I posted one of my usual articles here a couple of weeks ago pointing out that if you add up all the cash benefits paid out (incl. state pensions, excl. housing- and disability-related benefits); the value of the tax -free personal allowances; add on all the 'welfare for the wealthy' tax breaks; and then distribute that total pot equally across the UK population, you end up with something like £180/week for pensioners, £90/ week for working age adults and £45/week per child (+/- £10, no point arguing over precise numbers). Disability and housing top-ups can stay as they are for now.
To reduce 'churn', people would then have a straight choice between a) claiming the tax-free personal allowance, which most working age adults would do, and b) claiming the Basic Income amount. You can tweak the numbers to ensure that people in steady jobs are slightly better off sticking with the personal allowance.
I then tweeted a link at Citizen's Income Trust, inevitably, the usual left wing argument came up: "So you are just redistributing between people on low or no incomes?".
To some extent yes, but so what? How is this an argument against? If we got accustomed to the Basic Income system, then there would be (say) five million working age claimants, getting £95/week each. If some innumerate lunatic suggested weeding out some subjectively 'undeserving' recipients and paying the remaining 4 million people £119/week each and letting the rest starve (for the same total cost), wouldn't that also be "redistributing between people on low or no incomes?"
How is that better? Marginal utility suggests that you reduce poverty most by paying everybody the same, end of. And seeing as part of the point of any welfare system is to reduce social unrest/improve social cohesion and give people the impression they are all equal citizens (same as one man, one vote), why not have a system where nobody can claim that one group is being favoured and some other group being disadvantaged?
This cuts both ways. Current claimants can't be stigmatised, they just get it as a basic entitlement. The unemployed and single parents have also the same right to vote or use the NHS as everybody else, AFAIAA. Daily Mailexpressgraph reading stay-at-home spouses get £90/week plus £45/week for each child as well, so they've no excuse for looking down on single parents etc.
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