Let's be generous and round it up to £250 billion, as some other savings might possibly be made in other areas.
The total government spending each year is £842 billion, and the cost of the UBI above (£1,000 a month) is £636 billion.
We're still about £380 billion short ... not far off half the current government budget.
Your point about cities is a good one, but I think this would actually increase the cost. It would be pretty difficult to live on £1,000 a month anywhere, but it would be impossible in some cities (definitely London!).
And while your point on revenue from other sources is valid, as VAT is about 20% here, I imagine the extra returns would be marginal.
Infact, when you consider reduced income taxes through some choosing to cut back on work/not-work, you might see these gains completely negated.
I'm not necessarily saying a UBI is a bad idea in and of itself, but it just seems impossible to implement a decent UBI due to budgetary constraints (it seems unfeasible to me).
You could feasibly pay out a UBI of something like £400 a month if you just replaced the current welfare budget with a UBI, but £400 a month isn't much, and this also ignores the fact that this would massively disadvantage people who were previously reliant on the welfare system for all of their income (perhaps due to inability to work).
https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2018UKbt_17...
Let's be generous and round it up to £250 billion, as some other savings might possibly be made in other areas.
The total government spending each year is £842 billion, and the cost of the UBI above (£1,000 a month) is £636 billion.
We're still about £380 billion short ... not far off half the current government budget.
Your point about cities is a good one, but I think this would actually increase the cost. It would be pretty difficult to live on £1,000 a month anywhere, but it would be impossible in some cities (definitely London!).
And while your point on revenue from other sources is valid, as VAT is about 20% here, I imagine the extra returns would be marginal.
Infact, when you consider reduced income taxes through some choosing to cut back on work/not-work, you might see these gains completely negated.
I'm not necessarily saying a UBI is a bad idea in and of itself, but it just seems impossible to implement a decent UBI due to budgetary constraints (it seems unfeasible to me).
You could feasibly pay out a UBI of something like £400 a month if you just replaced the current welfare budget with a UBI, but £400 a month isn't much, and this also ignores the fact that this would massively disadvantage people who were previously reliant on the welfare system for all of their income (perhaps due to inability to work).