I was delighted to read that England is planning to run a 2 year long trial of UBI (Universal Basic Income) in 2 geographical areas. Given the number of positive results from trials across the world already though, I do hope trials aren’t being used as a way of avoiding ever implementing UBI for real!
But the thing that pleased me most with this proposed trial was that the participants within those areas would be selected randomly. The case for UBI is most often on providing a safety net for people who can’t work or are not paid enough for the work they do to meet their basic costs of food, warmth and a roof over their heads. It would be wonderful if UBI could solve that crisis without people having to endlessly prove they are desperate enough and deserving enough to receive state benefits in unhelpfully dependent and humiliating ways.
In contrast, a few years ago I read a mass of survey data on what people across the UK (if given UBI) would use it for. Many said it would give them the ability to get better qualifications or retrain for different work of the kind they would be more interested to do – nursing, social care, engineering and teaching being some of the ones mentioned. Some said it would take away the risk of starting up their own business. Others said UBI would enable them to work part time or not all so that they could care for their kids, a sick or disabled family member or their elderly parents. This, as it happens, could reduce the load on our struggling care system. Others who are artists (of every kind) would jump at the chance to be able to practice as artists (visual, musicians, performers, film makers, writers, poets, etc) without having to spend most of their time in unrelated jobs simply to pay the mortgage. How much richer our society would be with more art of every kind. Ditto, people who said they’d prefer to work for social enterprises or even as a volunteer in their community as this is work they consider much more fulfilling to them because it would be making a tangible difference to the community they live in rather than supporting large corporations from whom wealth is rarely redistributed in ways that benefit society.