I read with interest the recent piece in the Property Chronicle entitled “Universal Basic Income Decimates Big Cities”. The thought of UBI as a modern-day Godzilla stomping across our city landscapes decimating all in his path is one that I find illogical, for a number of reasons.
Universal basic income, along with modern monetary theory, are two of the most misunderstood economic concepts of our age. The view of giving people money for nothing is one that emotes great passion in those who believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
I have some sympathy with this, having been brought up in a small colliery village in Yorkshire where my father, uncle and both grandparents worked underground. Hard, dangerous, dirty work, families being relieved every day at the safe return of their loved ones from another shift a thousand feet underground with a million tons or more of earth above them held at bay by a series of pit props.
Would my family members and their colleagues have supported the concept of UBI? I believe they would, for the very simple reason that if anyone got injured or was unable to work for a period of time, sometimes months, sometimes years, the community came to the rescue. No one was left hungry or without shelter, shoes were found for the children, clothes for the parents, bills were paid, and people looked after their own. There was no feeling of people not able to work being less valid than anyone else. ‘We’re all in it together’ was the attitude binding everyone together.
UBI offers a security blanket to people looking to move to cities; it takes away the barrier of cost that almost kept me in my home town
Yes, I know this isn’t the same as people being fit and able to work being ‘supported’ by the state and even those in work being given extra. It is about coming together, and this is what UBI strives to achieve. I am yet to see a government suggest that UBI be an alternative to work. The whole purpose of UBI is to give people security and certainty of an income, no matter what the situation in which they find themselves. We’ve seen an increase in the number of people taking on more than one job, and people on zero-hours contracts – UBI gives a little comfort that at least some money is coming in.
There is no evidence from the various trials undertaken in Canada or Finland that UBI is a decimator of ambition or a draw card away from cities. Why do people move to cities? Why are we a city-led global economy? For the same reasons we stopped our nomadic exploration of the world – people are at heart social animals; we like to be with others who hold similar ideals and passions.
The value in UBI is that it would draw people to the city – my first job in London paid enough to rent a room (50% of my income), travel to and from work (25% of my income) and eat and drink (25% of my income). I had no excess money; every month my bank balance would drop to pennies until the 28th came around again and replenished my meagre coffers. If I’d had UBI I would most certainly have spent it, with retailers, in restaurants, bars, improving my knowledge, travelling. Providing income to the businesses that surrounded my place of work and residence. The money would flow through my hands to theirs and onto the next.
UBI offers a security blanket to people looking to move to cities; it takes away the barrier of cost that almost kept me in my home town (admittedly in the Cotswolds when I left home, as opposed to the mining village). I could have stayed at home and had more money than I did for many years in London. I and many others didn’t move to the ‘big city’ because of the big salaries on offer (in my case they weren’t); we moved there and continued to live there because of everything that make a city what it is. Having an income to support people as they decide where to live and later on in their lives to support their families is a refreshingly sensible idea.
Universal basic income’s benefits include improving people’s health, which diminishes their reliance on and cost to the NHS, and minimising the need to commit petty theft in order to survive, thus reducing reliance on the police and eases overcrowding in our prisons. It also eliminates the complexity and cost of administrating a means-tested system. One of the unseen, until now perhaps, benefits is the incentive it creates to people wanting to move to our cities. It makes city life more attractive; it creates income flow and supports the businesses that have been particularly challenged because of the pandemic.
UBI is not a decimator of cities; it is a driver of life in cities.
