Reply to: £100 Per Week for Everyone

[IR35 Avoider]

It's a lovely idea, that appears to both left and right, and I'm fond of it myself. However there was another article (maybe even in the Guardian) quite recently that explained in very convincing detail why it wouldn't work/couldn't replace the current benefits system. Basically, if you're going to have a benefits system, it has to be complicated or unaffordable.

Having said that, couldn't we look at Universal Credit as a practical implementation of this idea? I thought it was supposed to ensure you always had money even if you worked random hours or were randomly in and out of work, without you have to notify anyone of your changes in employment income. With PAYE RTI they should be able to automatically top you up when your earnings are low and let you pay your own way when they are higher (at which time the tax your not paying on your personal allowance becomes your basic income.)

[original PM]

Its not a bad idea. changing the focus of housing from one of monetary value to one of basic utility would do a lot for society as a whole.

Yes of course I will work 50+ hours per week so I can share the street with Sharon, Tracey and their 29 multi-coloured illegitimate illiterate children.

[Flibble]

While it seems 'unfair' just think how many public sector jobs could be scrapped if we didn't have to monitor and administer benefits, try and chase people to look for work, watch out for fraudulent claims, etc.

All this automation and so on was supposed to move us into a culture where people didn't have to work to live, the menial work would all be done by machines giving us more time, and people would work doing things they found interesting.

About 100,000 in the DWP but that's probably it.

[darmstadt]

No. Bogus asylum seekers would be deported (if the government could get its act together). Genuine asylum seekers also wouldn't get until asylum was granted and they become resident.

Wrong. The idea has been mooted by groups of all political complexions. I first heard of it in the mid 80s proposed by a Conservative think-tank. It appeals to right-wingers because it would mean a smaller state (scrap the DHSS or whatever it's called now) and reduce benefit dependency (people don't loose out if they get a job).

Surely it was Thomas Paine in his 1797 pamphlet, Agrarian Justice, as a system in which at the “age of majority” everyone would receive an equal capital grant, a basic income handed over by the state to each and all, no questions asked, to do with what they wanted.

I believe they already do this in Utrecht and some other Dutch cities...

[NotAllThere]

The bottom line is that national prosperity will ultimately depend on little more than cheap plentiful energy

[LondonManc]

We should by now have an internet infrastructure where people buy the bandwidth and download levels that they want. No line rental (phones done via VOIP), just one off router config charge for your bandwidth and download level with the basic package £5/month being enough to get phone calls and basic internet stuff done.

Instead, we've had years of infighting and competition that has been anti-progress.

[OwlHoot]

Can someone educate me on what you get for £100/week?

Once the council tax, eleccy, gas, Sky TV, BT, car loan, mortgage or rent, health insurance, and several other bills, are paid, um, about - £500.

All the same, something like this is inevitable within the next few years.

The bottom line is that national prosperity will ultimately depend on little more than cheap plentiful energy, which is Bad News if the UK continues bungling energy policy as we have for decades.

[VectraMan]

Can someone educate me on what you get for £100/week?

10,000 penny chews?

£100pw would still have to be supplemented with housing benefit to keep the BTL'ers mortgages paid, so it doesn't really work. Nice idea though.

[FatLazyContractor]

Can someone educate me on what you get for £100/week?

[NotAllThere]

... and people would work doing things they found interesting.

Watching Jeremy Kyle and drinking gin.

[d000hg]

Would all the bogus "asylum seekers" get this free money too?

Another leftie idea to attract more unwelcome, unchecked and unnecessary immigration to the land of freebies....

While it seems 'unfair' just think how many public sector jobs could be scrapped if we didn't have to monitor and administer benefits, try and chase people to look for work, watch out for fraudulent claims, etc.

All this automation and so on was supposed to move us into a culture where people didn't have to work to live, the menial work would all be done by machines giving us more time, and people would work doing things they found interesting.

[unemployed]

Why not give everyone a free house?

I thought the Boomers got that already???

[sasguru]

if the £100 is issued in crypto currency then im in

You mean a currency that would soon be worthless compared with the "real" one?
Kind of defeats the point.

[filthy1980]

Govt. can just print that.
They tried it in Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe.
Wasn't a great success.

if the £100 is issued in crypto currency then im in

[sasguru]

hmmmm i'm warming to this but is our job market automated enough yet to justify such a policy, if you close down 90% of the welfare departments overnight, that's an awful lot of people out of work, society would take a decade to adjust i think

actually do the numbers stack up? 65million people x £100 p/w is £65 billion a week i think, is the welfare system that big? (number maybe closer to £40 billion when you take children into account but still, that's an awfully big number)

Govt. can just print that.
They tried it in Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe.
Wasn't a great success.