Would you like to be paid a basic income, no matter what?
The pandemic has revived the issue of a universal basic income (UBI), a chunk of money given to every citizen at regular intervals, no strings attached. In the UK, a proposed trial would see 30 people paid an unconditional sum of about NZ$3295 a month for two years to see what effect it has on their mental and physical health.
An equivalent scheme is already running in Wales. This, it is argued, would relieve the insecurity and anxiety around 21st century jobs, help the working poor, alleviate poverty and address inequality.
Photo: 123rf
Stuart Lansley is an Honorary Fellow at the School of Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.
His most recent book is The Richer, The Poorer - How Britain Enriched the Few and Failed the Poor. A 200-Year History.
To get a UBI scheme off the ground it would have to be at a more modest level, he tells Kim Hill.
“I think the purpose of this trial is really to try and see the impact of what a full-blooded UBI would look like.
“To try and raise the profile, to try and raise consciousness to try and refuel, if you like, the debate that's already started.”
In the context of the UK, he says, a small-scale affordable scheme is the best starting point.
“I think the best way to go is to start with a relatively small scheme, which would be affordable, it would require some sort of modest tweaks to the tax system to pay for it but would also have a pretty powerful effect.
“The latest study that we've done, shows that even the modest starting levels, which I've been proposing as 40 pounds for a child and 60 pounds for an adult, that's the equivalent for around 10,000 pounds a year for a family of four, not enough to live on, but if it's guaranteed it can be transformative.”
Such a scheme is "highly progressive" and would cut poverty in Britain by over a half, he says.
Author Stewart Lansley Photo: Stewart Lansley
“Most of the gains would go to the poorest third in Britain, and the people who would pay for it will be people at the very top.”
He sees the UBI as one of a raft of polices to reverse the rise of inequality and its universality is key to this.
“What's happened over the last 50 or 60 years is that the universal side of the support system has been eroded dramatically.
“And the means tested system, the targeted system has risen. And there are huge numbers of problems with this targeted system.”
A UBI would help restore the universalism that characterised social security systems devised after World War II, he says.
The time is right for a move towards redistributive polices, he says
“I think there has been a remarkable transformation in our attitudes nationally and globally towards inequality. And the reason for that is equality has surged, the gap between the rich and the poor, within nations has surged.
“Since we achieved peak quality - Britain and other countries achieved a peak level of equality in the 1970s.”
This was followed by a “counter-revolution” against equality, which culminated in the 2008 crash, he says.
“We've had this big debate, global debate, about inequality. It's widely accepted, even by economists on the right, that inequality has gone much too far. And we need to reduce it.
“Not just questions of justice, not just poverty levels and fairness, but because ultimately, very high levels of inequality weakens and makes economies much less resilient.”
Inequality is one of the big, structural problems facing the world, he says.
“We are on the edge, I think of very difficult times.
“It's not as big as an issue as climate change. But it is a big issue, because it's undermining fairness, it's causing turbulence within and across the globe.”
Along with a UBI, taxes to target wealth will be needed to fix inequality, he says.
“In Britain, wealth as proportion of the size of the economy has increased from three times to seven times, very little of that increase in wealth is a result of wealth creation - building and strengthening companies and building social infrastructure, most of it has been caused by this process of extraction.”
Companies have been turned into cash cows for executives and investors sucking resources out of economies, he says.
“If you look at the increase in profits and increase in rewards and dividends over the last, all of which have escalated very sharply, and you chart them against levels of private investment, these rewards have been escalating and the levels of private investment have been falling.”
Sovereign wealth funds, redistributive taxation and UBIs are all part of the answer to this concentration of wealth, he says.
“If we are to create harmonious, balanced, fair, economically resilient societies, that's the road we have to go down.”
