One point of confusion for me, that I hope someone with a sounder economics background than myself can address, is:
Would the national unconditional basic income render the national minimum wage effectively 0 (or much lower than it currently is)?
For example, corporations could be taxed more heavily if they could offer their lowest paid positions a wage of £2 per hour. This extra taxation would then help fund a national basic wage (equivalent to say £5) which would leave a low-skilled worker earning £7 (roughly what they were before). I had assumed that any such 'basic income' scheme would be so prohibitively expensive as to require such drastic means, just to find the money, however I haven't seen any such changes mentioned in many of the articles discussing the relative merits of the Swiss proposal.
As an aside - for those saying: "What if people don't spend the money responsibly?" - Isn't that, somewhat idealistically, a large part of the point of the scheme?
The scheme would encourage responsibility, rather than treating people like children? Yes things like addiction (to Gambling, Drugs etc...) throws a spanner in the works of this - but charities and support groups exist to tackle this kind of issue already - they could continue to do so, with one critical difference. Charities could do a lot more with less if their workers were earning a basic income from elsewhere, and could afford to give their time for less ££.
Would the national unconditional basic income render the national minimum wage effectively 0 (or much lower than it currently is)?
For example, corporations could be taxed more heavily if they could offer their lowest paid positions a wage of £2 per hour. This extra taxation would then help fund a national basic wage (equivalent to say £5) which would leave a low-skilled worker earning £7 (roughly what they were before). I had assumed that any such 'basic income' scheme would be so prohibitively expensive as to require such drastic means, just to find the money, however I haven't seen any such changes mentioned in many of the articles discussing the relative merits of the Swiss proposal.
As an aside - for those saying: "What if people don't spend the money responsibly?" - Isn't that, somewhat idealistically, a large part of the point of the scheme?
The scheme would encourage responsibility, rather than treating people like children? Yes things like addiction (to Gambling, Drugs etc...) throws a spanner in the works of this - but charities and support groups exist to tackle this kind of issue already - they could continue to do so, with one critical difference. Charities could do a lot more with less if their workers were earning a basic income from elsewhere, and could afford to give their time for less ££.