Basic: Gareth Morgan is pushing a universal benefit as a TOP Party policy.
Basic: Gareth Morgan is pushing a universal benefit as a TOP Party policy.
Included in the manifesto of Gareth Morgan's new cab on the political rank, TOP (The Opportunities Party), is a call for a type of universal basic income (UBI).
At the moment he proposes that it apply only to youth, superannuitants, and families with children aged under three, so it's by no means universal. TOP refers to it as an unconditional basic income and, ultimately, Mr Morgan wants UBI for all.
But the nub is that, while it would replace some existing payments for superannuitants and families, those aged under 24 would receive $200 per week - a bit more than the current Jobseeker Allowance - with no strings attached, irrespective of individual circumstances.
His rationale is that, for those youth lacking basic skills and struggling, a UBI would give them the chance to move in and out of any employment they could find without having to jump through complicated bureaucratic hoops, and without it affecting their UBI.
This would facilitate general societal engagement and unpaid work experience, and be a foot on the ladder into permanent employment. While the youth UBI would replace some benefits and allowances, ultimately none would be worse off. And for those already in fulltime employment, it's no big deal because part of that $200 would then just be clawed back in tax.
But, of course, any talk about "money for nothing" always stirs the pot.
Morgan argues that we already give out all sorts of dosh for "nothing" - unemployment benefits and the like, but most notably for superannuitants.
Superannuation, he says, is simply a UBI for oldies. Ahhh, the pensioners say, but that's just part of an acknowledged social contract - namely, that you pay taxes during your working life and then the state drip-feeds you back a living allowance. Morgan says the problem is we give it to those with no need for it. But, as the argument continues, why should we pay a lazy-bones $200 a week for not even getting out of bed if he/she doesn't feel like it? And aren't there many fewer low and medium skills jobs available now? Employers complaining they can't find enough shelf-stackers, farm, horticultural or hospitality workers, builders' labourers et al, and therefore they need to be imported, seems to suggest otherwise.
Frank Greenall
Perhaps that supports Morgan's case - that currently those taking on seasonal and part-time work may actually end up financially worse off, caught in the classic welfare trap.
Some think the UBI concept is something new - not so. The 13th century Charter of the Forest - a cousin of the Magna Carta - proposed a prototype social entitlement, as did Sir Thomas More in his Utopia of 1516. In 1796, Thomas Paine - he of The Rights of Man and a progenitor of the American Revolution - called for a "capital endowment" to be given to all at age 21, and a pension at 50.
The idea has been consistently mooted ever since. Even the British government under Prime Minister Ted Heath and the United States Nixon administration in the early 1970s seriously considered it before neo-liberal economics kicked it to touch.
As commentator Steven Poole points out, the main opposition to it centres on the fear that if you just give people money "nobody will do anything anymore". But if an individual is asked if that's what they themselves would do, just couch surf, the response usually is: "Of course not, but everybody else would." Interestingly, many pilot studies in various communities have found the contrary: most ended up working more, and the downstream savings accruing from reduced stress - such as fewer health issues, less domestic violence, etc - offset the cost of the UBI itself. Others rightfully argue that these days, you need money in order to work - for appropriate clothes, travel, phone, and so forth. ■Some more UBI pros and cons next week.
