Malcolm Torry

Institute for Policy Research University of Bath

Torry explores a variety of different ways in which terms are defined: according to current usage; by a list of characteristics; and by a legitimate authority. These methods are then employed to construct definitions of ‘Basic Income’ and of a variety of other terms. Such concepts as ‘guarantee’, ‘unconditional’, and ‘universal’ are discussed, foll...

Mays and Torry discuss the social effects of Basic Income in terms of a safety net that stretches beyond economic security. Such social effects as social cohesion and inclusion, and a sense of community and solidarity, are discussed at the level of the individual, the household, the community, and the society as a whole, and the chapter closes with...

This chapter discusses the two most useful methods for analysing the financial effects of Basic Income schemes. Microsimulation modelling combines household survey data on incomes and various other financial characteristics across the population with information about how the tax and benefits system operates and about how the Basic Income scheme wo...

Tentative conclusions are drawn: The Basic Income debate is increasingly extensive and deep; Definitions must be clear; Three questions characterize the current debate: Is Basic Income a good idea? Is it feasible? How would we implement it? The questions need to be answered in every different context; It will always be a particular Basic Income sch...

Huws, Torry, and Yi consider the impact on the labour market of the current wave of technological innovation. They consider changes in the quantity and distribution of jobs as well as qualitative shifts in employment that have affected the economic security of workers. In this context of significant change and uncertainty, the authors explore wheth...

Torry asks whether a Basic Income would be feasible in relation to several types of feasibility: financial (Would it be possible to finance a Basic Income? Would implementation impose substantial financial losses on households?) psychological (Is the idea readily understood, and understood to be beneficial?) administrative (Would it be possible to...

This chapter explores four different ways of funding a Basic Income. Stewart Lansley envisages funding Basic Incomes through a citizens’ wealth fund, financed by taxes on wealth, without the need to raise taxes on earned income. The fund could pay a citizen’s dividend, and then a Basic Income. Geoff Crocker argues that the only way to fund an adequ...

For anyone new to the subject of Citizen's Income, or who wants to introduce friends, colleagues or relatives to the idea, this valuable guide will be essential reading, offering a convincing case for a Citizen's Income and a much needed resource for all interested in the future of welfare in the UK.

The European Union’s principle of subsidiarity – that decisions and activity should be as local as possible – suggests that the EU’s task is to support national social security systems, and where necessary to provide coordination, but the complexity involved in any relationship between different countries’ welfare systems means that is difficult to...

In 1982, I was a curate in the parish in which stood the headquarters of the UK Government’s Department of Health and Social Security. The Department invited me to their summer school, a stimulating gathering of staff members, academics, and others. The overall aim was to debate policy options that would be revenue neutral, that is, that would requ...

A Citizen’s Income is always an unconditional and non-withdrawable income for every individual as a right of citizenship; but there is an infinite number of possible Citizen’s Income schemes, where by ‘scheme’ we mean the Citizen’s Income, the age thresholds chosen, the Citizen’s Income rates for each age group, and the changes made to existing tax...

Governments are expected to keep tax rates low at the same time as protecting the poor from poverty. Governments are particularly expected to protect children, older people, and those with disabilities. So the ‘targeting’ of scarce resources on those sections of the population that most need help is going to be attractive. The problem is that to ta...

For thirty-four years I worked full time in the Church of England’s ministry in wonderfully interesting parishes in South London. Five times I was granted periods of study leave of varying lengths so that I could write articles and books on metaphysics, the Citizen’s Income debate, the history of workplace chaplaincy, and the management of religiou...

It is not enough to recommend a new tax and benefits system. We also need to know how to get from where we are now to the system that we wish to arrive at. This is not to say that transition must be easy; it must simply be possible, and not too difficult. In the UK, the transition from domestic rates to the Community Charge, and then to Council Tax...

An interesting fact about the Citizen’s Income movement around the world is that individuals from right across the political spectrum are involved in it, from neoliberals, through centre-right parties, centre parties, and centre-left parties, and then on to genuine socialists. Interest among socialists in particular is no surprise. Socialism is abo...

Precedents are a good reason for doing something, because if something has worked before then something like it might work now; and a precedent means that an idea might be given the benefit of the doubt until it is proved that it won’t work, and this might oil the wheels of the political process. In the UK, the National Health Service and state-pro...

Because the return on capital is greater than the growth of the economy, the gap between wages and the proceeds of productivity is increasing. Less of the proceeds from production is now recycled back into industry via wages and consumption. The results are more people on low pay and means-tested benefits, fewer people feeling connected to the econ...

‘Fraternity’, being a male-oriented word, is now perhaps better expressed by the term ‘social solidarity’. This would make ‘liberty, equality and social solidarity’ the motto that the French Revolution bequeathed to France. Social solidarity is perhaps even more difficult to define than equality and liberty. We can tell when it has broken down, but...

The debate about a Eurodividend is now an important element of the Basic Income debate, so like the rest of that debate it needs clarity of definition, careful distinctions, and good evidence. In this chapter, a Eurodividend is defined; the difference between a Eurodividend and a Eurodividend scheme is discussed; and the different effects of differ...

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines a ‘social minimum’ as ‘that bundle of resources which suffices in the circumstances of a given society to enable someone to lead a minimally decent life’. The Commonwealth Fund in the USA has ranked different OECD healthcare systems in relation to a number of characteristics, and this chapter broadens...

This chapter is based on a working paper published in 2019 by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. The last sections of the paper have been updated on the basis of working papers published in 2020 and 2021. The chapter summarises the results of microsimulation research on Basic Income schemes undertaken by this...

A genuine pilot project must match the characteristics of a Basic Income scheme that could be implemented nationwide. Any financially feasible Basic Income scheme would need to alter a country’s existing tax and benefits systems, so for a genuine pilot project to take place, the country’s tax and benefits systems would have to be altered, or new ta...

This chapter explores various aspects of the recent debate on Basic Income. It discusses financial feasibility; a variety of feasibility tests; and then several different routes that Basic Income might take from concept to implementation: (a) ‘replacement’—a Basic Income for everyone legally resident in a country, implemented all in one go, with at...

This chapter is made up of three articles. The first two respond to the ‘We can’t afford it’ objection, the first in general terms, and the second by being clear about the difference between ‘Basic Income’ and ‘Basic Income scheme’, which objectors to Basic Income rather too often confuse with each other. A Basic Income is always an unconditional i...

The United Kingdom (UK) already has an unconditional and nonwithdrawable income—for children. This chapter tells the story of how Family Allowance came about, how it became Child Benefit, and how it fares today; and at each stage of the story, reasons are sought for why things happened as they did. During the early 1970s, there was an attempt to le...

This chapter describes different ways of categorising feasibilities, and then discusses several different feasibilities in relation to the question as to whether a Basic Income would be feasible to implement. The different feasibilities discussed are as follows: (a) financial (Would it be possible to finance a Basic Income? And would implementation...

This introductory chapter describes the origins of the book in previously published chapters and articles and previously unpublished conference papers, explains the rationale and plan of the book, and draws some general conclusions related to definitions and research.

‘Capitalism’ has a variety of meanings. These are listed, and implications for the Basic Income debate are discussed: 1. Capitalism is ‘the possession of capital or wealth’, and it exhibits increasing levels of inequality. Only Basic Income schemes that reduce inequality should be implemented. 2. Capitalism is ‘an economic system in which private c...

This chapter asks about the factors that determine political decisions about tax and benefits systems in the UK in order to evaluate the political feasibility of reform options for the income maintenance system, and in particular a shift in the direction of the Living Wage and a shift in the direction of universal benefits. By studying a number of...

This chapter explores a variety of different ways in which terms are defined: according to current usage; by a list of characteristics; by a legitimate authority on the basis of normative considerations; or by a legitimate authority on the basis of current usage. These methods are then employed in order to construct a variety of definitions of ‘Bas...

The chapter explores a variety of different ways in which words are defined, and these methods are then used to define the terms ‘unconditional’ and ‘universal’, and, on the basis of the definitions constructed, relationships between the two terms are discussed. How the terms are used in the current social policy debate is explored via case studies...

A brief history of the Basic Income debate in the UK is offered, followed by descriptions of three significant incidents that illustrate how evidence from research can be abused or ignored.The Basic Income debate in the UK is found to have been characterised by an educational approach, and in particular by the ubiquity of research on financial feas...

