Should we scrap benefits and pay everyone £100 a week?

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Reply 40

Tiger Rag

This means people like me who receive more would be screwed. Brilliant.

Reply 41

Fullofsurprises

Original post by picklescamp

Alright, good point. Im not an economist as you might expect but ill attempt to respond.

I dont know if you read the article but the title is somewhat exacerbated. I was referring to the model used by the Netherlands and by Dutch towns and cities, where its only given to benefits claimants or those earning below a certain income level. So that would slice your 64million statistic, even though it would only be applied to adults so that should have been 61million.
Regardless, lets stick to the exacerbated title cos im not sure the problem you highlighted works. UK currently pays about 694.88 billion pounds per year in welfare to claimants anyway. I could be incorrect, but even if every adult (or indeed every person as you used to reach your statistic) were to recieve this UBI wouldnt the number you quoted (i read it as 332.8billion but its hard to count all those 0s!) be significantly lower than the current payments anyway?

That's partly the issue though - if you remove targeting and pay everyone, some people who genuinely need more (due to disabilities, or having large single parent families of young children) don't get what they need.

Another problem is that the tax base has been eroded, due to neoliberal government policies, the biggest corporations and the wealthiest people have been taken out of tax. Therefore government is not collecting enough revenue and both 'flat rate' payments and targeted benefits become unaffordable. It would be better to fix the tax system than to do this.

Reply 42

♥Samantha♥

We actually had this debate in macroeconomics last lesson.... I think it could be a good idea but it's have to be more than £100/week

Reply 43

Davij038

For people posting about what would happen to the disabled, presumably they would continue to get benefits- but this wont be necessary for most people who dont have major impairments.

Reply 44

godofwine

It would make people lazier than they already are.

I think a better idea would be to reduce social security, and provide greater benefits (i.e. financial aid) to those that need them the most, i.e. to those that are disabled, and/or infirm, etc.

Reply 45

Bigdobber

Original post by picklescamp

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/13/should-we-scrap-benefits-and-pay-everyone-100-a-week-whether-they-work-or-not?CMP=fb_gu
forgive me for being an avid Guardian reader. :colondollar:

Really interesting article and I find myself inclined to agree that it could be a fantastic idea (although I'm sure it'll get shredded in the comments). Universal basic income can stimulate growth in poorer areas, allow people to have a chance of a more dignified living. It would help to bring down birth rates among those who cannot feasibly afford to care for their family without going to work. I actually think it would increase employment too as it would allow people to seek further education without having to sacrifice economic agency which, as there is a declining amount of low-skill work in Britain, would help us make a shift further into the services sector. It would do wonders in advancing social mobility. Granted it could be seen as quite devisive, but I think UBI has elements which could appeal to all parts of the political spectrum.

Don't b so ****ing naive to many lazy bastards as it is.

Reply 46

Prince_fancybum

What about people who require specialist equipment and care than cost in excess of £100

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 47

picklescamp

Original post by Prince_fancybum

What about people who require specialist equipment and care than cost in excess of £100

A lot of people have mentioned that but obviously it's a technicality which would be resolved if this were to be implemented, perhaps all this would be provided for the NHS or there would be an additional extenuating grant, however I'm not sure this gets to the core of any debate, easily fixed. :smile:

Reply 48

picklescamp

Original post by Bigdobber

Don't b so ****ing naive to many lazy bastards as it is.

Interesting grammar. Do you mean there are 'too many lazy bastards' or am I naive to the many 'lazy bastards'?

Either way I don't think the 'benefit scroungers' you talk of are really a big deal. In my opinion, like I said, this would increase employment and even if it didn't the benefits seem to outweigh the perception that a small minority may sit back and have these £100 thrown at them.

Spoiler

Reply 49

NabeelS

Original post by Bigdobber

Don't b so ****ing naive to many lazy bastards as it is.

They may be lazy and a burden on the state but universal income will mean that they will at least contribute to the economy and pull some of their weight. This sort of attitude about "sod the lazy" has been bandied about for decades probably centuries but they have remained a burden and lazy. Universal Income will probably not make them active but at the very least they will pay more taxes.

Reply 50

ChaoticButterfly

Original post by Tiger Rag

This means people like me who receive more would be screwed. Brilliant.

You could work the system so there is still way of means testing for people like yourself who need more.

Reply 51

student.feed

For single parents, they would need more.

