Universal basic income and what it may look like

[porkpiesinthepark]

I've been thinking for a while about the criticism of UBI and I think it's due to people not being able to imagine the government trying to 'match' peoples wages. In my opinion, it never will but there will be alternatives to what we have now, which will be able to offer something better.

So say the UBI is £1000 a month for a single person.
We could change the housing market to allow much more public housing with rents set at an affordable level, much more stability, no private landlords and the option to customise/ change your home. Let's face it, home ownership is out of reach for the majority at present. I don't find people are dying to own their own homes but desperate to be out of the instability of the private rental market, out of parents houses, out of house shares etc. If you could offer the next best thing to owning your own house, I think people would go for it.
There would be much more community linked to people having extra time due to not working or not working as many hours. Now, not having enough to do in the day is bad but most people have these huge dreams for retirement and this would just allow them to do some of these things now instead. Also more volunteering, looking after elderly relatives etc.
I don't think that private car ownership would be a thing. There would be a big system like Uber who you could call rides on. There would be a cheaper option, say if ten people wanted to go to the city centre at the same time, they would have to walk to a hub and then the van would pick everyone up, like public transport but based on demand. It would be a status symbol to be able to call a car out just for you.
I think a lot more people would wfh getting the cost of transport and childcare down. Schools might even go remote, as there wouldn't be both parents working and so in theory they could help facilitate the lessons. Then teachers would have small classes of Sen kids like mine, key workers and vulnerable children. Kids would interact with others through volunteering groups with parents, or just playing out as there would be less cars and more parents around to keep an eye on them.
People will either hate this vision as it's so different to what we have now. Or they will like some parts. But what we have now can't continue.

You studied UBI based on information on tech from 2006? What's the point of that, any conclusion will be massively out of date.

No we studied the political philosophy ideas behind UBI, the arguments for and against. AI has some relevance because if AI takes all the jobs people need to live still. But AI was not what we were studying.

I think we'd have to examine the reasons why people want to own a house. Is it the security? You arguably have more security in a council house as it would still be yours if you lose your job or ill health means you can't work. If your relationship turns abusive, you can kick your partner out and the likelihood that the council will look favourably on the abused/ main caregiver. Whilst a lot of women who live with men who are the main breadwinners find themselves unable to kick their spouse out.

Is it to leave something to your children? Well most of my elderly relatives have had to sell their houses to pay for care.

Is it to feel that you've 'made it'. Well my European relatives are much better off than I am and all rent. None of them begrudge paying rent and enjoy the freedom that they have to move around.

Sadly buying property in the UK has become associated with making money because for the past 30 years people have been fairly lucky at the expense of future generations.

Benefits of owning that you don't get with renting:

1. ability to fix your mortgage for 5 or 10 years (even with rent controls, rents have to go in line with inflation).
2. As you pay off the mortgage, your debt would decrease and the proportion of income that you pay towards your housing should decrease as long as your wages keep up. we are having a difficult time with mortgage rates but rents are also increasing as the BTL mortgage rates are also increasing so its kinda a no-win situation
3. You become mortgage free eventually and our pensions are bad compared to the mortgages in Europe
4. If you live in a high COL area like London, you can downsize in later life and move to a cheaper area- that can help fund your retirement. I have vague plans to sell my flat in London and move to Scotland!

tbh my DH's european relatives all own and the younger generation also want to buy. not because renting is bad, but because they are worried that their pension wouldn't cover the rent (they are my age, early 30s)

I do think subsidised housing built by the state for ordinary earners and renters would be a good idea. they would have to pay for it but it would be based on income. And in order to attract the middle classes to want to live in it, we have to sell it to them with the caveat that they can only sell it to people who earn below a certain income or they have to sell it back to the state eventually.

council house sounds like an amazing deal. The problem is people don't like being seen as 'poor'. So in order for a council housing project to be successful, it has to attract the lower middle classes too. in income terms in London, this is anyone with a single income of 40k-95k or a household income of £80k to £180k. It is probably half that outside of London. If you cannot win across this very large segment of the population to live in government housing, then I don't think that it would succeed as everyone would just associate council housing with the poor and it would end up as a sink estate.

A council housing is like public transport compared to home and car ownership, having experience of them all.

it's not all detached houses with big gardens, it's often groups of high rise flats with shared stairs and lifts that scare you at every opening/corner, never mind the loud multicultural music so you have the extra pressure on your brain that it can't make out where the music is coming from or what's being said, it's all added stress in life.

@HandBall not multicultural music??!

I’ve rented privately as a young professional and now own and prefer it

I know people on mn tend to look to to European model with flats but I prefer a house and garden

I know it’s lucky and I appreciate it plus work but if I’m not sold on giving it up for European apartment living

Cities like Berlin seem to be changing anyway with a surge towards owning

@SunnyEgg the problem is the difference between rents and house prices. So if you rent a family home worth £400k for £1,300 a month, you will hardly ever be able to save up the £40,000 plus to put the deposit down. But if you could then your mortgage would likely to be less than your rent. If you missed that golden time to buy then you're screwed, especially if you have children and then try to save for a deposit.

I rented an ex council flat in Camden in my student days, we paid £2080 for a 2 bed in 2012 as it was near UCL. Most of the neighbours were council tenants. I can't say it was bad, it was high rise but the location was great.. the neighbours friendly. We now own a private flat (1930s build) but DH really wants to buy this ex council 3 bed flat in Highgate which would cost around £550k.

If we could live in it without paying the market rate, we would be happy.

I struggle with neurodivergence sensory issues. To have music sounds coming from a direction you can't locate is not easy to cope with. When singing is in English it's easier to cope with even if a genre of music that's not my preference, it's very taxing on the brain to hear someone singing very loudly in a language you don't understand your brain is constantly trying to make sense of it yet can't, I used to find it hard to cope in social housing in a tower block it was the worst time ever.