This chapter describes the current debate as to whether a Basic Income should be defined as an unconditional income sufficient to live on (somehow defined) or simply as an unconditional income. A distinction is drawn between Basic Income as an unconditional income, and a Basic Income scheme, which specifies the levels of Basic Income for different...

A Basic Income scheme is a Basic Income, with levels for different ages specified, funding methods specified, and accompanying changes to tax and benefits systems specified. Different schemes can have very different effects: for instance, on affordability, on the redistribution of disposable income, on poverty, on inequality, on employment incentiv...

What is a Citizen's Basic Income? A Citizen's Basic Income is an unconditional, automatic and nonwithdrawable regular income for each individual legally resident. (A Citizen's Basic Income is sometimes called a Basic Income or a Citizen's Income.) • • ‘Unconditional’: A Citizen's Basic Income would vary with age, but there would be no other condit...

An efficient economy The financial crisis that began in 2008 has revealed that there is something not quite right about the way that we run our economy: reckless bank loans; debt being sold as a commodity; governments supporting the banks and reducing public expenditure; an increasing proportion of the proceeds of production going to capital, and a...

The message of this chapter is similar to that of the last one: our tax and benefits structure should reflect today's family and household patterns, and should remain serviceable as household and family patterns continue to change. So we shall begin with a discussion of the ways in which households and the family have changed during the past half c...

We start with some notes on terminology and on graphs. Chapter 1 then sets the scene by asking you to imagine yourself trying to solve the financial crisis, to imagine some representative people trying to cope with our tax and benefits systems, and to imagine yourself creating tax and benefits systems in a country without them. Chapter 2 offers a h...

In this article ‘Basic Income’, ‘Basic Income scheme’, ‘experiment’ and ‘pilot project’ will be defined, and Basic Income pilot projects in Namibia and India will be distinguished from Minimum Income Guarantee experiments in the USA and Canada and the ambiguous pilot project in Finland. The conditions for running a genuine Basic Income pilot projec...

This paper will explore a variety of aspects of the current debate on Basic Income in the UK. It will survey the different kinds of research that have been carried out, and will identify where research results have informed the debate, where they have been abused, and where they have been ignored. It will discuss the importance of clear definitions...

This chapter explores the concept or idea of “basic income” in relation to the growing work on reference budget standards, particularly in relation to the Minimum Income Standards (MIS) findings in the UK context. It confirms whether basic incomes should be paid to every individual at MIS levels or whether a Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme as a...

Research into minimum income standards and reference budgets around the world is compared in this illuminating collection from leading academics in the field. From countries with long established research traditions to places where it is relatively new, contributors set out the different aims and objectives of investigations into the minimum needs...

A brief history of the Basic Income debate in the UK will be offered, followed by descriptions of three significant incidents. The Basic Income debate in the UK is found to have been characterized by an educational approach and in particular by the ubiquity of research on financial feasibility. Conclusions will be drawn in relation to the requireme...

A Citizen's Basic Income, sometimes called a Basic Income, a Universal Basic Income, or a Citizen's Income, is an unconditional and nonwithdrawable income paid to every individual. The purpose of this paper is to summarise the results of microsimulation research on Citizen's Basic Income schemes undertaken by this author during the past fifteen yea...

“This Handbook offers a timely ‘snapshot’ of the fast-moving global debates on Basic Income. Embracing a range of ideological, ethical, historical and cross-national perspectives, it looks at the case for Basic Income through both a focused and a wide-angled lens. Rather than asserting hard and fast conclusions, it ends with the valuable message th...

In the five years since Money for Everyone was published the idea of a Citizen’s Basic Income has rocketed in interest to an idea whose time has come. In moving the debate on from the desirability of a basic income this fully updated and revised edition now includes comprehensive discussions on feasibility and implementation. Using the consultation...

This chapter discusses the past and current state of the debate on the Citizen's Basic Income. It begins with the Poor Law of 1601 to the era of means-tested benefits. In particular, it cites William Beveridge's 1942 report which proposed a comprehensive system of National Insurance Benefits and centrally administered National Assistance. It then t...

