Universal basic income – The Green Tau

Counting on … 156

2nd October 2025

How do we ensure that work is used to do good things and not bad things?

As individuals and as households, we can make within the limits of our own domain – although we nevertheless be impacted by the decisions of others. The moral choices we make will be affected by our culture, our upbringing and our faith.

Outside our domain, what work happens and how it is encouraged or not, will depend more on the aims of businesses and corporate organisations, governments and legislation. Traditional economic theory tells us that businesses make their decisions solely on the basis of profit. Governments on the other hand may be seen as ‘systems responsible for governing an organised community, established to serve the collective needs and interests of their populations’ (1) or ‘to serve the interests of its rulers, be they monarchs, dictators, aristocracies, or ruling classes.’ (2)

Taking the former definition, there is also an onus on governments to control or organise businesses so that their pursuit of profit is not at the expense of others. Nevertheless pursuit of profit does seem to be the biggest determinant of what work is undertaken because it is the pursuit of profit that determines how much people are paid for each job, and the ‘profit’ value may differ from what is of value for the welling being of the society. Looking at pay levels, CEOs and senior officials are earning an average of £104,000 (and up to several million for the CEOs of banks, fossil fuel and water companies) but are there jobs really more valuable to society than the work of farm workers, cleaners and and nursery nurses who earn between £17,000 and £27,000? (3)

Could the CEOs do their work if it wasn’t for the large number of low paid workers who ensure that food is grown – and transported to the shops and stacked on shelves and dispatched to homes via delivery vans? Could the CEOs do their work if no one cleaned their offices, mended the electrics, or maintained their IT? Could the CEOs do their jobs if there weren’t nurseries and schools for their children, if there weren’t taxi drivers and traffic wardens and car mechanics getting them safely to work?

Having a UBI would at the very least give more equal value to the the work people. If it was financed through higher taxes for those with higher pay packets, then that too would redress the balance of the social value of work.

(3) https://www.unionlearn.org.uk/compare-average-pay-job

https://www.unionlearn.org.uk/compare-average-pay-job

Counting on … 154

30th September 2025

What is a ‘universal basic income’? What are its benefits?

A universal basic income is a social welfare payment paid to all citizens with either a means test or a requirement to complete any sort of work. As a full basic income, it should be sufficient to cover basic needs. (That said, some people with specific needs might need a higher rate to cover their living costs – eg if they were disabled and needed additional support or equipment).

The idea behind the UBI is that everyone in that society will have enough to live on – is that lower limited of the economic doughnut will have been secured. It allows some people to pursue voluntary work – caring for the young or the elderly, working on conservation projects etc. It allows people to take jobs with low pay – such as artists and cleaners – but might there be an argument here to say such jobs should be better paid even if that means higher prices or higher rates. It allows people with stressful jobs to work shorter hours and spend more time relaxing. It ensures security of income for people whose work is seasonal – fruit picking, local tourism etc.

There are clear benefits to society as a whole – the population will be healthier both physically and mentally. This is good in itself. It means people can work better. It reduces costs for health care. It can increase sales of non luxury goods as more people have the money to spend on essentials. Evidence from small scale trials suggests that with the UBI safety net people spend time finding a job they like and are suited to and then become more reliable committed workers.

Perhaps more importantly it allows people to feel valued and be happy and fulfilled.

“Humans need to do work that feels valuable, psychologically,” says Cleo Goodman, a UBI expert at the thinktank Autonomy. “It’s baked into us. It is complete nonsense to suggest that there’s a faction of society that just wants to sit around on the sofa all day, drinking beer and watching TV. We want to spend a fair amount of our time doing something that makes us proud.” (1)

Some people do argue that UBI would lead to people avoiding work, or not working as hard, big I wonder if that would be so? When we are children, everyone asks what do you want to be when you grow up? Getting a job or a role that you want, a job that you will enjoy, is seen as a sensible and worthwhile objective and one which motivates us. For many of us, the jobs we choose are vocational: we choose them not because of the financial reward but because we would not be happy doing anything else.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/14/money-for-nothing-is-universal-basic-income-about-to-transform-society

Counting on … 153

29th September 2025

Another way – or rather a parallel way – of reducing the inequality between rich and poor (so enabling us to live within the inner and outer limits of the doughnut) is to ensure minimum pay rates that are sufficiently generous to enable a good level of wellbeing. In this regard the ‘real living wage’(1) should be a minimum. The current real living wage is £12.60 per hour (outside London) which for a 35 hour week equates to £22,050 per annum.

But how generous is that – is it just a necessary minimum?

According to the calculations of Raisin (2) a comfortable salary for a single person would be £28,018. But add in a young child, and that income would need to increase to £51,363 – or for a couple and one young child, a joint income of £65,810.

And equally what if you earn the real living wage but are only able to get 20 hours a week?

An alternative would be to pay everyone a basic income, paid for from taxation, to ensure that no one falls through the safety net of not having enough income to sustain a reasonable standard of living.