
UK government should give £10K to every citizen under 55, a report suggests - edward
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43078920
======
jaclaz
The report is here:

[https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-
articles/rs...](https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-
blogs/2018/02/pathways-towards-economic-security-and-universal-basic-income-
new-rsa-report)

Link to PDF:
[https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/reports/rsa_pathway...](https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/reports/rsa_pathways-
to-universal-basic-income-report.pdf?visitorgroupsByID=undefined)

Online (on Medium):

[https://medium.com/pathways-to-universal-basic-
income](https://medium.com/pathways-to-universal-basic-income)

Seemingly the path to UBI leads to UBOF:

>The central proposition is the creation of a Universal Basic Opportunity Fund
(UBOF): an effort to reimagine how society supports people to live meaningful,
contributory lives.

>Its premise is simple: fund every citizen under the age of 55 with a £5,000
opportunity dividend for up to two years, taken at a time of their choosing
over the course of a decade.

>The fund would initially last for ten years, with dependent children also
eligible for the payment in the year a parent, or both, were receiving it.

EDIT: I didn't see the direct link to the PDF in the original article, not
that it is particularly visible, the first sentence is in bold (and is not a
link, and the initial part of the second sentence is also bold, but it is a
link) removed initial sentence that read:

How nice of the BBC guys to provide not the source.

~~~
GunlogAlm
> How nice of the BBC guys to provide not the source.

The article's second sentence is the source - a link to the PDF - and it has
been in the article since it was published.

~~~
jaclaz
My bad, didn't see that it was a direct link to the PDF.

Correcting my post.

~~~
GunlogAlm
:) The BBC are usually quite good with directly linking their sources, when
it's reports or studies (or anything in PDF form). The Guardian are similarly
good in that regard, too.

~~~
tommorris
For science articles, yes. That took a lot of lobbying and complaining.

On law/crime articles, they don't link to legal judgments. That's partly the
fault of the British legal system for not publishing a lot of that material.
But there are plenty of times when it is available and it doesn't get linked
to.

Hypertext is a thing. One day people will work out all the amazing
possibilities.

------
evanphamilton
" The report says the fund could help people: "A low-skilled worker might
reduce their working hours to attain skills enabling career progression.

"The fund could provide the impetus to turn an entrepreneurial idea into a
reality. It could be the support that enables a carer to be there for a loved
one." "

I'm skeptical of the long term implications of this logic, and this reads as a
very neoliberal solution. 416 pounds a month for two years is not a lot of
money. Job training and child/elderly care are difficult, time consuming, and
expensive. This seems to be why they are prime tasks to be run by the state.
Giving people a small cash sum, and telling them to teach themselves new
skills so that they're ready for the economy of the future feels ignorant and
wasteful.

If you're working a part time retail job that is about to be automated, what
type of "job training" can this realistically provide. Or, if you're taking
care of an elderly parent, or a young child, this is far from a replacement
for more robust social services.

I truly want to believe in a UBI in some form, but I find the language of
"entrepreneurial idea[s]" to be a little repulsive. Not everyone can be a
successful entrepreneur. Not every poor and middle class citizen can become a
successful start up founder and small business owner. UBI could be fantastic
but is not a replacement for the once robust social safety nets that are being
chipped away at (or decimated) in the US/UK. I am not saying it is the case in
this article -- I know little about the Royal Society for the encouragement of
the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce -- but anytime I see someone advocating
for UBI I think it is worthwhile to interrogate their positionality and their
imagination of the future. The silicon valley libertarian billionaire dream of
a UBI seems different from someone with a genuine commitment to improving the
quality of life for everyone.

