“The simplest way to make sure no one goes to work and spreads the virus when they should be self-isolating is to introduce that most debated of modern welfare concepts, the universal basic income – which gives an entitlement to everyone to a minimum income.”
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These news pages have looked at the future of work and services:
The future of work and leisure
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What about the Universal Basic Income?
Futures Forum: Universal Basic Income @ Radio 4’s In Business
Futures Forum: Universal Basic Income @ Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed
Futures Forum: Universal Basic Income: ‘The unexpected benefits of unconditional cash transfers’
Futures Forum: Universal Basic Income: the libertarian argument for
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And are we about to see it introduced into the UK?
Boris Johnson considers giving free cash to all | telegraph.co.uk
Covid-19 and the Need, Right Now, For a Universal Basic Income | counterpunch.org
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A couple of days ago, Robert Peston asked:
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How big and imaginative will the Chancellor’s economic rescue package be?
As one Tory minister put it to me, these principles imply that Boris Johnson will almost certainly have to oversee a government that for a good year or maybe longer will look quite socialist.
“We’ll find ourselves implementing most of Jeremy Corbyn’s programme” is how he put it.
As I mentioned, the Treasury and Bank of England will find themselves having to play God in respect of deciding which businesses to save.
And the simplest way to make sure no one goes to work and spreads the virus when they should be self-isolating is to introduce that most debated of modern welfare concepts, the universal basic income – which gives an entitlement to everyone to a minimum income.
Even Tories are talking to me about the probable need for a temporary universal basic income, to get round all that confusion of which welfare payments kick in to whom, and to save many younger people in particular falling through the existing state safety net.
Right now, what is required is decisiveness and simplicity in response. And, probably, over coming months, hundreds of millions of pounds in business grants, new credit and additional welfare payments.
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In two days, a quarter of a million have signed a petition:
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To: Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak