THE SOCIAL DEBATE​

What if everyone were entitled to a universal basic income?

What if everyone were entitled to a universal basic income?

News that a universal basic income (UBI) is to be trialled at two locations in England, paying 30 people £1,600 a month regardless of their work, has sent shockwaves through the tabloids.

“Something for nothing” is the way working-class Conservatives have always described out-of-work benefits, with the implication that those receiving them were “spongers”. The idea of actually paying people a good subsistence wage, whether they work or not, is – well – just not capitalism.