There are no quick fixes to poverty, skill gap, and the problems wrought by
automation. Looking towards UBI as a panacea feels dangerous in that it can
prevent addressing the more structural problems at play.

~~~
Asooka
Or to put it in simple numbers, every startup founder needs ten employees, who
themselves have to not be startup founders. Unless 90% of the people who reach
age ~35 die, and then 90% of the survivors die at ~50, there is no way to
guarantee an entrepreneurial career path to everybody. Or, I guess, robots
_waves arms_.

What I suspect will happen is that people will be able to leave dead-end jobs
that are stressful and provide little to no value to them. Which in turn
_might_ crash the economy, because while not having the next Juicero isn't
that big of a deal, not having anyone picking up the garbage on time is a real
issue. Or, it might end up with employers offering a fair salary that fairly
redistributes the gains in productivity afforded by modern civilization (I
almost wrote this with a straight face). In any case, UBI is not just a money
redistribution scheme, it's also a power redistribution scheme, because it
gives you fuck-you-money, or at least the next closest equivalent.

~~~
9034725985
> I suspect will happen is that people will be able to leave dead-end jobs
> that are stressful and provide little to no value to them. Which in turn
> might crash the economy, because while not having the next Juicero isn't
> that big of a deal, not having anyone picking up the garbage on time is a
> real issue. Or, it might end up with employers offering a fair salary that
> fairly redistributes the gains in productivity afforded by modern
> civilization (I almost wrote this with a straight face). In any case, UBI is
> not just a money redistribution scheme, it's also a power redistribution
> scheme, because it gives you fuck-you-money, or at least the next closest
> equivalent.

This is the main reason I want a basic income. I want persons who have a job
to be the same persons who want that job. If nobody wants that job then there
is something wrong about that job - maybe it doesn't pay well or maybe the job
conditions are horrible. But in any case, I think we will all be better off if
our workers are people who want that particular job rather than people who are
stuck with that job and can't afford to quit.

~~~
mjevans
I like to think of it as making up for the fact that there isn't any other
place someone that doesn't want to be part of the current status quo can just
say "I've had it, I'm going off on my own way".

All the land is taken, owned, and occupied; and all of the best places for
starting your own settlement were /long/ ago occupied, let alone the marginal
ones.

I don't want to do any of the above, but having that /option/ gave a default
alternative to being an employee and thus meant that there had to be actual
benefit in such a relationship.

------
albertgoeswoof
The article seems to contradict itself:

> The idea sees two payments of £5,000 paid over two years, but certain state
> benefits and tax reliefs would be removed at the same time.

> Payments would come from a British sovereign wealth fund in the form of two
> annual £5,000 dividends, the RSA proposes.

It's not really Universal either:

> applicants would only have to demonstrate how they intended to use the money

~~~
TomK32
I'm sure the DWP will come up with many ideas on the "intend to use the
money", just like when cutting disability benefits.

Can't walk more the 10 minutes to the shops? No money!

~~~
dazc
Friend of mine gets disability benefits and your comment is inaccurate.

~~~
9point6
You're aware there's a mass of evidence that the DWP is, at best, ineffective
and trending towards excessively cruel in its capability assessments? It's not
exactly something that's gone unreported.

Your friend is lucky, I know several people personally who have been dragged
through the courts for months before they were able to get their incorrect
assessment overturned.

~~~
dazc
Yes, a mass of evidence yet none to refute my challenge?

~~~
9point6
Double reply, eh? - I've been doing my job. Sorry I can't drop everything to
respond to you on HN.

As I said it's not exactly under-reported, that was your cue to search and
find something like: [https://fullfact.org/news/how-many-fit-work-assessments-
are-...](https://fullfact.org/news/how-many-fit-work-assessments-are-
successfully-overturned/)

And (to address your other comment) I assume you aren't being literal with
your specific example (because the guy you were responding to didn't literally
mean people were assessed on their ability to walk to a shop specifically),
but yeah there have been reports of people who can't walk very far getting
told they're fit for work (For instance this guy:
[https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-
news/photographer...](https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-
news/photographer-told-hes-fit-work-1184852) from earlier this week)

Where's your evidence?

~~~
dazc
OK, I didn't realise the guy wasn't speaking literally. I thought he actually
knew of a case that supported his statement in some way.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
[https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/most-dwp-benefits-
cases-...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/most-dwp-benefits-cases-which-
reach-court-are-based-on-bad?utm_term=.riV0y2jyl#.ub57bq9ba)

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dwp-
disabled-p...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dwp-disabled-
people-benefits-legal-action-lose-government-work-pensions-department-frank-
field-mp-a7886166.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/12/disability-...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/12/disability-
benefit-appeals-department-for-work-and-pensions-figures)

Happy now? Or are you perhaps going to try to play the no true Scotsman PR
game and claim this doesn't count as _real_ evidence?

