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Universal Income


Stive Pesley

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36782832

If we have a hard Brexit and start to tightly control immigration I think there is a real case for looking at a system of Universal Income.

The main argument against it seems to be that it would be abused by immigrants (this seems to be why Switzerland rejected it recently). There are lots of positives though.

 

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11 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

Agreed - it would replace all existing complex benefits. You could probably afford it based on the savings from that alone. So many positives

How?. This is what I don't understand. I've seen this claim elsewhere but how the hell can removing the current system provide a decent universal income for EVERYBODY, regardless of other earnings they may have?.

Didn't someone in Ireland do some work on it and conclude that the basic income tax rate would have to be 45% to pay for it.

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I've not seen any studies, but that sounds high, and I don't know where they were setting the levels.

Because the current system of lots of different benefits is massively expensive to administer and police, by replacing it you could automatically redistribute the savings at a level of savings/divided by eligible people, on top of what is already spent on those benefits

Some (very) rough calculation on figures i found for the DWP welfare spending says total bill is £166 billion (inlcuding all the costs to adminster)

What's the population of the UK? 65 million? I make that £27k per year each

Obviously that is not exactly scientific and there would still need to be some costs in administering but it doesn't look especially unaffordable

 

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13 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

I've not seen any studies, but that sounds high, and I don't know where they were setting the levels.

Because the current system of lots of different benefits is massively expensive to administer and police, by replacing it you could automatically redistribute the savings at a level of savings/divided by eligible people, on top of what is already spent on those benefits

Some (very) rough calculation on figures i found for the DWP welfare spending says total bill is £166 billion (inlcuding all the costs to adminster)

What's the population of the UK? 65 million? I make that £27k per year each

Obviously that is not exactly scientific and there would still need to be some costs in administering but it doesn't look especially unaffordable

 

166bn / 65m is roughly £2,500 each

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14 minutes ago, Ramarena said:

Actually wasn't this tried out in a Canadian province? Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan? Would be interesting to see their findings. 

Didn't know this, but looked it up - it was in the 1970's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

Quote

 only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating. In addition, those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did. Forget found that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 percent, with fewer incidents of work-related injuries, and fewer emergency room visits from accidents and injuries.[9] Additionally, the period saw a reduction in rates of psychiatric hospitalization, and in the number of mental illness-related consultations with health professionals

Yah - sounds awful :lol:

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The sums pretty much add up because you end all benefits apart from housing benefit and specific disabled benefits, e.g. for carers or specially adapted cars etc. You also end the state pension, but the thing that balances it all out is that you end income tax allowances. Normally the first c£10k you earn is untaxed - under UBI, you pay tax on every penny. It also simplifies PAYE for employers as they don't have to worry about what you've earned in the year so far - you just pay tax at the same rate, You also end the subsistence side of student finance - not the tuition fees (although they should go anyway). The admin for the government is also hugely reduced - no more signing on, benefit fraud, tax credit calculations, pension credits or entitlements to worry about, and a simplified student finance system, - just a single weekly/monthly payment to every man, woman or child, regardless of age.

Supposedly it would only require something like 5% increase in taxation, but there are potential healthcare savings and possible benefits from extra resilience in the economy. Some people believe that once the advantages work through the system that it'll actually be cheaper than the current system. It should also stop people moaning about scroungers as everyone gets it.

The theory is that it takes away the disincentives to take casual or low paid work. If you are unemployed now and you take a weeks work it stops all you benefits and makes you have to claim everything again - under UBI you can take that weeks work serving beer at Download and the extra cash, less the tax, is yours. It could also promote entrepreneurship and post 16 education. It has the potential to make the workforce really dynamic and flexible.

The downside is that it could promote laziness and reduce the country's productiveness. Personally I doubt it, because say £160 a week is not enough to live comfortably on, so anyone not lazy already is not suddenly going to think, I'll give up my £400 a week job and relax around the house. The other big problem is immigration. Maybe migrants could be denied UBI for the first couple of years - bearing in mind they also wouldn't get any other benefits. In that situation it might act as a huge disincentive to any that were hoping to hoping to come to Britain merely to claim. 

It certainly requires some real thought and really detailed planning, but UBI has the potential to make the country a nicer place, with less stress and give people more control of their lives. I'm no completely convinced either way, but I think that our politicians should give it some careful thought.

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2 hours ago, CornwallRam said:

The sums pretty much add up because you end all benefits apart from housing benefit and specific disabled benefits, e.g. for carers or specially adapted cars etc. You also end the state pension, but the thing that balances it all out is that you end income tax allowances. Normally the first c£10k you earn is untaxed - under UBI, you pay tax on every penny. It also simplifies PAYE for employers as they don't have to worry about what you've earned in the year so far - you just pay tax at the same rate, You also end the subsistence side of student finance - not the tuition fees (although they should go anyway). The admin for the government is also hugely reduced - no more signing on, benefit fraud, tax credit calculations, pension credits or entitlements to worry about, and a simplified student finance system, - just a single weekly/monthly payment to every man, woman or child, regardless of age.

Supposedly it would only require something like 5% increase in taxation, but there are potential healthcare savings and possible benefits from extra resilience in the economy. Some people believe that once the advantages work through the system that it'll actually be cheaper than the current system. It should also stop people moaning about scroungers as everyone gets it.

The theory is that it takes away the disincentives to take casual or low paid work. If you are unemployed now and you take a weeks work it stops all you benefits and makes you have to claim everything again - under UBI you can take that weeks work serving beer at Download and the extra cash, less the tax, is yours. It could also promote entrepreneurship and post 16 education. It has the potential to make the workforce really dynamic and flexible.

The downside is that it could promote laziness and reduce the country's productiveness. Personally I doubt it, because say £160 a week is not enough to live comfortably on, so anyone not lazy already is not suddenly going to think, I'll give up my £400 a week job and relax around the house. The other big problem is immigration. Maybe migrants could be denied UBI for the first couple of years - bearing in mind they also wouldn't get any other benefits. In that situation it might act as a huge disincentive to any that were hoping to hoping to come to Britain merely to claim. 

It certainly requires some real thought and really detailed planning, but UBI has the potential to make the country a nicer place, with less stress and give people more control of their lives. I'm no completely convinced either way, but I think that our politicians should give it some careful thought.

I have never heard of this, and when I read the article thought wtf no way, but that is a really insightful post.  Food for thought.  

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  • 3 months later...

Read another good article on the Universal Income today

http://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/10/17/13245808/andy-stern-work-universal-basic-income-technology-artificial-intelligence-unions

This guys seems to think it's inevitable, due to automation. Particularly interesting is the point he makes when challenged with "Conservatives in particular will reject UBI as inherently un-American or an extension of the welfare state"

Quote

Some of the biggest intellectuals in the conservative movement have been supporters of UBI, people like Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Charles Murray. They all argued that the current welfare system eliminates people’s liberty and that if we want to get people more freedom and more opportunity and end poverty, we should just get people cash and get the state out of the business of managing an overwrought welfare system

I'd never really thought of it that way before - that allowing all people to start from the same position and then leaving them to it is actually just as much a right-wing idea as a socialist idea.

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