Thompson, M; (2020) Universal Basic Income as emergency measure and enduring reform. (Heseltine Institute Working Paper ). Heseltine Institute, University of Liverpool: Liverpool, UK.

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Abstract

Universal Basic Income – or UBI – is being promoted across the political spectrum as a potential emergency response to COVID-19. It is being discussed by many around the world as a more effective way of addressing immediate needs, in the wake of business closures, job losses, falling incomes and rising destitution and inequality, as well as a possible stimulus package for economic recovery as restrictions on mobility and consumer spending are eased in the following months. It has great potential to not only provide a safety net during the pandemic but also give people the economic security they need to flexibly seek out new employment, training and entrepreneurship opportunities or continue important care work. Part of its appeal is its simple administration as a universal payment to all citizens without costly and complicated means-testing. It could provide emergency income support quickly to all those who need it – plugging the gaps in the patchy coverage offered by the Government’s existing support schemes. In the long run, studies show that UBI can deliver a number of benefits – notably eradicating poverty and homelessness, dramatically reducing inequality, alleviating stress and mental illness, reducing crime and domestic violence, and empowering employees to demand better working conditions and seek more meaningful and socially valuable work, even providing an alternative source of sustenance in the purported transition to a fully-automated post-work society. However, the evidence is mixed and based on partial experimental data. Studies demonstrate that UBI cannot do everything expected of it by its very diverse proponents with political visions pulling in divergent directions. The multiple benefits imputed to UBI are often in direct tension with one another. These tensions mean that it is unlikely UBI can be delivered effectively whilst also remaining affordable and without compromising its celebrated ability to simplify the tax-benefit system. This working paper explores the potential pitfalls of institutionalising UBI as both emergency measure and enduring policy. It was originally written for the Lib Dem Business and Entrepreneurs Network taskforce as a briefing on the role UBI may play during and after the crisis, but speaks to wider debates about its origins, efficacy and prospects. The paper argues that emergency basic income seems necessary to protect livelihoods during the crisis – but that questions remain over what form it should take, how much, how long and how universal. If used too hastily during the pandemic UBI could pose health risks in encouraging people to start spending too soon, increasing exposure to the coronavirus. If used as economic stimulus coming out of the lockdown, it could consolidate prevailing trends in consumer behaviour and working patterns to strengthen the competitive position of large online retailers and tech giants like Amazon, threatening small businesses. Although UBI would have a positive impact on the growing consumer debt crisis – precipitating a debt jubilee – it cannot alone reform the underlying structural causes of mounting debt, falling real wages and diverging income shares between asset-owners and workers. UBI risks becoming a public subsidy for asset-owners – especially Silicon Valley and the emerging platform corporations of the digital economy to continue exploiting gig workers and zero-hour contractors while extracting value from the free labour that produces data and avoiding paying the taxes required to fund a UBI in the first place. UBI could offer the financial support people need to continue doing the socially valuable yet under-valued work of caring for children, the elderly and vulnerable, as well as domestic labour in the home and volunteering in the community – work often done by women. But UBI does not necessarily lead to greater gender equality, a more equitable division of labour or a revaluation of the paid and unpaid work done in society. Other, more structural reforms to work, tax and welfare systems are required. This working paper argues that an alternative in the form of Universal Basic Services (UBS) could probably deliver much more effectively many of the benefits often claimed for UBI. UBS is a more direct way of providing for basic human needs – shelter, food, transport and digital connectivity, alongside healthcare and education – through publicly-funded services, coordinated democratically though socialised markets at the local level. For UBS to make the impact hoped for, it would need to be complemented by considerably enhanced state investment in Universal Basic Infrastructure (UBIS), technological innovation, place-based industrial strategy, lifelong education, skills training and jobs creation. UBI can then act as a short-term measure to deal with immediate epidemiological and economic crises, and medium-term transitional bridge towards a more long-term vision for a renewed public realm and entrepreneurial state.

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