done.

The theory is, that as it stands, a lot of people have nothing. They are scraping by on the bare minimum of benefits, living in fear of sanctions and being forced into work fare. This way, people would have options, they would all of a sudden have opportunities in front of them to do courses, move to better accommodation, or whatever they needed. It would give people hope. The stigma of being 'on benefits' would be gone, as it would be universalistic. Equality would be massively improved, and with it so would would wellbeing, and health, which would also save the government millions.

I realise with the latest turn of political events there is approximately no chance of this happening, but I think it makes a bucket load of sense.

But how would rich people retain their status? If everyone was given real security and no one worked McJobs anymore where would I get my junk food? There are other gains, more secure people take risks, risks which drive capitalist economies forward. Disabled people need more support and can get it if I don't have to McJob I can help disabled. I have seen the numbers on this and it can fly, the really difficult part. as ever, is transition. If you know from birth £1000 is what you get, you live accordingly. the rest of us with history are . No inflation, the money supply is the same. This is a powerful idea, needs further exploration. Also Richard Nixon (yes) almost passed this in the US back in the day, but it failed because his $ was not enough!

This idea assumes everyone has options, that everyone is capable of working. Being disabled costs more and if you are disabled you are less likely to be able to increase your income. It increases inequality.

OK, so some people can claim a disabililty allowance. And people with children who require extra care can apply for more. And people who are capable of working but can't afford childcare even with their citizens income can apply for more. Etc, etc. And there we have it, the benefits system back in place, the very scheme the original idea was supposed to have done away with. Because some people NEED extra help, and if they are denied that, how does "equality be massively improved"?

I think it's a fascinating idea.

As I understand it (which is not in a great deal of depth) the benefits of this kind of scheme would be that large cash handouts to the population would stimulate the economy more efficiently than QE, because the banks just held on to that money.

And if you've a guaranteed income you can work as much as you like, and actually choose the best solution for your family. No idea how this would impact childcare settings, and companies would be instantly pushed to accept flexible working solutions.

The greens were on about doubling child benefit in addition to citizens income (which I think was far less than £1K a month?) so youd need a similar mechanism for dla replacements.

Yesterday I read that the UK was the least equal country in the EU, in line with Latvia and Portugal. Something has to change.

I think the difference in this idea, is that nobody has to prove they need it.
All that administration gone.
The fact that one is free to work on top, would really work.
I'd like you add though, that l'd like to see free (or close to) childcare.
Lots of mums don't work because they cant / don't want to they are just stuck finding a way to have their children cared for.

Bloody socialists. If only it were that easy and there was no illness or disability and everyone shared and held hands and grew their own veg.

Spotty because capitalism has done such a good job of creating a fair society

Maybe some of us would like to see a more inclusive society with equal opportunities for all. Everyone is valuable. If you can only measure a person by their economic value then you're a sorry individual indeed.

Surely tax revenues would dip as more people opted to work part time? I get £1700 a month after tax, pensions and student Loan so rather than getting extra cash I'd definitely opt to work part time to make up the £700 short fall. I can imagine a lot of people doing the same! I'd rather have more free time than more money!

plonky I agree with that too, but socialism is no fairer in the end either.

Unless you go down the route of pooling all money and no one has the ability to earn more than others and everyone get exactly the same and we just work to make the world function ie growing food hunting ect the world is still as unbalanced, if not more so than capitalism.

There would be no need for many many jobs if this were the case.

What on earth would giving someone who currently earns £150,000 a year £1000 a month achieve? Except to make the rich richer. when it would potentially drop a disabled persons income by £500 per month for example and they have no ability to earn extra?

We would have to go down the full socialist route as before, life would not be as it is now, who would run everything? Keep the lights on ect?

I sure as hell wouldn't keep working (for money) if myself and my husband got £1000 each month by default. There would be no need.

The rich need to put more in the pot (via taxes) and the benefits system needs refining.

I think it's a really interesting idea. Using the governments £26k cap on benefits, would/could work out at £10k per adult pa plus £3k per child pa (assuming 2x adult 2x child household)
Funding it would also be helped because ATM everyone is entitled to earn a tax free allowance of c. £10k pa. So effectively, people would start being taxed on all the income they earn, rather than disregarding the first £10k.
Where it becomes difficult is single person households with children, there would need to be a massive social change for people not working who would need to have an extra adult living in the home in order to pay bills. So perhaps an older relative or sibling sharing the house.
And of course there would need to be top ops for the disabled. But overall a much simpler system
I would like to see some proper costed figures though! And I think it unlikely that non-working single parents would be willing to share their homes with a second adult.

But as an academic idea I think it had merit, and I think we all agree the current system isn't working well, perhaps we need to be brave and look at radical options

Soozyhoozy- isn't that already a downside of the tax credits system, that people can opt to work part time, not because they can genuinely afford to support themselves on a part time wage (which would be fine, no problem) but because our ridiculous system will top them up financially.

I think it's a great idea. Think how much happier people would be. Also think of all the good ideas people would have if they had a bit more free time. I think there would be more volunteering and community projects too. Wages of jobs people didn't want to do would have to increase. Young people would be able to try different careers and be able to support themselves.

I think we all agree the current system isn't working well

Well yes, but probably not in the way you think.