Reply 52

ChildOfTony

Original post by picklescamp

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/13/should-we-scrap-benefits-and-pay-everyone-100-a-week-whether-they-work-or-not?CMP=fb_gu
forgive me for being an avid Guardian reader. :colondollar:

First you need to see if you can afford to give every single person in Britian £100 a week- I think you should have to be over 18 to qualify for it.
So lets look at the costs behind it

I will first look at the population - i have a link showing the breakdown of population by age -If we base it on 2014
http://www.indexmundi.com/united_kingdom/demographics_profile.html

Now this goes on 15-24 so lets say we take the %/9 and multiply it by 3 ( which will give you an average which we can say is about correct

0-14 years: 17.3% (male 5,660,891/female 5,380,448) - Should not qualify
15-24 years: 12.6% (male 4,116,859/female 3,945,146) (4.2% would not qualify from my guestimation)
25-54 years: 41% (male 13,299,731/female 12,843,937)
55-64 years: 11.5% (male 3,621,110/female 3,702,717)
65 years and over: 17.5% (male 4,990,024/female 6,182,114) (2014 est.)

So 100-21.5%=78.5% of the population who will be able to claim it

78.5% multiplied by 63,742,977 will equal 50,038,236 then multiply that by £100 =around 5 Billion if you include under 18's you will be looking another billion and half or so.

Now lets take a look at the welfare budget

it could potentially make savings but you can not really take from the disabled and state pensions. If you say your going to keep the rest of the benefits and give everyone £100 a week instead of the current arrangement more will be spent on welfare. I dont agree with it for people who milk welfare but some geniuenly need it. I would try and get the budget down to just disabled and state pensions figures the rest can go. If taxes on companies was lowered wages may be higher

Reply 53

Jamie S

Original post by Xelfrost

Now onto the subject of universal income. Firstly, I'm going to make an assumption that you support taxing the rich to fund this and I will base this entire explanation on this premise so keep that in mind. The population of the UK is somewhere between 64-65 million people, so to fund this we'd need at a minimum £6400000000 a week, which in a year is £332800000000. All of which will be put into circulation, this ties into why its a bad idea to print more money, as more money in circulation means less value per pound. So the extra 100 may not actually be as useful as you'd initially think.

I'm an economist and this is flawed logic. Firstly, that money will partly be reclaimed through the removal of other benefits which this is replacing. Secondly, there will not be an increase in the supply of money. There is no way this policy would be fuelled by seigniorage, it would likely be fuelled through taxation or borrowing. Seigniorage is only an option when governments can no longer borrow from the market, no economist with the government would ever do this. No money is being added to circulation with this policy. Perhaps budget deficits could rise, but that is all.

Reply 54

NabeelS

Original post by ChildOfTony

This is excellent but you forgot to take into account the Multiplier effect. The £100 does not disappear down the drain, this money will be spent to simulate the economy and the government will collect increased taxes.

Reply 55

picklescamp

Original post by ChildOfTony

damn this was impressive haha (even if I didn't understand the maths)

it's only for over 18s I believe, does it not say that in the article?

Reply 56

ChildOfTony

Original post by NabeelS

Yes but would we have the money to do it in the first place- its impossible to say it would be affordable, if we cut the whole welfare budget there would actually be a significant saving, but in my opinion disabled and state pensions should not be touched. You say that about the multiplier affect which is correct as people would have more disposable income- my post was purely seeing if we could afford it- nothing else you would of discovered this by re-reading the third line. I think instead of using welfare if we cut the corporation taxes for businesses it would increase there profits, if we cut it to lets say 12.5%, companies could probably afford to pay £9.50 an hour, but we could not take there word for that so it would have to be legislated. If we had no tax what so ever i remember reading the minimum wage could be as high as £25 a hour

Reply 57

ChildOfTony

I did not have time to read it in full

Original post by picklescamp

damn this was impressive haha (even if I didn't understand the maths)

it's only for over 18s I believe, does it not say that in the article?

Reply 58

NabeelS

Original post by ChildOfTony

I was just trying to add to your discussion but I did come across as dismissive, apologies for that. You are right though, we can't expect corporations to raise wages if we cut their tax. Evidence suggests that firms just hoard more profits and incomes rise disproportionately for the upper management most of the time when we cut taxes.

I don't think we could ever pay for the upkeep for our infrastructure if we cut taxes to nothing. The revenue that the government could generate from more disposable income wouldn't make up for it I think. Besides our top corporation tax rate of 17% is grossly low especially since we have so much legal tax avoidance and tax evasion and transfer of profits.