# U.B.I



## Amity Island (Apr 12, 2020)

Hi Everyone,

I've been following this study since it started in Finland in 2017. It's called a Universal Basic Income or UBI. 

"Nadia Calviño, Spain’s minister of economic affairs, said in a radio interview Sunday. “So it can be useful, not just for this extraordinary situation, and that it remains forever.”









						Finland basic income trial left people 'happier but jobless'
					

Although people ended up happier, the government hoped it would help the unemployed to find work.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						Universal basic income - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				






			The pandemic strengthens the case for universal basic income


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## KARNAK (Apr 12, 2020)

Its an Indifferent for me @Amity Island but only from this countries point of view.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Apr 12, 2020)

I have heard of this too, and think it sounds like an idea whose time has definitely come.

The horrendous stats coming out of the US showing how inequality is really skewing health outcomes are heartbreaking.


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## mikeyB (Apr 12, 2020)

I think it’s being trialled in Scotland, Aberdeen City. I wouldn’t want it if I still lived in Scotland, it would tip me over into a higher tax bracket and disappear back where it came from. I suppose that is the idea behind making the payment permanent.

Mind you, what level do you set it? £500 a month wouldn’t pay the rent in London. You would still have to have in place things like housing benefit. And it wouldn’t replace disabled benefits, so it overall wouldn’t get rid of the current DWP infrastructure.


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## Bruce Stephens (Apr 12, 2020)

Amity Island said:


> I like the simplicity of the idea, at the moment our benefits system is still so convoluted and difficult to get for many. One down side is, many would be worse off compared to their current benefits levels, although the UBI is per person and not per household. But at least if it is universal, everybody is given the same regardless.



Yes, and if you're a millionaire that doesn't matter since the UBI is trivial for you and can easily be removed from you using taxation. 

However, the big problem seems to me to be that some people who're getting benefits would likely be worse off (unless you set UBI improbably high) and those are largely the people who're already hurting with our current overly complex system.

So maybe a good (maybe temporary) way to think of it would be as a replacement for some kinds of social benefit, but keep housing benefit, disability benefits, etc.

I still worry that it'll be set at too low a level to actually be enough to live on, so it wouldn't offer the promised benefits. (One of which is that people wouldn't have to take the first terrible (but paying) job they're offered. Rather, they could continue looking, improving themselves, etc.)


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## everydayupsanddowns (Apr 12, 2020)

Bruce Stephens said:


> So maybe a good (maybe temporary) way to think of it would be as a replacement for some kinds of social benefit, but keep housing benefit, disability benefits, etc.



I can see that working. A basic ‘subsistence’ level for everyone, with the ability to earn more if you want to, and to receive extra support if you need it.

’Course, it rather supports some of those unscrupulous employers who knowingly underpay staff and hope the benefits system will pick up the tab.


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## trophywench (Apr 12, 2020)

Tricky for a single parent with several school age children of various ages, I'd think.  Housing Assn rents are not known for being cheap round here.


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## Ivostas66 (Apr 16, 2020)

I think it's time to bring in Huey Long's (former Governor of Louisiana) suggestion from the 1930s to combat the effects of the Depression usually referred to as _Share Our Wealth_. It's something I raise with my GCSE students every year when I teach the period and have some very differing responses to it. 10 years ago most students were very much in favour, today it is the opposite. Long suggested that anyone with wealth of over $5million would have money taken from them. The maximum that anyone could earn in a year was $1m and the most anyone could keep was $5million - the idea being that no-one needed more than $5m to survive). The wealth would then be shared amongst the public in the form of a $2,000 annual income, also paying for old age pensions and free education for all.

I teach at a school with kids who live in properties over £2m in value and others who are in poverty. The arguments for and against this each year are absolutely fascinating. One of the most honest and fascinating this year was "_Your Dad may well be a leading Civil Servant with a demanding job in government, earning a six figure salary and also works very hard. My Mum is a nurse. Is it fair that she earns less than £30,000 yet probably works as hard as your Dad?_"


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## trophywench (Apr 16, 2020)

I never earned £30k pa, nor my husband, and we definitely don't get that now, though we both have private pensions as well as state ones and both pay tax so must earn more than whatever the threshold was last year - haven't received the full set of P60s yet to assess how much the Tax might be this year, but I don't get the full State pension anyway, cos I paid the reduced MW NI stamp for approx. 30 years and no credits.

I wouldn't be able to continue living with our current home infrastructure for 'ever' should my husband pre decease me, nor he if I die first.  OTOH I wouldn't need all the tools and vehicles and and and


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## Lindarose (Apr 16, 2020)

That is so very true. Totally agree.


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## trophywench (Apr 23, 2020)

As the title states, you have to be subscribed to the FT in order to read the article.


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## atoll (Sep 14, 2020)

the first recipients should be all those waspi women


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