{"id":140,"date":"2016-01-14T11:12:18","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T11:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/?p=140"},"modified":"2016-01-14T11:12:18","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T11:12:18","slug":"facing-up-to-the-realities-of-a-citizens-income","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/2016\/01\/14\/facing-up-to-the-realities-of-a-citizens-income\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing up to the realities of a citizen’s income"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many very simple ideas, a \u2018Citizen\u2019s Income\u2019 only becomes complicated when you think through its implications. \u00a0This fact at least was illuminated in a worthwhile debate<\/a> I had on Radio 4 Moneybox with some of CI\u2019s advocates.<\/p>\n

The idea of a Citizen\u2019s Income is that a single, unconditional flat-rate payment for each adult and child in the UK would replace most existing benefits. \u00a0This would create a much simpler and easy to run system of supporting incomes, empower people to build on their state entitlement without being punished by means-testing and maintain social justice by ensuring that richer people pay more into the system while drawing out the same amount as everyone else.<\/p>\n

My critique<\/a> of this idea is that it would only work with a massive change in public attitudes which I can\u2019t see even on the most distant horizon. \u00a0When you look closely at CI proposals, large public costs are involved. \u00a0One way of footing them is through extremely high income tax rates. In reality, we have not accepted an explicit increase in income tax since 1975, and would baulk at a basic rate (including NI contributions) that might have to be as high as 40-50 per cent, even with no tax-free allowance.\u00a0 Alternatively, we might find other ways of paying for a Citizen\u2019s income (like higher corporation tax or abolishing higher rate tax relief on pension contributions). \u00a0But would the public feel a flat-rate, unconditional payment to every citizen would be the best use of the tens of billions raised? \u00a0Public opinion surveys suggests that, on the contrary, attitudes towards income support have hardened, and most voters would reject the idea of giving people \u2018something for nothing\u2019.\u00a0 The same money could be spent on improving people\u2019s living standards by making some vital services free: it would pay for free childcare plus free care for the elderly with a lot left over to help subsidise affordable housing. \u00a0Public support for those things we do provide free universally \u2013 such as school education and the health service \u2013 suggests such measures would be more popular than free money.<\/p>\n

However, as the Radio 4 discussion made eloquently clear, this does not stop us from thinking how you could achieve some of the aims of citizen\u2019s income in different ways. \u00a0In particular, it would be possible to provide a more stable and less complex way of supporting people with low and unstable incomes, without making free money a universal entitlement. \u00a0The Universal Credit was supposed to give greater stability by combining\u00a0 benefits for people in and out of work, and allowing people to earn a reasonable amount before these start to be withdrawn (the so-called Work Allowance). \u00a0Some of its goals have been undermined by austerity: for example, the Work Allowance will be cut sharply this coming April. \u00a0Nor does Universal Credit feel like a stable base you can rely on, as its introduction comes at a time when entitlements are becoming ever-more contingent on draconian work-search criteria.<\/p>\n

However, none of these trends are about having the wrong mechanism: they\u2019re about becoming more penny-pinching and mean about how such funds are given out. \u00a0This is the opposite of the utopian spirit of a Citizen\u2019s Income. \u00a0I have no objection to its advocates continuing to dream of a different world. \u00a0But in the one we live in now \u2013 in which the social \u2018safety-net\u2019 for the least well off seems to be lowered by the day – there are more urgent battles to be won.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many very simple ideas, a \u2018Citizen\u2019s Income\u2019 only becomes complicated when you think through its implications. \u00a0This fact at least was illuminated in a worthwhile debate I had on Radio 4 Moneybox with some of CI\u2019s advocates. The idea of a Citizen\u2019s Income is that a single, unconditional flat-rate payment for each adult and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,4,8,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childcare","category-families","category-income","category-universal-credit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lboro.ac.uk\/crsp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}