To love the idea of scrapping all benefits and just giving everyone £500 a month

[DyslexicScientist]

Like Finland are going to do.

Would get rid of all the east that goes on with means testing and would cost about the same.

Would be much fairer as the current system does discriminate against certain demographics.

Did you convince MNHQ of your non-dodginess OP?

I did thankfully , I'm not trying to be controversial I am a huge fan of the citizens wage and think its vastly better than the broken system we have at the moment. I think lots of peoples backs went up immediately from the mention of benefits and reported me without understanding what I said.

I will avoid posting about benefits, naked people in the sauna, friend avoiding tax, the nhs, cadburys and being served by someone sat on the floor in Morrison's. Although all happened and I genuinely do believe cadburys make shit chocolate.

It IS interesting. I'm going to make a and read that long post.

(I learnt the hard way that longer, more detailed OPs help prevent pile-ins and conclusion-jumping )

Thanks I think your totally right about longer ops. Lesson learnt. I think I got discouraged after spending quite a long time writing a few ops and then no one replied to them! Ha.

Oh well I'm having a bit of an aibu diet, but it is helping my English posting on here and its all good practice.

I'm glad you escaped a banning. Your English sounds perfect

Whenever I've seen discussion of CI elsewhere, people usually accept that there'd need to be some form of allowance for the child too, maybe half of what the parents get or whatever. There wouldn't be a child allowance in 'pure' CI but in that scenario, given that there will always be relationship breakdown/death and thus single parents, we'd have to either bring back orphanages or force NRPs to bring in a certain amount of income. And presumably have some kind of widow/ers allowance too. So I think most people who advocate CI want some kind of lesser children's CI, but set low enough that it wouldn't act as an 'incentive'.

The problem in a British context is that we wouldn't be able to set CI high enough to do anything other than cover the very barest of essentials at best. By that I mean perhaps a room in a shared house in the cheapest possible housing (even assuming rents would correct themselves) baked beans for every meal, clean water and very little else. Enough to keep body and soul together but not provide what most people would regard as a basic standard of living eg heating, bus fare, purchase basic appliances etc. And of course the cost of keeping body and soul together is higher for some people anyway, eg those who require more heating. Many people on the thread are saying they like the idea but £500 isn't enough. However it may be more than we could afford anyway.

It's the most ridiculous idea ever, to give £500 to someone like me who doesn't need it and £500 to a family out of work with a few kids and rent to pay
The system we have here is pretty good , we need to weed out the benefits cheats which would free up more cash for genuine cases, benefits arnt free money it comes from the tax payer, taxes in Finland are really really high, not everyone's circumstances are the same so it seems daft to give cash to people that don't need it and not enough cash to people who do!!

*wasonthelist : Pluck - I dunno why you're conflating this with flat rate tax. As for the regressive nature - it's no different for all/any benefits.

You don't think it's regressive to do away with targeting, so a limited budget has to stretch to cover more people? Not to mention the risks of inflation? Really?

Yes, job losses in thr public sector - it is nuts we employ so many people administering benefits, often making decisions that place people at risk - why not a baseline for everyone? No more arguments about benefit sanctions, no stupid requirement for people to apply for n jobs a week when they clearly aren't going to get one.

Differentiation does not actually require the punitive measures of benefit sanctions, so you're being rather disingenuous there!

Very few CI models propose giving a household the same as an individual mrsbird. That pretty much negates most of the arguments in favour, in fact. By all means object to it, but do so on the understanding that the household you mention would be getting more than you as an individual.

I thought the idea was governments claw back the money by cutting literally everything bar the citizen's wage (and bear in mind it wouldn't be £500 in the uk). Eg no maternity pay, no child benefit, no state pensions. This - say it was £1000 - is your money absolutely. You could earn whatever you wanted on top.