~~~
dazc
'...and claim this doesn't count as real evidence?'

If the guy had replied saying he actually did know the person I would have to
accept that as true. He didn't.

Despite recent evidence, this isn't The Guardian and I am willing to believe
that most people here are honest and don't just make stuff up to suit their
political agenda.

To answer your question, two lefty news articles and fakenews.com don't count
as evidence, no. His word would have been good enough for me.

------
coroxout
In addition to the contradictions already highlighted by many posters, I don't
like the way the only economist they've quoted is Patrick Minford.

Not because he says UBI won't work (I'm on the fence about this, because I'd
love it to work, but I don't see how you can stop it triggering inflation to
the point that the UBI sum becomes useless to live on - but I'm no economist),
but because he's really quite far out of the mainstream of economists and it's
as if they've picked him solely because he's the only big name pro-Brexit
economist - and I'm sick of the BBC dragging pro-Brexit commentators on to
speak unopposed regardless of whether they know anything about the subject or
how out-there their views are.

Some prior references on Minford:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-minford-
economi...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brexit-minford-
economics_uk_599ae35be4b0e8cc855ee180)
[https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21727078-patrick-
minf...](https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21727078-patrick-minford-
thinks-gdp-could-increase-68-most-economists-say-brexit-will-hurt)

~~~
bitL
> triggering inflation

That's something I don't get either. But maybe thinking is that it would
induce some needed inflation in deflationary times?

~~~
dTal
It only triggers inflation if the money supply goes up. If you pay for UBI
with taxes, it has no effect on inflation.

In theory.

The problem is that this amounts to taxing the super-rich to a much greater
extent than we do now. The super-rich tend to hoard their money (that's part
of the problem!) so even if you manage to do that successfully, you do end
probably end up increasing the _effective_ money supply. But not to the extent
that the income becomes worthless.

~~~
collyw
How about just creating money and giving the same amount to everyone?

It would have the effect that the value of each individual dollar would go
down to a small extent, but everyone would have say 10,000 dollars extra. The
effect would be negative for the rich, but positive for the poor.

Quantitative easing seemed similar, but the money was given to the banks who
just kept asset prices high - not great for the poor but good for the rich.

Anyone want to "explain it like I am 5" to to why thats such a bad idea?

~~~
OscarCunningham
During QE they didn't just give the money to the banks, they bought stuff from
the banks. This introduced new money into the system without being unduly
unfair (although by the nature of buying a lot of things at once the price was
lower than it would otherwise have been).

This means that when the BoE wants to contract the money suply (as it's doing
now) it has assets to sell off.

If it printed money and then gave it away then it would be in a sticky
situation if it wanted to shrink the money supply again.

Also producing that much extra cash every year would produce a high rate of
inflation. This would have very weird effects and would probably be highly
unpleasant for everyone.

~~~
collyw
I don't really see it as especially fair. I had done my calculations and
worked out that a house price correction was well overdue. Instead my taxpayer
money was used to keep the prices artificially high, while the bankers kept
their huge bonuses and I got next to no interest on the money II had saved for
a deposit. How exactly was that fair?

I agree that it would probably cause innflation, but why not just repeat every
ten years? As I say it would devalue money for everyone. It would also give a
lump some to everyone. That is going to be positive for the people who need it
the most and worst for the people that need it the least.

------
OscarCunningham
What's with the "sovereign wealth fund" idea? What's the advantage of raising
taxes to pay for a sovereign wealth fund the interest on which pays for the
UBI? Why not just pay for the UBI with the taxes?

People don't seem to understand that you can't create money just by randomly
moving it around.

~~~
crdoconnor
You can create money, it just exerts an inflationary pressure that is
commensurate with the rate at which it is spent (minus the offsetting effect
of industrial slack).

Issuing more public debt and spending it is (in a low interest environment)
not so very different to printing cash and spending it. The creation of highly
liquid assets backed by cash that don't pay interest = might as well _be_
cash.