This chapter describes a number of Citizen's Basic Income pilot projects and other experiments. It first considers the social dividend (a form of Citizen's Basic Income) distributed in Alaska, known as Alaska Permanent Fund dividend. The dividend has increased personal income, and therefore consumption and employment. The chapter then turns to Iran...

This chapter examines various objections to a Citizen's Basic Income, such as: people should not be paid for doing nothing; immigration would go up; people would not work; we cannot afford it; it would cause a hike in public expenditure; the money could be better used on other things. Another objection is that if means-tested benefits are abolished...

This chapter examines three policy proposals with characteristics similar to those of a Citizen's Basic Income: Negative Income Tax, genuine Tax Credits and Participation Income. It first considers the Tax Credits scheme proposed by the UK's Conservative government in 1972, and which was close to a genuine Tax Credits scheme before discussing Negat...

This chapter examines the changing employment market in the UK and suggests that a Citizen's Basic Income is appropriate to any future scenario. It first considers the economic efficiency of a Citizen's Basic Income and how a Citizen's Basic Income would facilitate a more flexible employment market, resulting in a more efficient allocation of labou...

This chapter considers four different methods for implementing a Citizen's Basic Income. The first is ‘all in one go’, which abolishes means-tested benefits. The second is ‘all in one go’, but retains means-tested benefits. The third option is gradual roll-out, in which Child Benefit would no longer be payable beyond the sixteenth birthday; that is...

This chapter examines the changing family patterns in the UK and argues that a benefits system containing a Citizen's Basic Income would go a long way towards meeting the needs of families and households, now and in the future. It first considers the ways in which households and the family have changed during the past half century, citing the ‘flex...

This chapter summarises the main arguments for a Citizen's Basic Income. It first defines Citizen's Basic Income (sometimes called a Basic Income or a Citizen's Income) as an unconditional, automatic and nonwithdrawable regular income for each individual who is a legal resident of the UK, explaining in particular why it is unconditional, automatic...

In the five years since Money for Everyone was published, the idea of a Citizen's Basic Income has rocketed in interest to an idea whose time has come. In moving the debate from the desirability of a basic income, this fully updated and revised edition now includes comprehensive discussions on feasibility and implementation. Using the consultation...

This chapter asks the reader to imagine some representative people trying to cope with the UK's tax and benefits system, and then to imagine themselves creating a tax and benefits system in a country without one. In the first scenario, inflation is low, forcing the government to print some extra money and to give equal amounts to every citizen. Peo...

This chapter discusses the ways in which a Citizen's Basic Income would reduce poverty and inequality. It first considers how the word ‘poverty’ makes the measurement of the extent of poverty problematic, and suggests an alternative definition that focus on removing the barriers to social inclusion. It then explains how a Citizen's Basic Income sch...

This chapter discusses the ways in which a Citizen's Basic Income would translate into a benefits system that is coherent, simple to administer, and avoids error and fraud compared to means-tested benefits. It argues that the current tax and benefits structure does not fit together, with different sets of rules for means-tested benefits, National I...

This fully updated and revised edition includes new material to move the debate around Basic Income on from one of desirability to that of feasibility and implementation.

This is an addendum to EUROMOD working paper EM 12/17, which updates, corrects and extends the previous evaluation of an illustrative Citizen's Basic Income scheme. Debate about Citizen's Basic Income-an unconditional and nonwithdrawable income for every individual-has shifted in character. An earlier phase related to the proposal's desirability; t...

The paper will explore a variety of different ways in which words are defined: according to current usage; by a legitimate authority on the basis of normative considerations; by a legitimate authority on the basis of current usage; or via a prototype. These methods will then be employed in order to define the terms ‘unconditional’ and ‘universal’,...

Religion is increasingly significant in UK society, and is highly significant for many patients and primary care practitioners. An important task for the practitioner is to ensure that the place of religion in the patient/practitioner relationship is treated with the same ethical seriousness as every other aspect of that relationship. The article f...

Citizen’s Basic Income – often called ‘Universal Basic Income’ or simply ‘Basic Income’ – is an act of grace. It is an unconditional income paid automatically to every individual as a right of citizenship and operates on a similar principle to the National Health Service – free at point of use for every legal resident. As a national social policy,...

This chapter provides some of the conceptual tools that we need if we are to study religious and other organisations and understand the kinds of relationships that we need to build between them. It defines ‘religion’, ‘institution’, and ‘organisation’, understands both religion and society as institutional realities, and locates religious organisat...

