Imagine this …

Wages have continued to stagnate, so people are either spending and getting into debt, or they are not spending. But inflation is still low, so the government decides to print some extra money and to give equal amounts to every citizen. Some of it gets spent on goods and services, creating employment; and some of it is saved and contributes to investment. As the economy picks up, inflation starts to rise, so the government decides that it can no longer print money: but we have got used to receiving an unconditional income, so the government reduces the Income Tax Personal Allowance and continues to pay equal amounts of money to everyone. Disposable incomes are now back where they were before the government printed extra money, but things are now different. People who had been on means-tested Jobseeker's Allowance are now on lower amounts of it, so lots of them decide that they have had enough of bureaucratic interference in their lives and they come off benefits and look for paid work. Often a part-time job, or part-time work and a bit of self-employment, will be enough to top up their Citizen's Basic Income. Starting a business looks more attractive than it once did: after all, nobody is going to take away their Citizen's Basic Incomes, so they will always have that to rely on. And someone on ‘Tax Credits’ or ‘Universal Credit’ now receives a Citizen's Basic Income, which is not taken away as their earnings rise, so they look for a better job, or they do a training course so that they can look for a better job, and their partner also looks for paid work or starts a small business – it was not worth their doing that before because so much of the household's ‘Tax Credits’ or ‘Universal Credit’ would have been taken away if they had.

Families now feel more secure, they are in control, they can make choices that they could not make before, and for many families there are no forms to fill in, no more interviews, no more questions about who is living with whom, no more signing on, and no more investigations into how much they are earning.