The "sovereign wealth fund" idea is weird though. I don't see the point of the
UK creating one - it's not like it has vast quantities of oil wealth it needs
to sequester.

~~~
zeth___
There hasn't been inflationary pressure in the last 20 years. We can print
money till the cows come home and we'll still be stuck in this economic nadir.

~~~
crdoconnor
There have been significant inflationary pressures in housing and most other
financial asset markets.

Printing money isn't really the issue - it's what is done with it once printed
that matters.

~~~
zeth___
Inflation is different to speculation.

~~~
crdoconnor
It is indeed. Not really relevant here though.

------
icc97
This is going to replace what was regular income with large one time payments.

This is like giving small lottery wins. People will think they're rich in the
beginning, blow it all and then have nothing to fall back on.

Basic income should be the same as regular work income that comes in once a
month for living off.

~~~
croon
Income/salary is a large one time payment (once a month, or bi-weekly), for
work you do every day.

I don't disagree with your assessment of this being a problem, but increasing
overhead by splitting up payments to solve an issue that's inherently
behavioral seems counterproductive to me.

~~~
notahacker
A payment which is once a month is not a one time payment. A grant which is
once a lifetime is. Someone squandering the former has an opportunity to
rectify their mistake the following month.

And more generally, if the once a lifetime universal grants are competing for
budget and theoretical purpose with hardship funds, unemployment benefits and
entitlement to free government services, the distributional effects are going
to heavily favour the lucky and financially secure over the unlucky and
financially insecure.

~~~
croon
> A payment which is once a month is not a one time payment. A grant which is
> once a lifetime is.

What I responded to that you wrote, and what the article suggests, is:

> This is going to replace what was regular income with large one time
> payments.

If they are plural they are no longer one time. And if they are no longer one
time, it's just a matter of scope size when discussing frequency. I'm not
trying to sound robotic, but there's no functional difference between getting
6x twice a year and getting 1x 12 times a year. The difference is
psychological.

~~~
icc97
It is two payments over two years.

So it's 1 payment per year.

Yes it's psychological, but that's the problem people are weak at saving for
the future.

It's allowing people to make a mistake 12x bigger.

------
Legogris
> Anyone receiving the "dividends" would not be able to claim any tax
> allowances, which the RSA says would act as a disincentive to wealthier
> earners wanting to apply for the handout.

This is an obvious way to align incentives that I haven't seen before.
Negative income tax (NIT) is also something that might be worth looking into:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax#Implementa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax#Implementation)

~~~
OscarCunningham
Does "tax allowances" just mean the tax-free Personal Allowance of £11500? No
one pays £10000 of tax on £11500, so it doesn't seem like it would actually
stop anyone from claiming.

If the government is saying the cost will be £14.5B then they must think only
1.5M people will sign up, a tiny portion of the population. I don't quite see
how they're expecting this to work.

~~~
djaychela
I think they mean more that if you're already above the tax threshold then you
wouldn't get £10k, you'd get £10k minus the prevailing rate of tax - so if you
already earned £11500-£34500 then you'd get £8000 (£10k-20%). If you earned
£34500-£150,000 then you'd get £6000(£10k-40%), and over £150k you'd get
£5500(£10k-45%).

~~~
OscarCunningham
Do they really mean "We're going to make this money so tedious and
bureaucratic to apply for that a middle class person wouldn't bother to do it
even for £6000"?

------
sambe
The title should be changed. It’s not universal, and it’s not £10,000 per
year.

~~~
mrarjen
Exactly, this article is just one big disappointment when you read the title
and actual article. It's basically some extra money to help it's citizens for
the short term.

~~~
icc97
Whilst taking away a bunch of other regular income

------
latch
"A low-skilled worker might reduce their working hours to attain skills
enabling career progression."

It this based on anything? Are we hoping they'll do this, or do we know how
people typically use unexpected sources of income? Or, is it: "The more
stitches the less riches" ?

Appendix 1 of the paper is a hard-to-read "fictionalised accounts" of how the
money can be used. I like #2, Kathryn the government debt collector who
already felt a great sense of accomplishment is now able to provide even more
help.

(I did a quick google and found some analysis of how IETC is spent. It seems
that transportation is the biggest thing, but that might be a US-specific
pattern).

