Sounds like Citizens Income. Which sounded like Basic Wage. Which sounded like Negative Income Tax.

Worthy, but would make greater inroads if an agreed term and basic meaning was stuck to for a length of time.

Its a disgrace that the Government does nothing for those of us on little income. I live with my disabled girlfriend and we get less than 10,000 a year between us – and we still have to pay over half of the council tax because her benefits put us over the limit according to the council – i work part time and as such cannot claim carers allowance even tho i work from home. We also had her daughter move in with us and its taken the Social, Tax Credits people and the council five months to even think about sorting money out for us – dont get me started on the CSA – five months and nothing. We had all the correct paperwork sorted out within 2 weeks of her moving in. So far i have had to borrow nearly 4 grand just so that we can live like human beings and clothe a young teenager. What help have we had – nothing – what help are we liable to get – Nothing – disgusted and seriously thinking of entering into Lawful Rebellion

@astateofdenmark: it’s not really like any of those things. Those are policy ideas for reaching certain levels of income. MIS is a method for deciding on what an adequate income actually is. There are many ways of reaching such a standard, of which your suggestions are only a few.

We have had a persistent focus on child poverty and the 60% of median income relative poverty measure for at least a decade. There have been many successes relating to this but public understanding and widespread support is not one of them.

This is a very good starting point to approach the issue of fairer wages vs GDP. There remain, however, the issues of regional variation, especially in cost of living.

@Yurrzem!: absolutely. If you have a look at the minimum income calculator, you’ll see that you can alter the most variable costs such as rent and childcare and see what impact this has on the earnings required. Plus there is further discussion about this issue on the project webpage:
http://www.minimumincomestandard.org/

The standard budgets are priced in the East Midlands, which is a relatively low cost area. The point is to get a lower figure overall so that it acts as a ‘floor’ that people should not fall below. It won’t provide for everyone’s needs if they live in a high cost area (London, sparse rural) or have additional needs (for instance, some people with a disability).

But most of the budgets are made up of items that DON’T vary in cost across the country, given the pricing policies of the major supermarkets where the items are priced (this is how the people in the focus groups said it should be done).

A relative poverty line is no more abitrary than this – after all it’s very simple to disagree over what makes a life work living, at least as much as that having an income a certain proportion of that which a middle-income person has is not poverty.

Sir Head

That doesn’t sound like much fun. I hope you don’t think this too intrusive, but could you break down where your income comes from? How much is your girlfriend entitled to per year? Does the government do anything to top up your part-time income? Are you including Housing Benefit in that £10,000? The only reason I ask, is that I don’t know and would be interested to know.

@matthew: it *is* hard to agree but the 200+ people who took part in the many stages of this research importantly reached consensus. This reduces the chance of it being arbitrary. What is the similar basis for taking 60% of median? Experts in nutrition, housing and expenditure also checked the contents of budgets for adequacy, providing a further check. The relative poverty measure has value, don’t get me wrong!

Much more detail is available in the 2008 report on the JRF website.

£14.4K per annum? Wow, in my dreams. It certainly beats my £53 per week Carer’s Allowance. Do people actually get paid as much as all that? Its more than five times what I get and likely to be infinitely more when IDS’s welfare reforms abolish CA…

£14k? More than me & my two mini-monkeys rake in.

Ah, “life choices”, eh?

Still, if anyone ever feels like downloading some of me music, that’d help…?? (hint, hint)

Now here is battle for the left.

@J Midgley: Just to clarify, £14.4k is what you need to earn, gross, before tax etc. The associated weekly income standard itself is £161.41 (excluding rent and council tax) – still more than twice as much as a working-age adult with no children receives in out-of-work benefits.

Chris,

You’ll be surprised (indeed, most people here will be surprised) to know that the Adam Smith Institute rather likes your calculations. For as Smith himself pointed out, you don’t actually need a linen shirt but if the society around you says that not being able to afford one makes you poor then, if you cannot afford a linen shirt you are by the standards of that society poor. So a standard of poverty which is defined by hte society around you sounds entirely fair and reasonable.

However, the way you’ve actually done the numbers, by making them pre tax, obscures rather than clarifies.

For it obscures the effects of the tax system. If you’re on this £14.4 k (I’ve not done the numbers for this year but did do them for last year so bear with me)….

Last year’s numbers then. Take off the tax and NI paid for someone on your poverty line. What do they need to earn an hour, 37.5 hours a week, 52 weeks a year? Actually, it comes out as being (to within a few pence) the minimum wage.

Thus the problem of the low paid not having sufficient disposable income is not that incomes gross are too low: it’s that taxes paid on low incomes are too high.

Would very much appreciate it if you could start emphasising that point…..

@Tim Worstall: thanks. I saw your blog on MIS last time and thought it (and this comment) was a very useful contribution to the debate.

We have in fact funded some analysis of the issue of taxing people “into MIS” which will be published soon.

As I pointed out in the blog, the raising of the tax threshold in the June Budget did help some low earners.

PS the original title of this blog was changed to the current version by the Libcon editor.

We estimate about 1 in 4 people have to survive on less than the MIS level in the UK.

” Could you survive on less than £14,000 a year?”
It depends. Do we live in a reasonable priced, fair-rent home or have we paid off our mortgage?
Did we once have a higher income enabling us to buy all the tat society says we need/should want? Do we have lots of THINGS?

When I was a single parent on benefits in a council flat I had lots of things. Absolutely loads of books, records, cds, pots and pans, ornaments, bed linen, an expensive camera, a video recorder and tv etc etc. If you were a tabloid and visited me you’d complain about how I was living in the lap of luxury because I’d got all these things. Still only had my benefits to buy food, transport, pay utilities etc. But had all those things. Because I wasn’t always a single parent on benefit but had a paid job enabling me to buy all those things.

If, however, I’d just left ‘care’, just separated from my family, just arrived as a refugee, just left school and wanting to branch out on my own, affording a place to live, and all the things you need to make life liveable, would be a different matter. Read Polly Toynbee’s ‘Hard Work’.