The reason why it's like that is because council housing is associated with the poor. However in the new world, anyone on below £150k combined income in London /(in today's salaries)or £75k in the north is 'poor', I include me and DH in this equation, we earn combined £120k but hopefully we can elevate ourselves in the next year.

This is because of huge concentration of wealth at the top I have a colleague who has so much savings that the interest on his savings pay the £800 mortgage..he isn't from a rich family, just someone with a good professional career and shrewd investments.this is the new middle class. And they would be the ones who can afford home ownership in 20 years time as well as their childre. The majority have to massively downgrade their expectations and the government should be preparing for this new world where 95% of the population would be poor and therefore unable to aspire to things like home ownership. And for the unlucky bottom half, I think food would be a problem

@HandBall I'm impressed that means you keep up with lyrics. Usually people listening to music pick up on beat and parts of syntax - if your focus is on lyrics that means you'd do much better in an afternoon of distant sounding Taylor Swift, followed by 50 cent and Metallica than you would with just one song from Sezen Aksu who sings melodic Turkish music. That's remarkable! I'm also ND and would really struggle with an afternoon in my first example!

What are you on about? Everyone on less than 150K household income in London isn't 'poor', most people are on less than that and living perfectly happy and comfortable lives and many of them owning their own homes. Comparing a nation of almost 70 million people with a city state of 5 million is ridiculous, they are in no way comparable. I feel very sorry for you that you appear to have chosen to relegate yourself to some 'poor relation' category for no discernible reason.

There aren't many 'true' council estates in my city. Most are a mixture of ex local authority houses which are now privately owned, and council. Some of the ex LA ones go for 400K. Imagine spending all that money to live in the middle of an inner city council estate!
Still I think the middle classes thinks it's 'urban' and cool. If you offered them the chance to live in a gated community with other rich white people, they wouldn't.

despite the fact that automated car wash is not very sophisticated technology (and has existed even when I was a kid in the 1990s), there are still lots of car wash businesses where their modus operandi is still 'man with rag and pail'. This presumably is because labour is cheap.

More likely it's because humans usually do a better job - they can get into all of the nooks and crannies and are less likely to damage the paint job.

People probably get skewed by their sector, if in finance etc

I know loads of people in London in other professions not on that but they are fine

What is wrong with being poor? At least I know where I stand and I am also very motivated to improve our situation in life..being poor in London isn't the same as being poor in the third world- we are poor and own our 2 bed flat, we have overseas holidays, we eat out regularly. So we have a comfortable life (for now).

But what makes us 'poor' is that my DH and mine combined after tax earnings of £6500 per month- it is less than the interest on the savings accounts of multi millionaires. And even if our combined income was £200k, it would still be less..and there are more and more multi millionaires-globally they are a growing number.

And this makes us vulnerable because unless we increase our income steadily, our earning power would diminish every year. So we need to aggressively pursue that next promotion, that next pay raise with absolute single mindedness or will just get poorer and poorer.

I put the figure at £150k because HSBC premier banking criteria is £75k so double that (for husband and wife ) is £150k..I think that at that level you are at least fledging middle class so would probably be ok..I think we are on the cusp of ok to be honest but at the same time at 10% inflation...

Rent for a 2 bed flat is £1600, childcare is £2000. I mean I remember a while back we were on £110k and I posted on Mumsnet asking whether I could pay my mortgage and childcare on that and the consensus was it can be done but a bit tight. That's just for one child and I was lucky to pay down a mortgage for five years on a mortgage rate at 2%... Someone renting would need far more money...

A lot those deemed 'managing just fine' are just about staying afloat, some working more than one job, some having to cajole friends and relatives for childcare. If someone on £100k is squeezed as posted above, their concerns are far deeper than whether to spend the summer in the Maldives or Antigua then you can just imagine what it's like for people on a fraction of that. Remember it's more expensive to be poor despite what some would have you believe about big screen TVs and the like.

Or maybe that we want choice. I chose what house I bought. I can make what changes I like to it (within reason).

I don't want some miserable grey flat allocated to me, where some government official has decided that because I have no kids (yet) I have no need for more than a single room with no garden.

Just like I'm not accepting your dystopia where I can't walk into a shop, instead having to accept whatever has come in the weekly delivery - doubtless with some iffy substitutions if I even get any choice at all, not to mention that the only possible time it'll arrive will be when I'm in work.

Oh hang on, you want to abolish work too, so I'll be stuck staring at the walls in that government-allocated flat, eating my government-specified food rations (which I bet won't include bacon), no leisure activities left to enjoy, with all purpose in life sapped from me.

Based on knowing job and lifestyle, not doubling up on jobs. Holidays are often enough and it’s usually after school club not free childcare. I don’t know anyone that has that regularly.

Who would think children learning remotely is a good thing? Social skills & being with their peers are just as important as the academic side.

I would never ever be happy for my child to be at home all day.

It doesn't need to be 'government allocated'. It can be government built and government subsidized but with caveats that you can only sell it on to people who are poor like you i.e..income of below £150k.. that's quite a large segment of the population so selling would probably not be an issue though of course it would not be as profitable. But Homes are for living in, not for profit.

The alternative is that your child will end up sharing a room with 8 other people because they only can get work on zero hours contract (AI meaning that the only people who can get jobs are those with the relevant skills/top 5% of the cohort) and because housing is so scarce (as the only properties that are built are for the children of rich people and there is a general shortage of housing).

UBI is a response to the extreme inequality that we would face in a decade or so, social researchers know this and so are already preparing for it.

The same people who think that cheese is an acceptable substitute for milk in coffee.