basic income

Safety nets have holes – the need for a Universal Basic Income…

Harry Green on April 4, 2020, 8:00 am | Readers 1986

The time has come in the UK for a Universal Basic Income (UBI). Recently open democracy published a letter signed by senior members of the NHS, MPs, academics and members of the charity sectors calling for a UBI. As the letter states traditional social security policies always leave gaps. The benefits system is supposed to act as a safety net, but all nets have holes. Some people who are in insecure work, self-employed or who’ve been ill often fall through …

Should Northern Ireland follow Finland’s example and consider a universal basic income for all?

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on December 13, 2015, 9:59 pm | Readers 2016

Anti poverty campaigners and economics geeks alike have reason to be cheerful this week with the news that Finland is to carry out a trial of a basic income. A basic income, in its purest sense, is a non means-tested payment to all citizens regardless of income or wealth which replaces existing benefits such as unemployment benefit. The Finnish trial, which has been developed at the behest of new centre-right Prime Minister Juha Sipilä and is supported across the political …

Only problem with Basic Income is an unwillingness to move to consensus on reform..

Mick Fealty on January 28, 2015, 8:42 am | Readers 498

Chris makes an important point regarding Natalie Bennett’s apparent inability to explain the Green Party’s basic national income policy (which has been policy for almost a generation) in her interview with Andrew Neil… He’s clearly disturbed by Bennett’s lack of clarity (as the Greens emerge blinking into the light of Westminster scrutiny after many years of being studiously ignored), but also by Neil’s reliance on Westminster shibboleths about what’s possible/desirable in government: Mr Neil’s implication that a BI of £71pw …