Malcolm Torry: “A variety of indicators evaluated for two implementation methods for a Citizen’s Basic Income”

Malcolm Torry. Credit to: The Back Road Café

In a partnership between the Citizen’s Income Trust and the London School of Economics, Malcolm Torry, Director of the Citizen’s Income Trust and General Manager of BIEN, authors and presents a new study on the implementation of a basic income in the UK.

This study, referred to as a working paper, details two potential implementation models for a basic income, and looks into their consequences with respect to several social and economic indicators, including “poverty and inequality indices, tax rate rises required for revenue neutrality, household disposable income gains and losses, household’s abilities to escape from means-testing, and marginal deduction rates.”

The implementation models examined were, first, a basic income to all UK citizens, funded by the existing tax and benefits system, which would maintain the means test but introduce new thresholds and, second, a program that would be phased in by increasing the UK’s Child Benefit and allowing all new sixteen-year-olds to keep that benefit for life.

According to Malcom’s analysis, both models are feasible and beneficial in terms of the above indicators. Notably, estimated losses would be insignificant to households in the lowest quintile, and still relatively insignificant when considering all households. Additionally, in both cases, income tax rates would not need to be raised more than 3% in order to finance the basic income scheme roll-out.

More information at:

Malcolm Torry, “A variety of indicators evaluated for two implementation methods for a Citizen’s Basic Income”, Euromod Working Paper Series, May 2017