~~~
egypturnash
_Utopia for Realists_ has some well-cited discussion of how people used their
money in the UBI tests of the Seventies.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_for_Realists_(book)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_for_Realists_\(book\))

------
seanhandley
Rather sounds like a way to buy people off their benefits and tax reliefs.

I don't see the financial sense in it.

------
pacificleo11
One aspect of Universal Basic Income (UBI) debate which remain unanswered for
me is the question of meaning & purpose. Most of us derive our sense of
purpose from our jobs. In a future with UBI and Automation where will derive
our purpose in life. I think this will dictate the future of UBI more than the
intrinsic merit of the underlying idea.

~~~
tom_mellior
> Most of us derive our sense of purpose from our jobs.

Most of "us", as in your peers, those visible to you. Nothing wrong with
feeling a sense of purpose.

Most of "us", as in bus drivers, bored security guards with nothing to do,
McDonald's cashiers, cleaning personnel who clean in your office between 4
a.m. and 6 a.m. so you never have to encounter them, would they be depressed
and forlorn without the "purpose" of their _awesome_ jobs?

------
tim333
Bit rough on 55 year olds.

~~~
dasmoth
Yep. But that somewhat matches recent UK policy (lifetime ISAs, for instance).
I think the logic goes that the (currently) middle-aged have benefitted
disproportionately from house price rises. Which might on average have a
degree of truth to it, but such gains are far-from-uniformly distributed, and
mostly still locked up in illiquid assets...

------
CalRobert
"Anyone receiving the "dividends" would not be able to claim any tax
allowances, which the RSA says would act as a disincentive to wealthier
earners wanting to apply for the handout."

It's also a disincentive from becoming a wealthier earner, which is _exactly_
what UBI is meant to address (among other things).

------
crdoconnor
>Jonathan Reynolds MP, Labour's shadow Treasury minister, said: "This new
report from the RSA raises the right questions about the future of work and
the long-term challenges we face, including making sure automation and the
changing nature of work deliver a fairer, more prosperous society."

Instead of pretending that our iPhones were all just built by magic Chinese
robots (or soon will be), the UK could instead decide to enact policy changes
that grows rather than bleeds our manufacturing sector.

I don't think policymakers understand the long term risks associated with
trade and currency policy pushing manufacturing to places like China. Building
a dense industrial ecosystem - exhibited in all its glory in markets like
Huaquingbei - is simply impossible in the UK under current "free" trade
policy. This means startups like OnePlus (which grew out of Huaquingbei) won't
and can't work in the UK - which should worry people.

One day we're going to wake up and find out that China can switch off the flow
of hi tech goods to the UK overnight - components and finished goods alike -
and the rude surprise will be that industrial ecosystems take _decades_ to
build. Neoclassical economic models buries this problem in assumptions, so
most economists are just as blind to this risk as they were to 2008.

The fact that we let our industrial ecosystem rot while they steadily built
theirs up will come, if we get cut off, in the form of a highly inflationary
shock and ultimately a shortage of hi tech goods.

Perhaps then the notion that trade and currency policy created to appease
banks and landowners ('unfettered trade'), rather than companies that actually
make things and created jobs ('protectionism'), wasn't such a great idea.

Enacting basic income (which will, by its nature, also be very inflationary)
with those kinds of medium term risks hanging over us seems unwise when its
impetus - the shortage of good jobs - was artificially driven by bank friendly
trade policy that can't last forever.

------
bornonline1
You shouldn't have used UBI in the title

------
qwerty456127
So great that there actually are influential politicians who understand that
universal income is not a luxury but a necessity for a modern society.

~~~
arethuza
Not sure I would describe the "RSA" as "influential politicians" \- they
haven't got anything to do with the government or civil service.

------
FloNeu
That's not universal basic income at all... Clickbait shit

------
manoj_venkat92
Those snobs are gonna get snobbier now.

