Universal income and feminism

[ConstantlyCold]

Bit of a thread about a thread.

There’s another thread about sahm’s and Feminism. The topic of universal income has come up. It could be hugely beneficial to sahm’s and low earners.

I can’t get my head around it myself. But I was wondering what people’s opinions are?

Would universal income benefit women? How would it work practically?

temporary

Thanks for that link (the video one). It was really interesting. I’m not sure how it would actually work.

As vivienne says it’s the money is going to have to come from taxes. They did some coatings regarding increasing taxes on capital rather than wages.
I’m completely in agreement regarding taxing capital - except people have a habit of hiding capital.

It sounds lovely in theory but in reality people with a lot capital will try and hide it.

Vivienne said it would have to come from the taxes of working people, but given that you don't have to be working to pay tax that's obviously incorrect.

A point to consider is that we have quite high personal allowance now, almost 12k. For all but a small minority of earners. That's just under £2500 per year saved in tax, effectively. The basic income would effectively replace the personal allowance. Now obviously not everyone uses all of this, but for those who do, it's effectively an allowance of £200 a month. Which would go if we had basic income.

So where is the money coming from then?

Taxes paid by tax payers, which isn't synonymous with working people. VAT, income tax paid on income from property and shares, CGT, IHT. None of these require the individual to be working.

It would be FAR better if the government paid a certain amount towards childcare.

Whether that's childminder, nursery or income for SAHM

Agreed to last post. But money has to come from somewhere. Yes some people have private means such as property they rent out, money they've inherited and so on. But realistically not a high proportion of in population own enough to be able to live on income from these.

So would this universal income be topped up by benefits for less well off people. Because if it wasn't then the universal income it will need to be very high indeed.

Because if it wasn't then the universal income it will need to be very high indeed

And then you have to hope costs such as housing won’t go up.

double yes you might be right about free childcare being more useful

The idea is that it saves money in administration costs of benefits. And that it encourages more entrepreneurial activity and willingness to take short term contracts, few hours a week jobs etc. As people know they'll always have something coming in. Initial results suggest that's all correct, but it's only been tried on a very limited scale so far.

Tbh I think we're going to end up doing it or some variant of it anyway, whether it works particularly well or not. Because of what's going to happen to jobs.

The idea is that it saves money in administration costs of benefits

But a universal income would have to be about £12,000 a year. Obviously we wouldn’t have to pay benefits anymore (pensions, working tax credits etc etc).

But I can’t believe we are spending thousands per head on administration.

You are right that things will have to change, automation will take many jobs. Can we somehow tax the robots? —probably a mad idea—

But I've seen on here people's rents are sometimes 1200 a month alone without even other bills or food or anything added on. They're not going to manage on 12k a year. Or it would need to be topped up by benefits.

This would be good for women who have taken career breaks whilst raising their children. Good for women and men in enabling them to take a paid part time role which fits around caring for their families and raising children.

Agree with this. It would allow families and especially women, much more flexibility than they currently have.

It's going to come from the taxes of working people. No to that.

Working people would get it too and taxes aren't just obtained through income.

Sadly I don't think it will happen, not anytime soon anyway. I would love for us to be able to get to a point where the government would seriously consider it though.

There are serious economic criticisms to be made of both a universal basic income, or alternative approaches like a jobs guarantee. Mostly stemming around inflation, the negative impact on the 'real' jobs market etc.

That said, if you look at the way globalisation, automation and AI are destroying jobs faster than they're being created, it's pretty clear that at some point we're going to arrive at a point where a minority of the population can produce all the goods and services the full population needs - i.e. what became true for agriculture over the last 200 years,
(2% of the population can now feed everyone) becomes true for every good and service.

At that point we need a solution, because what is absolutely certain is that people who don't have a place in this new world won't sit around and accept having nothing. They'll simply bring the whole system down, if there's enough of them.

Seems as if it could make the rich richer and the poor poorer. So richer people get an extra £12k a year to enable one of them to give up work for a while. Would this be taxed if they had other income as well?

I think this is a good thing. For most women I know, they could have used that money while raising children to pay for further training or education so could keep current in their careers or even afford to pay for childcare (we live in an area where childminders are rare and there is no childcare provision at the school either side of the school day). For those who need more expensive childcare (SEN, physical needs) it would/could mean that both parents could afford to work or that they would invest in a job or career that they can do flexibly around school times or around their child's needs.

