IDS's slippery slope

There are reasons to be wary of Iain Duncan Smith’s proposed universal credit. There’s much that we don’t yet know about the details. It might be a way of cutting the incomes of some workers. It’s founded on the mistaken belief that people choose to live on benefits. And the idea that we can incentivize our way towards fuller employment is silly.
Despite all this, there’s something to be said for the idea. It is, as Tyler says, a step towards a citizens’ basic income. There are three moves from IDS’s scheme towards a CBI:
1. If unemployment benefits and tax credits are to be rolled together, why not throw in the personal tax allowance as well?
2. We could abandon rules about looking for work. After all, if work always pays - as IDS intends - we don’t need an expensive bureaucracy to chivvy claimants into looking for work. (There would, though, remain a case for genuine active labour market policies, of helping people into work.)
3.  If work does pay, and if people are getting the credit - the move away from the ideologically-laden word "benefits" is to be welcomed - whether they are in work or not, and if the personal allowance is part of the universal credit, then public hostility to paying benefits will decline. This should allow the universal credit to increase over time.
It is, then, quite easy, conceptually, to move from IDS’s idea towards a full-blown basic income. Of course, the question remains of how generous such an income can or should be. But that’s a separate issue. My point is that the left shouldn’t wholly oppose the principle here.

Comments

[Bruce]

Universal benefits, like CBI or topically, Child Benefit help cement the social contract. For example, Child Benefit is not money "wasted" on the rich. It's just their recycled tax money used to sweeten the pill of high taxes and seeming little tangible back in return.

[Phil]

"If unemployment benefits and tax credits are to be rolled together, why not throw in the personal tax allowance as well? "

How is that going to work - in these economic conditions, under this government - in any way that doesn't end up costing me money?

[Sam]

It would be nice if the move towards "making work pay" would defuse some of the toxic tabloid-headline rhetoric about flatscreen-TV owning benefit scroungers, so we can have a sensible discussion about the benefit system without being distracted by the corner cases.

This may be wishful thinking.

[FDUK]

Is it really a m,istaken belief that some people choose to live on benefits. I work in some very deprived communities and it takes an expert toi calculate whether someone is better off on benefits or in low paid work.

Tax credits have been a disaster because they have been so badly administered that many people are no longer prepared to claim for fear of having to pay back thousands.

If IDS can make the system simpler and more effective then more power to his elbow. Whether the Tresury will let him is another matter

[Bialik]

I don't like the way the Tories use 'universal' in two different ways, as in 'universal child benefit' (goes to everyone) and 'universal credit' (is made up of lots of separate payments). It's alright to have several meanings for one word if their use is in different contexts but this is the same context - welfare. We need to be clear about what we mean even if the government isn't. How about 'the combined credit'?

[kamagra]

Thanks for this interesting writing. I will surely try to implement the instructions that you have given through this write up. I shall make it a point to sreach about the same to others, so that the world remains a better place to live in.