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Is a Citizen’s Income Desirable?

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The Feasibility of Citizen's Income

Part of the book series: Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee ((BIG))

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Abstract

This first of two introductory chapters summarizes reasons for wishing to see a Citizen’s Income established. Someone receiving means-tested benefits finds that as earned income rises, their benefits income falls, making it less than worthwhile to seek employment or to look for a better job. A Citizen’s Income would never be reduced, making it more worthwhile to seek paid employment or a better job. Households would be able to lift themselves out of poverty more easily. Citizen’s Income would not interfere with personal relationships as means-tested benefits do; it would provide economic security in the midst of a more flexible employment market; it would deliver improved social cohesion; it would be simple and cheap to administer; and it would attract no stigma, errors, or fraud.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a detailed discussion of citizenship, see Malcolm Torry (2013) Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 187–209.

  2. 2.

    Malcolm Torry (2013) Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income (Bristol: Policy Press); Malcolm Torry (2015) 101 Reasons for a Citizen’s Income: Arguments for giving everyone some money (Bristol: Policy Press).

  3. 3.

    Hermione Parker (1989) Instead of the Dole: An enquiry into integration of the tax and benefit systems (London: Routledge), pp. 318–30.

  4. 4.

    Stuart Adam, Mike Brewer and Andrew Shephard (2006) The Poverty Trade-off: Work incentives and income redistribution in Britain (Bristol: Policy Press/York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation), p. 1.

  5. 5.

    Hermione Parker (1995) Taxes, Benefits and Family Life: The seven deadly traps (London: Institute of Economic Affairs), p. 27.

  6. 6.

    Hermione Parker, Taxes, Benefits and Family Life, p. 42.

  7. 7.

    Michael O’Brien (2007) Poverty, Policy and the State (Bristol: Policy Press), p. 124; Pierre-Carl Michaeu and Arthur van Soest (2008) ‘How did the elimination of the US earnings test above the normal retirement age affect labour supply expectations’, Fiscal Studies, 29 (2), 197–231; Thomas F. Crossley and Sung-Hee Jeon (2007) ‘Joint taxation and the labour supply of married women: Evidence from the Canadian tax reform of 1988’, Fiscal Studies, 28 (3), 343–65.

  8. 8.

    Michael Hill (1990) Social Security Policy in Britain (Aldershot: Edward Elgar), p. 16.

  9. 9.

    Joel. F. Handler (2005) ‘Myth and ceremony in workfare: rights, contracts, and client satisfaction’, The Journal of Socioeconomics, 34 (1), 101–124, p 117; Mick Carpenter, Belinda Freda and Stuart Speeden (eds) (2007) Beyond the workfare state (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 5, 6.

  10. 10.

    A.B. Atkinson and Gunnar Viby Mogensen (eds) (1993) Welfare and Work Incentives (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 191.

  11. 11.

    Jan Pahl (1986) ‘Social security, taxation and family financial arrangements’, BIRG Bulletin, no.5, pp. 2–4; Almaz Zelleke (2008) ‘Institutionalizing the Universal Caretaker Through a Basic Income?’ Basic Income Studies, 3 (3), 1–9.

  12. 12.

    Patricia Morgan (1995) Farewell to the Family? Public Policy and Family Breakdown in Britain and the USA (London: Institute of Economic Affairs), pp. 4, 61.

  13. 13.

    Michael Hill (1990) Social Security Policy in Britain (Aldershot: Edward Elgar), p. 110; Richard E. Wagner (2007) Fiscal Sociology and the Theory of Public Finance: An Exploratory Essay (London: Edward Elgar), p. 196.

  14. 14.

    Erving Goffman (1990) Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity (London: Penguin), pp. 13–14; Christian Albrekt Larsen (2006) The Institutional Logic of Welfare Attitudes (Aldershot: Ashgate), p. 141.

  15. 15.

    www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/371459/Statistical_Release.pdf

  16. 16.

    www.cleiss.fr/docs/regimes/regime_france/an_4.html

  17. 17.

    www.gov.uk/working-tax-credit/overview

  18. 18.

    www.irs.gov/Credits-&-Deductions/Individuals/Earned-Income-Tax-Credit/EITC,-Earned-Income-Tax-Credit,-Questions-and-Answers

  19. 19.

    Bill Jordan (2010) ‘Basic Income and Social Value’, Basic Income Studies, 5 (2), 1–19.

  20. 20.

    The plan was to reduce the Child Benefit to any household containing a higher-rate taxpayer. The problem was that there is no database that links higher-rate taxpayers with Child Benefit recipients, and to have sought intrusive information about the living arrangements of the country’s highest earners was not going to be politically popular. The outcome is an additional question in the tax return, asking taxpayers whether they live in a household that receives Child Benefit. If so, additional tax is charged.

  21. 21.

    Georg Graetz and Guy Michaels (2015) Robots at Work, Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper no. 1335 (London: London School of Economics), http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1335.pdf

  22. 22.

    Guy Standing (2011) The Precariat: The new dangerous class (London: Bloomsbury).

  23. 23.

    John Hills (2014) Good Times, Bad Times: The welfare myth of them and us (Bristol: Policy Press), pp. 111–32.

  24. 24.

    There are two kinds of zero-hour contracts. Exploitative zero-hour contracts require workers to accept shifts offered at short notice, and not to work for other employers; non-exploitative zero-hour contracts require workers to work shifts offered with reasonable notice but leave them free to refuse shifts offered at short notice, and they do not prevent the worker from working for other employers, and they often allow shifts to be negotiated. In the entertainment and hospitality industries, non-exploitative zero-hour contracts can be useful both to employers and to workers, particularly those who are students or carers.

  25. 25.

    Ursula Huws (1997) Flexibility and Security: Towards a new European balance (London: Citizen’s Income Trust), pp. 47–50.

  26. 26.

    Maarten Goos and Alan Manning (2007) ‘Lousy and Lovely Jobs: The rising polarization of work in Britain’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 89 (1), 118–33.

  27. 27.

    Richard Murphy and Howard Reed (2013) Financing the Social State: Towards a full employment economy (London: Centre for Labour and Social Studies), pp. 25–7.

  28. 28.

    Tony Lynes (2011) ‘From Unemployment Insurance to Assistance in interwar Britain’, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 19 (3), 221–33.

  29. 29.

    Sir William Beveridge (1942) Social Insurance and Allied Services, Cmd 6404 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office).

  30. 30.

    Keith G. Banting (1979) Poverty, Politics and Policy: Britain in the 1960s (London: Macmillan), p. 89.

  31. 31.

    For the history of the welfare state in the UK, see Nicholas Barr (1987) The Economics of the Welfare State (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson); Michael Hill (1990) Social Security Policy in Britain (Aldershot: Edward Elgar); Pat Thane (2011) ‘The making of National Insurance, 1911’, Journal of Poverty and Social and Justice, 19 (3), 211–19.

  32. 32.

    Her Majesty’s Government (1972) Proposals for a Tax-Credit System, Cmnd. 5116 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office).

  33. 33.

    Tony Atkinson (2011) ‘The case for universal child benefit’, pp. 79–90 in Alan Walker, Adrian Sinfield and Carol Walker (eds), Fighting Poverty, Inequality and Injustice: A manifesto inspired by Peter Townsend (Cambridge: Polity Press), p. 83; A.B. Atkinson, (1969), Poverty in Britain and the Reform of Social Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 141; Paul Spicker (2011) How Social Security Works: An introduction to benefits in Britain (Bristol: Policy Press), p. 118; John Walley (1986) ‘Public support for families with children: A study of British politics’, BIRG Bulletin, no.5, pp. 8–11.

  34. 34.

    Department for Work and Pensions, A state pension for the 21st century, Cm 8053 (London: The Stationery Office).

  35. 35.

    Juliet Rhys Williams (1943) Something to Look Forward to (London: MacDonald and Co); H.S. Booker (1946) ‘Lady Rhys Williams’ Proposals for the Amalgamation of Direct Taxation with Social Insurance’, The Economic Journal, 56, 230–43, p. 232.

  36. 36.

    House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Committee Sub-Committee (1982) The Structure of Personal Income Taxation and Income Support: Minutes of evidence, HC 331–ix (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office), p. 423; Brandon Rhys Williams (1989) Stepping Stones to Independence: National Insurance after 1990 (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press); Hermione Parker, Instead of the Dole: An enquiry into integration of the tax and benefit systems (London: Routledge), pp. 224–53.

  37. 37.

    Commission on Social Justice (1994) Social Justice: Strategies for national renewal (London: Vintage), p. 264.

  38. 38.

    D.V.L. Smith and Associates (1991) Basic Income: A research report, prepared for Age Concern England, London, pp. 5, 29.

  39. 39.

    J. Harris (1981) ‘Some Aspects of Social Policy in Britain during the Second World War,’ pp. 247–62 in W. J. Mommsen, The Emergence of the Welfare State in Britain and Germany, 1850–1950 (London: Croom Helm), p. 258.

  40. 40.

    Eleanor Rathbone (1986) The Disinherited Family (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, first published 1924), pp. 139, 167, 353; John Macnicol (1980) The Movement for Family Allowances, 1918–1945: A study in social policy development (London: Heinemann), pp. 5–10, 20–23; Pat Thane (1996) Foundations of the Welfare State. 2nd edition (London: Longman), pp. 63–4, 202.

  41. 41.

    William Beveridge, in Eleanor Rathbone (1949) Family Allowances (London: George Allen and Unwin) (a new edition of The Disinherited Family with an epilogue by William Beveridge), p. 270.

  42. 42.

    Sir William Beveridge (1942) Social Insurance and Allied Services, Cmd 6404 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office), pp. 7–8.

  43. 43.

    Stuart Adam, Mike Brewer and Andrew Shephard (2006) The Poverty Trade-off: Work incentives and income redistribution in Britain (Bristol: Policy Press/York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation), p. 30; J. Harris (1981) ‘Some Aspects of Social Policy in Britain during the Second World War’, pp. 247–62 in W. J. Mommsen, The Emergence of the Welfare State in Britain and Germany, 1850–1950 (London: Croom Helm), p. 249; John Macnicol (1980) The Movement for Family Allowances, 1918–1945: A study in social policy development (London: Heinemann), pp. 93, 172, 176, 191–3, 202; Pat Thane (1996) Foundations of the Welfare State., 2nd edition (London: Longman), pp. 157–230 in Phoebe Hall, Hilary Land, Roy Parker and Adrian Webb, Change, Choice and Conflict in Social Policy (London: Heinemann), pp. 169, 173–9, 195–6, 205, 221.

  44. 44.

    Anna Yeatman (1998) ‘Activism and the Policy Process’, pp. 16–35 in Anna Yeatman (ed.) Activism and the Policy Process (St. Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin), pp. 32–5.

  45. 45.

    A.G. Jordan and J.J. Richardson (1987) British Politics and the Policy Process: An arena approach (London: Unwin Hyman), p. 239.

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    Malcolm Torry

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Torry, M. (2016). Is a Citizen’s Income Desirable?. In: The Feasibility of Citizen's Income. Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53078-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53078-3_1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-53077-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53078-3

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