universal basic income

[elmouno]

Will it happen?

Universal basic income. I know it's been introduced in some other places. Would you support it? Just some free money given to everyone despite their means?

Please don't get me wrong, this would not replace anything. It would be in addition to what you already have.

YANBU: I could take an extra £1000 per month to save the economy from 2020 and impending robot job annihilation.
YABU: We could never pay for that and there are far too many haters who will never let it happen.

I'd need to look more into its potential benefit to society as a whole before I make a judgement on whether I would be in support. Certainly I've heard about the evidence of it being well received in Finland, but there are a lot of things that seem to go well in Scandinavia that good old Blighty couldn't ever manage. For me personally I don't think I'd be any better off and therefore a bit pointless, but for others in need? Potentially interesting idea.

Well I keep being told on Mumsnet that all jobs will be offshored to India. So what’s the alternative?

Between that and automation, what happens when 80% of the population are unemployed?

If people had enough to just live on most would still want to work to buy the better car, phone, food etc. But maybe you'd not need to work so many hours so there would be more flexible part time working.
Jobs that are considered undesirable or badly paid will have to increase their wages to get people to do them. This would be good for care industries- you want people in those jobs who actually want to do it not just because it was all they could get.

That’s not how UBI works is it? If you already earn over the set threshold you’d pay your £1k back in tax or some similar mechanism.

Just wait till it drives inflation and everyone is back where they were. Just like Gordon Brown driving house price/rental inflation due to his over-generous tax credits and benefits.

Jobs that are considered undesirable or badly paid will have to increase their wages to get people to do them.

Many are public sector, so taxes would have to rise to pay for the wage rises! Doh!

Can’t see it working. Too many already use benefits as a lifestyle choice so it would just surely lead to more people not working or doing as little as possible.

It would only work if it was too low to live on and then people would have to work on top. Might encourage a work ethic in more that way I suppose and less would see benefits as a way of life.

Too many already use benefits as a lifestyle choice

What, £93 a week?

I don't know - would people really spend all the extra free time and effort on developing cures for cancer or on volunteering for worthy social pursuits...or would they just watch tv or go to the beach?

My neighbours were furloughed for four months - they spent it subathing in the garden drinking (with their mates round!), screaming at their kids, getting visits from the police due to dv allegations (on both sides) and playing music at earsplitting levels while I was trying to WFH. To be fair the DP did show some enterprising spirit by making additional money by selling coke.

All I've seen on social media are people saying they thought they would use furlough/lockdown to start a new hobby, get fit, re-do their house but didn't end up doing any of that...instead we have the statistics that 2 out of 3 people in the UK put on weight over lockdown.
I'm including myself in all of this btw, not looking down on others!

Yes there were some people who stepped up and helped out their communities - but these would be the same people who would do things like that anyway, even if they worked full time!

Robots/increased automation isn't the answer to everything....who is going to choose to do jobs like cleaning up toilets or care of the elderly for an extra £5 a day when they can earn enough to get by without working? Even things like teaching...the hassle some teachers get, I can see why they'd just not bother if they could live an ok, if not luxurious life without all the stress. I've already chosen not to go for a promotion because after tax, NI, SL repayments etc. the extra £3k would only work out as about £35 a week and it's not worth the hassle - surely lots of people just wouldn't bother working, particularly the rubbish jobs

Wouldn't we then have to increase the average wages of the jobs that still needed doing, causing a weird inflation? What about wages of footballers or whatever, they aren't going to go down to the universal basic income of £12k or whatever from £20million! So you will still have a super rich class.

No people would be more likely to do the "rubbish" jobs. For multiple reasons

1. Financial low paid jobs would be remunerated better as no tax under 20k.

Extra income you can keep.

1. You can work when you want, no messing around with benefits system. Many people could do some kind of work, but can't hold down FT job - end up stuck on benefits.
2. Sense of control and choice is really important - this gives that. The stigma attached to the benefits system demoralises people.

Financial low paid jobs would be remunerated better as no tax under 20k. Extra income you can keep.

Who said we'd get to keep the tax free personal allowance as well as UBI?

Has anyone actually costed it out to see what income tax rate we'd need to pay for all this - I'd say basic rate would need to be about 50% if we kept the personal allowance. That's a massive disincentive for people to work, especially if they had commuting costs etc.

I'd love to see some properly costed figures and some concrete proposals. It's all theory. Just like the poll tax fiasco - at first, in theory it looked fine, but when you factored in all the people who were eligible for discounts, etc., the "per person" cost doubled or trebled which is what caused it's demise. I think the same would happen with UBI - it's one of those "nice in theory" ideas, but when it's worked out properly, I think we'd see a very low personal allowance and very high tax rates to pay for it.