As someone said: inflation!
Everything will just cost more because canoes know we have more
The 1k a month will effectively be nothing then

I think it's a good idea. There WILL be some people though who will lash the lot out within one weekend and be broke for a month...but...with no emergency social loans to fall back on I suppose they won't make the same mistake a lot. You would however get a lot of families allowing addicts to spend all their money on drink/drugs and then supporting them out of their own allowance.

I love the idea though that it removes the fear of jobs no working out/sanctions for leaving a job.

But doesn't inflation mean that the figure will rise with time also?

It would still have a lot of administrative costs though. You'd still have to register for it. There'd have to be proper checks on identity - how would you stop people claiming under false names? If homeless people can claim without an address, what stops people that don't live in the UK at all? How do you stop two seperated parents both claiming for the same child? What stops people from claiming it legitimately, moving abroad and continuing to claim it forever?

It's massively open to fraud, unless you spend money on policing which people are entitled to it - then it just turns into a benefits system again, but you have to assess an entire population!

I just don't understand how homeless people will be able to claim it if they can't claim benefits- they still won't have a home address, and so be unable to open a bank account for it to be paid into. What basis can you use to work out entitlement if it isn't home address?

Dh currently earns about £2200 a month net...and he hates his job, finds it soul destroying and has been looking for another for months.

If we suddenly started getting £1k a month each, he would without a doubt leave (with my blessing...it's horrible seeing him trudging to work everyday for something he hates). We'd take the £200 a month hit, just to get him out of there. He'd probably be a SAHD.

I think there are a lot of people potentially in this position...juggling everything, maybe not earning much more than £1k, who would leave their job...so can't see how it would work tbh.

"The rich need to put more in the pot (via taxes)"

According to the Guardian, only 1% pay the top rate of tax. Slightly less than 15% are on the higher rate. That's a tiny pool to tax to raise enough to fund a citizens income scheme. The only answer would be to raise taxes for the 80% who pay the basic rate. Then raise VAT. Raise Corporate taxes, and do away with (perfectly legal) tax minimisation schemes. Of course then everything would cost more, rather devaluing your 1k. Which would put us all right back where we started...

If children qualified in their own right you'd have to bring in very draconian rules about limiting family numbers, 2 child policies, pretty much ban all immigration or make it on a rigorous points system and to fulfil specific needs and roles only, otherwise imagine all the people wanting to come to the UK (or people ready here) having 8 children in order to immediately get 96k a year as a starting point, with a completely different benchmark of what constitutes a 'good' standard of living, and happy to 'subsist' on their 96k a year cramming three families to a terraced house and sending it all back home, without the ability (or perhaps the intention) to work in a job that pays back anything like enough tax into the system to cancel out their huge family's allocation?

I think this sort of system would work well in a benign dictatorship where everyone had pink unicorns for pets and everyone wanted to do their bit but in the real world, in a libertarian democracy where people have rights and choices and they sometimes use those rights and choices to live in a socially irresponsible way, it just wouldn't work.

And how would you police how it is spent to make sure that the children's allowance gets spent on things that entirely benefit the children? What would you do with the feckless people who had six kids and pissed that 72k per annum up the wall? Solving poverty through generous welfare doesn't automatically do away with those problems unfortunately, although you'd be forgiven for thinking it did, listening to some people.

I agree with the analysis that it will be a zero sum game.

It used to be that the Govt paid the going rate for rent via Housing Benefit. Canny investors realised this and got into Buy To Let. The more the Govt paid in HB, the higher rents became. It spiralled out of control. It's why they had to introduce the £26k cap.

That 'free money' (HB) is part of the cause of the current unaffordability of houses.

For those asking how it would be afforded, I'd say just lower the income until it's affordable. In fact, use the definition of household poverty and set the income level so that a 2-adult 2-child household that lived only on the universal income would be exactly at the poverty line. Since the definition of the poverty line is related to earnings of people in work, if enough people opted out of work, the formula would dictate that the universal income should fall, increasing the incentive to go back into work, until equilibrium was reached.

Most people would not have more money than now, so the inflation issue is a red herring.

With benefits no longer on a per-household basis, there would be enormous incentives for people to live together to save money, compared to the current system where people pretend to live apart to get more money. Or even do just live apart because overall that leads to more benefits being paid out.

People on above median employment incomes would be no better off, they would have roughly unchanged income. (NI would be abolished and all income from the first pound earned upwards would be taxed at between 40% and 50%. For people on above-median salary incomes the citizens income set against their revised tax bill would leave them with about the same take-home pay as they have now. As part of the abolition of NI, pensioners who currently pay their own way would have to be given a lower rate of tax than working people, to keep their take-home approximately the same.)

A quick google tells me that the UK poverty line for a 2-adult 2-child family is about 18K. In fact looking at the figures for different families, it appears to roughly be the case that poverty-line income is 5K per adult plus 3K per child, where over-14 counts as adult. So those would be the starting incomes for the system. I'm guessing that many people on such low incomes would live in houses shared with working people, something the current benefits system prevents, and there would be mutually beneficial arrangements. (Working person pays most of the utilities and rent, "non-working" ones contribute labour: cleaning, cooking, childcare and gardening.)

£1000 a month is more than full time on minimum wage. So why would you choose to work 40 hours a week if you could get more than you do now, whilst staying at home? Who would do the minimum wage jobs? The need for staff to do them would push up the wages, therefore the cost of the goods/services, therefore inflation would rise. Leaving peoples £1000 worth less.