Is it feasible?1

This chapter examines whether a Citizen's Basic Income is feasible — that is, capable of being legislated and implemented. To answer this question, the chapter considers multiple feasibilities: financial feasibility (whether it would be possible to finance a Citizen's Basic Income, and whether implementation would impose substantial financial losses on any households or individuals); psychological feasibility (whether the idea is readily understood, and understood to be beneficial); administrative feasibility (whether it would be possible to administer a Citizen's Basic Income and to manage the transition); behavioural feasibility (whether a Citizen's Basic Income would work for households and individuals once it was implemented); political feasibility (whether the idea would cohere with existing political ideologies); and policy process feasibility (whether the political process would be able to process the idea through to implementation). After explaining each of these feasibilities in detail, the chapter asks whether they are additive, conjunctive, or disjunctive.

Afterword

This afterword concludes that the book has discussed the significant advantages that a Citizen's Basic Income would provide to society and to the economy. During the 1920s, family allowances in the UK were seen as an issue for ‘cranks and utopians’. In the 1930s, the country suffered from recession and rising unemployment. By 1946, every family with more than one child was receiving Family Allowances. The book argues that a Citizen's Basic Income is no longer just an issue for cranks and utopians, but an idea that every policy maker needs to address and consider for implementation. This afterword ends the book with a remark from Barbara Wootton, as quoted by Hermione Parker in her book Instead of the Dole: ‘The limits of the possible constantly shift … Again and again, I have had the satisfaction of seeing the laughable idealism of one generation evolve into the accepted common-place of the next’.

A brief summary1

This chapter summarises the main arguments for a Citizen's Basic Income. It first defines Citizen's Basic Income (sometimes called a Basic Income or a Citizen's Income) as an unconditional, automatic and nonwithdrawable regular income for each individual who is a legal resident of the UK, explaining in particular why it is unconditional, automatic and nonwithdrawable. It also gives emphasis on the fact that Citizen's Basic Incomes would be paid on an individual basis, rather than on the basis of a couple or household. Finally, it enumerates the benefits that a Citizen's Basic Income would bring, such as: promote social cohesion, reduce perverse incentives that discourage work and savings, and encourage caring and community activity. A graph shows what a Citizen's Basic Income looks like with respect to net income after tax and benefits and pre-tax income from all sources.

How did we get to where we are now?1

This chapter discusses the past and current state of the debate on the Citizen's Basic Income. It begins with the Poor Law of 1601 to the era of means-tested benefits. In particular, it cites William Beveridge's 1942 report which proposed a comprehensive system of National Insurance Benefits and centrally administered National Assistance. It then traces the origins of universal benefits in the UK, from Family Allowance to Child Benefit, and considers other failed proposals to reform the tax and benefits systems, including Tax Credits and attempts at a Citizen's Basic Income. It also explains why proposals such as ‘Universal Credit’ were and have been implemented, but not the proposal for a Citizen's Basic Income. Finally, it describes the National Health Service's (NHS) provision of universal, unconditional and nonwithdrawable healthcare and the global debate over the Citizen's Basic Income, and especially with respect to its feasibility and implementation.

Alternatives to a Citizen’s Basic Income

This chapter examines three policy proposals with characteristics similar to those of a Citizen's Basic Income: Negative Income Tax, genuine Tax Credits and Participation Income. It first considers the Tax Credits scheme proposed by the UK's Conservative government in 1972, and which was close to a genuine Tax Credits scheme before discussing Negative Income Tax and the problems that it entails. It then describes Negative Income Tax experiments with interesting outcomes that have clear implications for the current debate on the Citizen's Basic Income approach to tax and benefits reform. It also looks at Participation Income and the issues that it raises before concluding with an analysis of the outcomes that would be created by an increase in the value of National Insurance Benefits compared to the outcomes of a Citizen's Basic Income.

Objections

This chapter examines various objections to a Citizen's Basic Income, such as: people should not be paid for doing nothing; immigration would go up; people would not work; we cannot afford it; it would cause a hike in public expenditure; the money could be better used on other things. Another objection is that if means-tested benefits are abolished, then we would not know to whom we should give passported benefits such as free school meals. The chapter responds to each of these objections, focusing in particular on funding schemes for the Citizen's Basic Incomes such as making changes to the existing tax and benefits structure, taxing appropriation of the commons, or by means of consumption taxes or a Financial Transaction Tax. It also considers some of the problems that a Citizen's Basic Income cannot solve, including disability, housing costs, fuel poverty and climate change.

Pilot projects and experiments

This chapter describes a number of Citizen's Basic Income pilot projects and other experiments. It first considers the social dividend (a form of Citizen's Basic Income) distributed in Alaska, known as Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. The dividend has increased personal income, and therefore consumption and employment. The chapter then turns to Iran's cash transfer programme, which replaced subsidies on food and fuel with an unconditional cash payment of about US$40 per month to every individual. It then examines the pilot project in Namibia, which disproved the critics of unconditional cash transfers. It also discusses the pilot projects in India, and in particular the establishment of an unconditional cash benefit as an entirely pragmatic measure; social transfers in Latin America and elsewhere; and several experiments at various stages of planning or implementation. Finally, it asks whether it is possible to launch a Citizen's Basic Income pilot project in the UK.

The economy, work and employment

This chapter examines the changing employment market in the UK and suggests that a Citizen's Basic Income is appropriate to any future scenario. It first considers the economic efficiency of a Citizen's Basic Income and how a Citizen's Basic Income would facilitate a more flexible employment market, resulting in a more efficient allocation of labour, and thus in a more efficient economy. It then discusses the effects of a Citizen's Basic Income on employment with respect to the so-called precarity trap, marginal deduction rates, part-time employment, choice in employment patterns, and education and training. It also explains why a Citizen's Basic Income is appropriate to any future employment market and concludes by outlining how, by disconnecting work and income, it would ascribe value to all kinds of work, thus creating a level playing field between paid employment, care work and voluntary activity in and for the community.

Imagine …

This chapter asks the reader to imagine some representative people trying to cope with the UK's tax and benefits system, and then to imagine themselves creating a tax and benefits system in a country without one. In the first scenario, inflation is low, forcing the government to print some extra money and to give equal amounts to every citizen. People who had been on means-tested Jobseeker's Allowance are now on lower amounts of it. They all want to support themselves and their families and to contribute to society, but the only income that they can rely on is Child Benefit. In the second scenario, everyone is given a Citizen's Basic Income with all the positive changes it would bring to households, relationships, wages, or hours of employment. The chapter concludes by proposing an ideal tax and benefits structure whose requirements conform to the idea of a Citizen's Basic Income.

Individuals and their families

This chapter examines the changing family patterns in the UK and argues that a benefits system containing a Citizen's Basic Income would go a long way towards meeting the needs of families and households, now and in the future. It first considers the ways in which households and the family have changed during the past half century, citing the ‘flexible employment market’ which gives rise to ‘whole communities in which it is very difficult to establish and maintain families’, and how a Citizen's Basic Income would enable households to benefit from the economies of scale that they generate. It then discusses the changing role of women and asks what kind of benefits system will most benefit women and enhance individual dignity. Finally, it describes the ways in which women are affected by the current tax and benefits structure and the ways they might be affected by a Citizen's Basic Income.