I would suggest 50% on all income (including capital gains and inheritance) above 20k. Close offshore tax havens and crack down on corporate tax avoidance.

I think we're going to end up having to do something like this eventually, be it a good thing or bad. But it won't happen for a good while yet, and not until the threat of unrest forces it.

Actually incentivises higher earners to work - as everything is taxed above 50k no need to avoid tax thresholds etc
Example my husband is 4 days a week - this is to spend time with our 14 month old but actually full time would mean we would lose access to tax free childcare, pay more tax. If everything was just taxed at 50% no perverse incentives would exist.

I mean 50% tax on all income above 20k wrote it incorrectly in last post.

Close offshore tax havens and crack down on corporate tax avoidance.

If it was that simple it would have been done years/decades ago.

Do you really think that Panama, Monacco, Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, are just going to willingly give up their tax exile status - without the tax exiles, they'd have nothing - their entire economy is based on tax avoidance!

There ARE steps being taken to tackle it, but it takes a lot of time because it needs to be a global initiative - the UK has no power to dictate what rules are in place in other countries. There is a lot of international co-operation at the moment and quite a few changes have been made in the past few years.

The UK has also been ham-strung by EU rules - such as we had no power to take tax from, say, Google operating in Ireland - EU rules were that any company could operate from any EU country and pay their taxes in that country - hence why so many firms "moved" to Ireland! Once we're out of the EU, we'll have more opportunities to tackle that.

@Rowanapp

Actually incentivises higher earners to work - as everything is taxed above 50k no need to avoid tax thresholds etc Example my husband is 4 days a week - this is to spend time with our 14 month old but actually full time would mean we would lose access to tax free childcare, pay more tax. If everything was just taxed at 50% no perverse incentives would exist.

It wouldn't be a straight 50% though. When you add in NIC, student loan repayments, workplace pension deductions, etc., you could be looking more like 75%. And that's just basic rate at 50%. You'd also need higher rates too, so marginal tax rates could be 80% plus.

We already have GPs and dentists cutting down their hours because of the crazy 62% marginal tax rate.

Is the reason for leaving the EU tackling tax avoidance then? It's not been mentioned by the leave campaign or the current government. I do support reducing tax avoidance, obviously it's not simple but it would be nice if the government were trying - have to say, I'm not convinced they are and I'm not convinced leaving the EU will lead to closure of tax havens but we'll see....

@Rowanapp

Is the reason for leaving the EU tackling tax avoidance then? It's not been mentioned by the leave campaign or the current government. I do support reducing tax avoidance, obviously it's not simple but it would be nice if the government were trying - have to say, I'm not convinced they are and I'm not convinced leaving the EU will lead to closure of tax havens but we'll see....

No, it's no a "reason" as such, but it's certainly an opportunity and gives us freedom to make our own tax rules if we choose to do that.

Re govt not trying - have you actually researched what changes have been made over the past decade? We have a new sales tax on online sales, various VAT loopholes have been closed (i.e. putting the burden on Amazon and Ebay to ensure their overseas traders are VAT registered in the UK), ATED - tax on foreign owned dwellings held in companies/trusts, new transfer pricing rules, far more international openness - i.e. HMRC now have access to bank account data in some other countries. There have been a lot more changes in the last 10 years than under Brown/Blair who let tax avoidance run riot!

As I said, no personal tax allowances!

I don't think that is how it works. From the sounds of it, everyone gets it ontop of their salary. Maybe there will be a cap though of who can't get it as obviously someone earning millions just doesn't need it.

It's said to be happy, you need 75k a year, and anything above that doesn't actually increase you're happiness. Maybe that can be the cap?

I prefer to tackle the causes of low pay. And outlaw some practices. There is no need for zero hour contracts in a lot of places that have them, such as in retailing, for example. They are just for the convenience of employers who cannot do basic roster/workforce planning, or to have subservient staff.

There are some surprising supporters - by no means all left wing eg the author of ‘Rise of the robots’ - good book - probs already a bit out of date!
www.amazon.co.uk/Rise-Robots-Technology-Threat-Unemployment/dp/1780748485?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

@Figmentofmyimagination

I would be supportive of it, if it were another leader wanting to do this. As it is Johnson and/or Sturgeon wanting this, I can't see anything but failure ahead. They are both struggling with what they have right now, why increase the amount of money they throw away?

In someone else's hands, it could work, even put our leader as a dog and it's got more chance of working. But not them two.

I’m glad I work in nursing, I doubt robots could ever replace an actual human nurse. Also I would hate to sit about at home doing nothing, arts and crafts don’t interest me. I love my job

YANBU and YABU.

It would stop the fact that some of us are taxed up to our eyeballs while some get long term free money for nothing.