LONDON: People’s Parliament to host session on Citizens Income at the House of Commons

by Karl Widerquist | Feb 6, 2014 | News

TITLE: “Citizen’s Income: A minor policy change that would transform our society”
SPEAKERS: Guy Standing and Malcolm Torry
TIME & DATE: “Tuesday 4th March. 6.30pm – 8.30pm
LOCATION: Committee Room 5, House of Commons
TICKETS are available at this link.

Guy Standing

A Citizen’s Income is an unconditional, nonwithdrawable income for every individual as a right of citizenship. The withdrawal of means-tested benefits as earned incomes rise means that far too many households receive almost no benefit from additional earnings. A Citizen’s Income would change that and would therefore enable families to climb out of poverty. There is very little now that binds every individual into society. Everyone would receive a Citizen’s Income, creating a new social belonging. The labour market gives few choices to most individuals. A Citizen’s Income would increase people’s power in the labour market, and would enable both employers and workers to negotiate the employment patterns that they want.

Professor Guy Standing, SOAS, University of London, and author of The Precariat: The new dangerous class, will tell us how the need for a Citizen’s Income is increased by the growth of the precariat in the UK and elsewhere. Those in the precariat typically face economic uncertainty and pervasive poverty traps and precarity traps that remove incentives to labour and work. A Citizen’s Income is the only feasible way to provide basic socio-economic security, and would make a modest but sustainable contribution to the reduction of the high and rising level of income inequality. Professor Standing will also be able to report on the stunning results of Citizen’s Income pilot projects in Namibia and India.

Malcolm Torry, for Policy Press

Dr. Malcolm Torry, Director of the Citizen’s Income Trust, Senior Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, and author of Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income, will explain how a Citizen’s Income would have significant beneficial effects for individuals and for society, and that it is an entirely feasible policy because it could be paid for by reducing tax allowances and means-tested benefits. No additional public expenditure would be required, and on day 1 few households would notice much financial difference. It’s in the weeks, months and years after that that individuals, families, and society as a whole would experience life very differently.

For more information go to: https://thepeoplesparliament.me.uk/themes/citizens-income/.