Give People Money is a complete guide to the political economic idea of a Basic Income. Designed to replace nearly all benefits, it would ensure nobody would suffer in poverty, it enables people to work part-time (without losing benefits) and it could eliminate benefit fraud and debt.
The present benefits system is expensive to run and massively complicated, and promotes so much stigma that many people don’t claim benefits they are entitled to (including disability benefits). By ‘ripping up the book’ and starting again, the Basic Income idea is already being used worldwide. This book explains what it is, how it works, the benefits and how it’s transforming lives abroad.
It works like this. Each month, the government would pay say £1000 into your bank account. And expect nothing in return. Sounds daft? Not so fast. An idea now accepted as super-sensible by financial experts, Basic Income is already lifting the poorest people out of poverty.
At present, you have to go through a minefield of checks (all funded by tax) to get benefits. Then if you work part-time (due to being a parent or carer, you may end up worse off. You don’t have time to study for your dream job either. With Basic Income, you could be a parent, carer or mature student, receive £1000 a month, take a little part-time job to top up your income, and study in your spare time.
It’s so simple, it’s stupid. But it works. Billions are saved in admin costs, and there is no benefit system to defraud, so billions more is saved.
The Basic Income policy is supported by The Green Party and Scottish National Party, with caveats (like extra income to cover housing costs). The main parties don’t appear to be on board, preferring to complicate things or keep the status quo.
Conservatives appear to be still in favour of ‘trickledown economics’, where some people get rich by providing jobs for the poor, who then have to work hard to climb the ladder themselves.
Sounds good, but John Kenneth Galbraith called this the ‘horse and sparrow theory’. In that ‘feeding a horse a huge amount of oats will result in some of the feed passing through for lucky sparrows to eat’. Trickledown economics nearly always results in the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer.
Why Give Money to Rich People?
This is an argument often touted. As mentioned above, the reason is that the cost of means-testing, is usually more than just giving a set income to everyone, saving billions of pounds in hiring out staff, and billions of hours in no-longer needed paperwork and checks.
And who knows – some of the rich receiving the money may give it to small charities. Stranger things have happened.
Why Give Money to People, To Do Nothing?
This is usually an argument touted by idiots, who have no idea how much people struggle on the bottom rung of the financial ladder. Most people who are very poor (whether homeless, single parents, people with health problems, cash-strapped pensioners etc) rarely ‘do nothing’.
They are struggling to survive, visiting different food shops to seek produce on sale to pay the bills, walking miles to food banks, using libraries to search for jobs. Or more commonly, raising children or caring for elderly relatives. Giving people money helps provide financial stability for the ‘backbone people’ of England, who prop everyone else up.
Why Give Illegal Immigrants a Basic Income?
You wouldn’t. The law would stay the same. People would only get benefits, if they proved they were here legally, or had genuine refugee status.
Do Any Countries Give Basic Income?
At present, just Iran. This was done when the government decided to pay families a third of average wages, due to phasing out subsidies of water, bread and fuel. 10 years on, it remains the only country on earth with an official Basic Income.
Taiwan recently had excess tax revenue and gave all citizens a one-off payment of $6000 New Taiwan dollars (£150), with the rest going to provide local government funding and improving work and health insurance systems. Many pilot programs have taken place from India to Scandinavia, with mixed results.
Norway does not have an official Basic Income, but everyone is heavily protected by the state (with free education, university healthcare and benefits if needed). As long as they seek work, don’t break the law, pay their taxes and vote.
In the USA, citizens of Alaska received a couple of thousand dollars from oil and gas revenues. This was not so successful as it obviously encourages fossil fuels. However another pilot in North Carolina found that Basic Income did not deter people from finding work, and greatly improved mental health (a massive and expensive pandemic in the western world).
Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater says that despite the UK being one of the world’s wealthiest countries, thousands of families struggle to make ends meet, with some parents skipping meals, in order to feed their children.
In Massachusetts, a former mayor gave 2000 families on low-incomes a tax-free income of around £400 a month for 18 months. She is a member of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.
I’m now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective. The solution to poerty is to abolish it directly, by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income. Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
