Universal credit is no answer to growing poverty | Letters

We need universal basic income, writes William Shutt; Paul Nicholson and Baldev Sharma on the damage done by poverty and Pat Munro calls for women’s refuges to be protected

You deserve credit for drawing attention to the failings of universal credit (Report, 24 November). Yet despite all the evidence of this inadequacy, you appear to assume, like the two main political parties, that with sufficient pause such a system can be made to work in a way that is ultimately sustainable. Universal credit is unfixable. Whatever the merits of the original idea, it is astounding that the government could not have foreseen in the early stages of development that as an overall system of benefit, it would prove to be unworkable because of the large variety and complexity of cases to be dealt with, and the inevitability of frequently changing circumstances of some beneficiaries.

If the government really wants to make work pay for the unemployed, it should adopt a policy of introducing a universal basic income, payable unconditionally to all resident adults, to be set at the level of the poverty line. This is the only possible alternative to universal credit or other fluctuating, means-tested forms of benefit. Even if such a system has to be introduced gradually, it can be pursued confidently in the knowledge that basic income can be paid for out of the proceeds of rapidly advancing technology, on the basis of a fair distribution of the abundance created.
William Shutt
Leeds

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from Children | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2iY2gIr