This chapter discusses a second type of financial feasibility: one related to households’ finances rather than to governments’ finances. If at the point of implementation of a Citizen’s Income scheme low-income households were to suffer losses in their disposable incomes, or any households were to suffer significant losses, then the Citizen’s Incom...

Because a Citizen’s Income might take longer than a single parliament to legislate and implement, all-party support will be required. The chapter finds that every mainstream ideology can and does generate arguments for a Citizen’s Income. The same arguments against a Citizen’s Income can be found generated both in theory and in practice by most of...

This first of two introductory chapters summarizes reasons for wishing to see a Citizen’s Income established. Someone receiving means-tested benefits finds that as earned income rises, their benefits income falls, making it less than worthwhile to seek employment or to look for a better job. A Citizen’s Income would never be reduced, making it more...

This second of two introductory chapters introduces the different feasibilities that will be tested in the following chapters, and asks how the different feasibilities might relate to each other, how they might combine to create a general feasibility, and how we might construct feasibility tests. Whether feasibility predicts implementation will be...

This chapter asks whether Citizen’s Income is fiscally feasible—that is, whether it can be paid for. Two scenarios are discussed: (a) Citizen’s Incomes funded from within the current tax and benefits system with no additional public expenditure; and (b) Citizen’s Incomes funded from new taxes or from government money creation. Feasibility under sce...

This is perhaps the easiest feasibility test for Citizen’s Income to pass. In the UK, such universal benefits as Child Benefit and the Winter Fuel Allowance are the easiest type of benefit to administer; and among health services, the universal ‘free at the point of use’ National Health Service (NHS) generates fewer administrative problems than oth...

This feasibility test requires households’ situations to improve after implementation, which they would in relation to the secure financial floor that a Citizen’s Income would create, the loss of bureaucratic intrusion into intimate relationships and household activity, the greater ability to turn increased earned income into increased disposable i...

This chapter returns to the question of the relationship between the different feasibilities, and concludes that policy process feasibility is crucial and that the other feasibilities might also need to be in place for successful implementation. The chapter also recognizes that the policy process is not entirely rational, that new social policies t...

Feasibility tests based on such presuppositions as ‘the rich don’t need it’, ‘if people earn more then their benefits should be reduced’, ‘people won’t work if you just give them the money’ are failed by universal benefits. It might be true that Citizen’s Income would pass psychological feasibility tests based on existing universal benefits, but th...

The feasibility test here is whether Citizen’s Income can negotiate the journey through the policy-making process from idea to implementation. The policy process is constituted by policy networks and communities; think tanks and other institutional players; the government, Parliament, the civil service, and trades unions; and such self-interested p...

Workplace chaplaincy has been a sustained institutional approach to the relationship between religion and a secular world. This chapter tells some of the story of workplace chaplaincy in the UK; discusses the Christian churches’ institutional involvement in the Thames Gateway, and particularly with its workplaces; and describes examples of relation...

This is the second of two chapters that study mediating institutions in residential communities. Case studies from South London show that churchbased community centres can be important mediating institutions, and that religious buildings are essential to the relationship between religious organisations and residential communities. Foodbanks and rel...

This is the first of two chapters that contain case studies of mediating institutions in residential areas. The chapter discusses the many different ways in which religious organisations and residential communities relate to each other, describes a variety of residential communities in the Thames Gateway, and explores the ways in which the churches...

This chapter summarises the lessons learnt from the wide variety of communities, organisations, and mediating institutions that the book has studied, and the many different ways in which mediating institutions can enable the religious and the secular to relate to each other, religious organisations to relate to secular organisations, religious inst...

This chapter asks about those institutions that mediate between the religious and the secular across entire societies: faith schools, educational and other chaplaincies, established religions, church reports, church-based umbrella organisations, inter faith fora, marriage, and state-funded organisations designed to relate faith communities to each...

This explicitly theological chapter prefers the term ‘City of God’ to ‘Kingdom of God’, discusses the character of the City of God, and asks how mediating institutions can enable both the Church and our cities to become signposts towards the City for which we hope. How the Christian Church can fulfil the task of mediating the City of God in a multi...