I have no idea if the figures work, but I like the idea that eg a parent who is normally at home could work for a month casually to pay for Christmas and not have their benefits messed up.

no maternity pay, no sick pay that should say

I presume maternity pay would potentially develop as a way for employers to attract the best quality candidates. Sort of like happens now: they pay the legal minimum if they can get away with it, which under CI would be fuck all, but some pay more because the market demands it if they want a certain quality of staff. Or, more cynically, because it's a cheaper way of attracting women to your organisation without having to raise salaries. It would be part of your package if you could negotiate it and if you had enough 'value' on the jobs market.

Incidentally, the cost of living is significantly higher in Finland, so I presume that they would pay housing benefit, disability benefits, child benefits etc on top of the £500 per month.

This is not true. The cost of housing&utilities are much lower than in UK. Child care affordable or free for those on low income. Kids get free hot meals at school/nursery. If a single parent doesn't get any child maintenance from the other parent, the government pays 150€/month (and for the record it's not as easy for an absent parent to get away from paying maintenance as it is in the UK!)

The cost of food and clothes etc is higher, that much is true. But I'd say 800€/month is enough to live on for most people in most parts of Finland (excluding the capital area where housing is more expensive).

Same with enhanced pensions and sick pay I guess.

How do the Finns propose to pay for the childcare, meals and there would be no govt maintenance.

I can't see how a non means tests system could ever be a good idea.

IMHO society is already too unequal.

Not really fanny, we are a family of four so we would get almost as much as a family of five , money we have no need for what an absolute waste of taxpayers money, I don't think this will ever actually come into being in Finland either , it's a pie in the sky idea someone's thought up for headlines

How do the Finns propose to pay for the childcare, meals and there would be no govt maintenance.

I don't understand your question. Nothing would change regarding childcare and meals, the system works fine. I don't know about the maintenance, as i said very few people get it anyway because there's no easy way for absent parent to avoid paying.

It is only proposal. As its source is the Devils younger sister, I would not worry too much.

I think there are many merits to the system. Of course it would be paid for through some increased taxes - worked out in a way in which those on higher incomes would pay an additional £500 of tax per month (or maybe more) but that seems fair.

It would allow single parents to choose the living arrangements that would best suit them, without fear of penalty - so they could live with other family, or two single parent households could share a flat, and not risk losing their money.

It might allow older people to leave employment earlier (freeing up jobs for young people) - e.g. my friend and her husband who will work till 67, but would stop at 60 if there was a citizen's income - they don't need a lot of money, but they do need something.

But you said 'me' not 'my family' mrsbird. It is quite an important distinction in the context of a CI discussion, particularly because the current benefits system is predicated on one couple getting less than two individuals. Actually I think if this did happen in Britain, which it won't, the figure would have to be so low that people would need to live together to make economies of scale if they wanted anything other than a roof, sanitation and enough food to keep functioning.

I would be delighted if it was brought in - it will fail miserably and then people would stop going on about it.

I can't see how this would achieve anything other than enabling employers to avoid paying decent wages. It would effectively end up as a corporation tax cut, a freebie for people who don't need help, not enough for people who do, and make no difference whatsoever to people working to keep their heads above water. A massively expensive waste of time.

caroldecker
Wow you actually read through all that bumf that I copied and pasted!
Was it interesting?

suzanne interesting is the wrong word - a bollocks 'justification' for a failed idea. Fundamentally this idea, like most socialism, is based on the fact there is a fixed money pit and some evil bastards are hoarding it, and must be made to share, whilst everyone except the money pit hogging bastards are generous sharing individuals who love everyone (except the money pit hogging bastards)
In reality, there is some justification for this when income depended on owning land/minerals = in the words of JD Rockefeller, to get rich you need to study hard, work hard and strike oil.
However, nowadays the rich are mainly there because of ideas and they do not owe anyone a living. Also we are all selfish because we put our family above our neighbours and our neighbours above the world - we need to accept this and make it work for us with a capitalist society.
There is too little regulation of business at present, but a nationalised industry, citizen wage is a utopian bollocks that does not work - you only need to red the AIBU section to see we are all unpleasant.