The idea behind a basic income is to give everyone unconditional payments to spend on what they want and need – but even the most basic essentials in the capital cost far more than the £50 a month being handed out by the crowdfunded research.
Yet despite the payment being relatively small, organisers hope the trial can go some way to demonstrating the value that a UBI would have.
The amount may be small, but as its a trial, it will be interesting to see how this works before its rolled out across the country…
So everyone, rich & poor, gets £50/month on top of what they already get/earn. The results of the study will be: it’s not enough. Then what?
If the gov. is attempting to alleviate poverty, why not give a winter fuel allowance paid directly to the energy supplier; come up with schemes like that for the needy?
Overall I think its a bad idea. Other countries have tried this, and it didn’t last long. So it stops, and then what? We all trundle off to find ourselves jobs? Nope.
Who pays for it? Where is this extra money coming from? Why are they doing it…to what end?
I think Finland were the first country to try it …
Finland’s two-year scheme, which ran in 2017 and 2018 and attracted widespread international interest, paid 2,000 randomly selected unemployed people across the country a regular monthly income of €560 (£490), with no obligation to seek a job and no reduction in their payment if they accepted one.
For some …it’ll just be another name for legalised unemployment benefit with ’ no work, no pressure’.
Well…it’ll be more than they had before. The £20 raise on Universal Credit seemed to help a lot of people…there were so many upsetting stories of how they suddenly weren’t able to manage after the govt took it away, so I imagine £50 would be…wait a minute, that was an extra £20 a week though wasn’t it? Ok, so yes…£50 a month isn’t a great deal…especially when you have a family to feed and a heating bill to pay in the middle of wintertime.
I’m going to sound real mean now … was this 20 quid for the unemployed?
Because … their income wouldn’t be affected by covid would it as they had none anyway.
One problem with UBI is it demotivates the workforce. The second thing is when we come to general elections where people will just vote for the party giving away the most UBI. Each party will buy votes with stupid amounts of UBI. Then everything goes bankrupt, inflation goes through the roof and we then need to get rid of UBI to sort the problem out. Then housing goes legs up and along with it credit and interest rates.
Well…If UBI happened, it might pay for childcare (which is often said to be a huge factor in preventing parents trying to find a job and getting to work)
Yes, but it isn’t quite enough though. By the time you pay childcare, when working, you end up in the situation where you are effectively working to have your kids looked after. I did this when my two were small, and everything I earned went to pay their after school care for the entire summer holidays. That’s time with my kids I will never get back and it wasn’t even financially worth it.
If UBI came into force (or even through this trial), I’m sure it would help quite a bit.
