Citizens Income (CI) or Basic Income is a benefit paid unconditionally and universally to all citizens of a country. Its level will vary with age, and those with special needs may receive supplementary benefits, but otherwise it is paid to all, regardless of whether or not they work, and regardless of their level of income. It is aimed at meeting the costs of basic subsistence, and can be seen as the modern equivalent of the right of a pastoralist to own a piece of land on which to earn a livelihood.

The great advantage of CI is that it breaks people out of the traps of unemployment and poverty.

Breaking the traps Unemployment benefit, which is soon to be replaced by the Job Seekers Allowance, and Income Support both come on condition that the recipient must be available for, and indeed, actively seeking, employment. A small "earnings disregard" allows those on unemployment benefit to earn up to #2 per day (#12 per week), and a similar mount of added earnings is possible on Income Support, but any more than that leads to loss of benefit. They may do no more that 16 hours of unpaid voluntary work per week. The effect is that claimants get the dole on condition that they do no work. If they do find work, their benefit is effectively subject to 100% marginal taxation, so that for many people, especially unskilled low wage earners with housing benefit, it is less profitable to work than to claim. For those on family income supplement, if work is to be profitable, they must get a job earning #145 per week or more, which is often quite unrealistic. Claimants are therefore caught in the traps of poverty and unemployment.

In real life, since the amounts paid out in benefits are inadequate to cover the basic necessities of life, claimants have no choice but to break the law, and to make some extra earnings "on the side" in the black market. The annual turnover of the black economy in the UK has been estimated at some #36 billion. It is the fifth largest industry in the country, and all of its activities are of course untaxed. If even 1% of this activity could be coaxed back into the formal economy, GDP would increase by #360,000,000 and tax revenue by #72,000,000 (20% of #360,000,000). If amnesties were to be offered to those who are at present working in the black economy, at the same time as offering a way out of the poverty/unemployment traps, it is reasonable to expect that many would welcome the opportunity to step back into the legitimate world. The fear of being caught out is of itself a cause of stress and therefore illness. Some action must be taken: it cannot be in the best interests of the State to have up to 10% of its economically active citizens living outside the law.

Unemployment and lawbreaking is therefore an inherent part of the present welfare state benefits system. This is an irrational and immoral state of affairs, especially when the financial, health and social costs of unemployment are counted. Citizen's income, which simply removes the condition of receiving benefit that the claimant must do no significant work, remedies this problem.

However, one of the stumbling blocks in the way of Citizen's Income is that it appears to be both radical and expensive to conventional thinking. Computer models of the introduction of CI show a high cost to the State because of the assumption that a large section of the workforce will choose not to work. Persuading public, press and politicians that this assumption is erroneous would cost time that we simply do not have: the crisis in social security is too urgent. For this reason, an alternative, gradual route to CI is presented here, introducing it as a form of Wage Subsidy which entirely sidesteps the above objection.

Dead end dole into wage subsidy Ten percent of the available workforce is suffering because they have no work to do. At the same time, there is a massive amount of vitally necessary work waiting to be done in order to protect and improve our human and natural environment. Two problems, one solution: allow claimants to take their benefit to work with them by extending the removing the 100% taxation applied to benefits when a claimant finds socially and environmentally beneficial work.

In fact, this is not a radical proposal. There are precedents in the current benefits system:
- Pensioners can earn on top of their pension.
- There is a measure in the Budget of April 1993 which allows those unemployed for more than 2 years to take employment and keep their benefit.
- There is also an "earnings disregard" which allows a claimant to earn #2 per day or #12 per week over and above the benefit level of #44.65 (1993 levels).

These are all features akin to Citizen's Income, features which we can exploit in order to introduce new thinking in a manner which is painless to orthodox thinking.

Wage Subsidy involves a small deletion of the available-for-work clause, but the implications for the economy are immense. Instead of being a dead dole, the benefit becomes a living and productive wage, an immense fillip to the real economy at no extra cost to the Treasury. True, the #25 bn. yearly cost of benefits remains, but it is turned into an investment in the creation of real wealth which will in due course repay the investment through increased tax take and many economic spinoffs.

Where new monies have to be found for capital expenditure associated with the new scheme, the Government could exercise its power to create its own money to give out as low interest loans. Whether by this means, or by more conventional borrowing, the fact remains that Keynesian investment in socially and ecologically beneficial work must be the way forward for the foundering economies of the UK and indeed, the rest of the world.