Swiss voting on basic income of £21,000 a year!

HornetSaver

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36443512

Seems a bit high, doesn't it?

If the UK were to adopt a measure along those lines, the gross cost would be somewhere in the region of £1trillion per year, which is comparable to, if not slightly greater than, the entirety of current government spending.

Obviously the upside is that you could justifiably eliminate all welfare spending, including the state pension, you could probably privatise the NHS (make it free for children; assuming the model was done correctly every adult could afford it) and in theory could abolish the minimum wage.

But given the downsides of inflation, disincentive for low-skilled people to work in unfulfilling jobs, and the sheer size of the cost even after those savings, I don't see how it could work?

It's been an interesting hypothetical question for years, one I've seen discussed at least twice on these boards, but given that a developed country is actually taking it seriously I felt it warranted a new discussion.

paddyrg

Not really, Switzerland isn't a cheap country

HornetSaver

paddyrg wrote: »

Not really, Switzerland isn't a cheap country

No more expensive than London and the important parts of England.

CLAPTON

I find it extremely unlikely that they would be mad enough to vote in favour of a basic income

Mistermeaner

Prob not far off what someone with 2 kids and 30hrs a week low paid work gets now in uk with tax credits housing benefit free child care free health care etcetc

Mistermeaner

Just giving people money either in benefits or stuff for free or legislated higher wages is pointless as it simply moving money from one person to another - somebody somewhere has to do work to produce the money in the first place.

Without incentives people generally don't work and everyone suffers.

HornetSaver

CLAPTON wrote: »

I find it extremely unlikely that they would be mad enough to vote in favour of a basic income

What's ultimately likely to sink it is your favourite topic - immigration.

But it's a concept that both left and right have toyed with in the past. The left for what I preume are obvious reasons, the right because you could legitimately make the state far smaller and simplify the tax system, using basic income as a shield for almost anything.

It's hard to envisage that basic income in some form won't become a norm by the end of the century. Though I simply can't believe that it would amount to a level equivalent to current full time, lower-end earnings in any of our lifetimes. When it becomes commonplace (which I project is likely to be five or six decades off), it would be something more like a universal welfare payment (the trade-off being that it would replace both the state pension and the entire benefits system), than a substitute for employment.

Generali

HornetSaver wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36443512

Seems a bit high, doesn't it?

If the UK were to adopt a measure along those lines, the gross cost would be somewhere in the region of £1trillion per year, which is comparable to, if not slightly greater than, the entirety of current government spending.

Obviously the upside is that you could justifiably eliminate all welfare spending, including the state pension, you could probably privatise the NHS (make it free for children; assuming the model was done correctly every adult could afford it) and in theory could abolish the minimum wage.

But given the downsides of inflation, disincentive for low-skilled people to work in unfulfilling jobs, and the sheer size of the cost even after those savings, I don't see how it could work?

It's been an interesting hypothetical question for years, one I've seen discussed at least twice on these boards, but given that a developed country is actually taking it seriously I felt it warranted a new discussion.

GDP per capita in Switzerland is about £77,000 so this is like a basic income of something like £10,000 in the UK.

HornetSaver

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Without incentives people generally don't work and everyone suffers.

Very true, which is why basic income at the level Switzerland are talking about could never work.

But the rest of your post does lead to an interesting paradox, where the more of a free-market capitalist you are, the more you agree with the way in which Communism came close to operating - everyone is entitled to rubbish shelter, functional clothes, and sufficient, poor quality food chosen for you (basically, the way much of the USSR worked, minus the back-breaking work chosen for you). Survive on that if you want; the consumerist society is exclusively for those who contribute. All the basic income (at levels most other parts of the world have explored) really does is replicate that model in a capitalist society, minus the slavery.

And yet many, left and right, would argue that this is a good thing - the state provides what everyone needs to survive, and those who aspire to do more than survive need to go out and make it happen.

CLAPTON

HornetSaver wrote: »

What's ultimately likely to sink it is your favourite topic - immigration.

But it's a concept that both left and right have toyed with in the past. The left for what I preume are obvious reasons, the right because you could legitimately make the state far smaller and simplify the tax system, using basic income as a shield for almost anything.

It's hard to envisage that basic income in some form won't become a norm by the end of the century. Though I simply can't believe that it would amount to a level equivalent to current full time, lower-end earnings in any of our lifetimes. When it becomes commonplace (which I project is likely to be five or six decades off), it would be something more like a universal welfare payment (the trade-off being that it would replace both the state pension and the entire benefits system), than a substitute for employment.

it's easy to envisage that basic income in some form won't be the norm by the end of the century : and that's without you bringing immigration into the equation.

whilst in awe of your ability to see 60 years ahead, there may be alternative futures

Jason74

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Just giving people money either in benefits or stuff for free or legislated higher wages is pointless as it simply moving money from one person to another - somebody somewhere has to do work to produce the money in the first place.

Without incentives people generally don't work and everyone suffers.

There are some interesting points here. I'm going to leave the first paragraph, as of course whether "moving money from one person to another" is "pointless", "theft" or "part of the social responsibility of Government" is a subjective discussion that could easily derail the whole thread.

So I'm going to concentrate on the bit I've put in bold. You're dead right that people generally don't work without incentives and that generally doesn't benefit society. But quite a bit of the research where this has been tried (theres a whole load of stuff at https://www.citizensincome.org if you're interested) suggests, perhaps counter intuitively, that a basic income can actually act as an incentive to work for many, especially when compared to means tested benefits.

The logic is essentially that most people want to do the best they can for themselves. The security of a basic income gives people the ability to try things that they otherwise wouldn't have felt able to do, particularly around self employment. That in turn promotes more work being done rather than less, and combined with not having the cost of administering a complex benefits system can actually create a strong net benefit for the economy.

If the logic is right, Hornet Savers post about sums it up. And because most people do ultimately want to do more than survive, the logic behind a basic income does make some sense. Whether it would work in practice in the UK is another matter of course, but the concept shouldn't be dismissed out of hand imho.