I know I would use it to plow into my business as I would have a safety net and then I would more likely be in a position to employ 1 or more people further down the line. A friend of mine would do the same (self-employed, no kids, but carer for elderly parent) as it would mean we could both take risks with the business rather than taking it so cautiously to protect our current small, but guaranteed, income.

From what I've seen, it should be enough to live on - so, it would replace all benefits. There may be exceptions for those with disabilities, but otherwise there would be no housing benefit, unemployment benefits, child benefit, etc. I guess also perhaps no free dentists or opticians? Not sure on that.

But, is it universal, as in goes to everyone? So, a household with 2 parents and 8 children would have £X x 10 coming in. Therefore, they should be able to live just fine.

It may also heal some communities as there would no longer be suspicion of benefit claimants. Landlords should be happier to accept any tenants as there is no issue of housing benefits being paid/not paid. If a couple want to live together, or not, that's their business as their benefits won't be based on that. There will be savings on policing benefits and with hope, the Daily Mail will go bust as they will no longer be able to scream 'benefits scroungers' in their headlines. There would be less discrimination based on who is getting what benefits as we'd all be getting the same.

But I've seen on here people's rents are sometimes 1200 a month alone without even other bills or food or anything added on. They're not going to manage on 12k a year. Or it would need to be topped up by benefits

Rent controls would be needed.

It wouldn't have to be 12k. There are plenty of people who live on less, especially those in couples and family groups and with no housing costs. It's also possible to have basic income that literally only covers shared room rate in the cheaper areas of the UK plus enough food to not starve and a few quid utilities. There are different arguments about whether it needs to build in a basic standard of living or mere survival.

But the issue of housing does touch on one of the key problems it would face though, which is wildly different costs of living in different areas of the UK.

Vivienne I think the idea is that UBI isn't taxed but other tax free allowances are removed/reduced instead.

So children would get it too.?? Hence a family with four children would get 72k a year without working. No can't see this is going to work at all.

Universal income assumes everyone has the same basic costs to live. Or at least those additional costs are provided by the state, things like social care and child care.

It assumes that the wealthier are happy to pay more tax, more than they get back, and won't try to go to extreme lengths to avoid paying.

I'm probably getting my zeros in the wrong place, but we spend £264bn on welfare and pensions with a population of 65 million. That's an average of £4k each. So if we are assuming a 'just about managing' allowance, the tax bill will be very high.

I think universal income is a good idea, but we really need to have a different society for it to work. One with less difference between rich and poor and a less crazy housing market.

Children don't need to get the same amount as adults. Some models give them zero, most just a smaller allowance. I have never seen any proposal that gives each child 12k per annum, that being a pretty high estimate even for adults.

Remember too that we effectively gave all children a small UBI until quite recently, and give it to the very large majority even now...

@Viviennemary "So children would get it too.?? Hence a family with four children would get 72k a year without working.  No can't see this is going to work at all."

I think you're deliberately being a bit silly here. Common sense should tell you this wouldn't be the case. Come on now.

Agree with the PP who said our society needs to change for UBI to work properly though. But the changes needed are surely all things we should be aiming for anyway - closing tax avoidance loopholes, better regulating rent and property prices, decreasing the massive regional differences in living costs and so on...

But I've seen on here people's rents are sometimes 1200 a month alone without even other bills or food or anything added on. They're not going to manage on 12k a year. Or it would need to be topped up by benefits

You would have to move to a cheaper area. £12,000 a year was just a random figure I came up with —pulled out of my arse—

lostart

Loving your stats I'm probably getting my zeros in the wrong place, but we spend £264bn on welfare and pensions with a population of 65 million. That's an average of £4k each. So if we are assuming a 'just about managing' allowance, the tax bill will be very high

People have said the bill for administration would come down. Any chance any knows how much it would come down by? —doubt it will be thousands per per head per year—

Yes, that's the choice you make under universal income. Live somewhere cheap or somewhere expensive and work in a better paid job; have no children, or have twenty but know you have to work like crazy. A bit like now, really, but everyone has a guaranteed satfey net.

It would depend massively on how much variation you want in the system OP. So if you want a higher allowance for disabled people, you need to spend on assessment and administration. If you don't, then the admin costs come down (but the allowance might have to be higher to reflect higher average basic costs of living). If you want to include some kind of housing allowance, that costs. If you don't, all housing benefit costs are saved.