The rise of the Green Party as we head towards the May general election has resurrected the idea of a Citizen’s Income, a universal income paid to all British citizens regardless of means or employment status. The idea is an old one, and has an impressive list of advocates.  Putting aside the net cost for one moment, the idea has obvious advantages from a welfare state perspective. Every one of us has the permanent guarantee of a certain basic level of income. Looked at purely from a benefit perspective the argument is likely to split along the traditional divide. If there is a genuine opportunity, however, to promote use of the income as an entrepreneurial platform, a universal seed investment mechanism that gets even just a small percentage of new ventures or endeavours off the ground, then we can perhaps get a broader consensus on its worth.

Before looking at the income as an entrepreneurial platform, a recap of the benefits and likely net costs. The appropriate amount provided by a Citizen’s Income is clearly debatable, but let’s use the numbers proposed by the Citizen’s Income Trust. This suggests £56.25 per week for those under 24, £71 per week for 25-64 year olds and £142.70 for those 65 and over. So, a provision around the current level of jobseeker’s allowance for the 25-64 year old group and an amount between the current and future flat-rate pension for the over 65s. These seem sensible numbers. Add it all up and you get a total annual bill of around £276 billion.

The central idea of the Citizen’s Income is that it replaces a host of existing benefits and payments, including: the state pension, personal allowances (income tax), national insurance, working tax credits and child benefit. The long list totals around £272 billion, so on this measure, assuming the numbers are roughly right, the idea appears around cost neutral. It’s not quite as simple as that, however, because some poor families could be worse off if they received only the Citizen’s Income. This question is partly answered by the Citizen’s Trust here ‘A Citizen’s Income: The poor will not necessarily be worse off’ but let’s allow for the fact that it’s not necessarily perfectly cost neutral. The numbers suggest, however, that implementation of the idea would not be prohibitively expensive.

From the benefits side, it’s worth mentioning that because everyone receives the income, the stigma of ‘Benefits Street’ is much reduced. As I’m sure some will point out, it’s still true to say that those in employment and paying taxes are the ones footing the bill, but there’s a certain Spirit of ’45 element to everyone getting the same. The other big advantage is the simple nature of the system. Simple to administer and much less vulnerable to fraudulent claims because it doesn’t rely on means-test judgements.

So from a cost-neutral(ish), elegantly simple, stigma-free challenge to the existing benefits systems, how might we use a Citizen’s Income to think big. I think the clue to the opportunity lies in the rightful fuss around unpaid internships. Too many jobs with an impressive career trajectory – for both status and pay – increasingly start with unpaid internships. This is fine if you are independently wealthy or if you’re from a family who is willingly to support you in the early years. But they are effectively closed professions for the great majority of people who don’t fit that category. They simply can’t survive a prolonged period without pay. Notwithstanding that it seems right to continue to pressure both corporations and professions to end this practice, a Citizen’s Income would help to overcome the problem directly.

The big prize, however, is expanding the concept of unpaid internships to entrepreneurial activities and start-ups. If we can find ways to encourage enough of those not currently working to use the opportunity of a basic, guaranteed income to take risks, to invest their time in activities and ventures with possibly no immediate big pay-offs, then we can genuinely regard the Citizen’s Income as an engine of entrepreneurial activity, new venture, and therefore job, creation.

This is easily said, and it would need Britain’s heavyweight serial entrepreneurs to help develop a plan to ensure that not everyone used the income to make Countdown or Richard and Judy their specialist subject. But if just 5-10% of those currently out of work, those who would otherwise be pressured through the current benefits system into a likely low-pay job that they’d rarely escape, used the opportunity to start businesses or ventures that need a reasonable runway then we could genuinely look at the Citizen’s Income as something much more than a cost-neutral overhaul of the benefits system.

The key facet of the Citizen’s Income in this regard is that there is no benefits trap. You get the same money whether you work or not. Suddenly you have both a survival-mode income and the prospect that anything that a new venture brings in goes straight to you. You don’t lose anything by being successful. And you only have to look at the examples of JK Rowling and Oasis to get an idea of what a basic income can produce. I think Noel Gallagher has said that his best work was done when he was on the dole.

To re-emphasise, simply providing everyone with a Citizen’s Income would not be enough to spark an entrepreneurial renaissance. We need ideas for how to complement this income platform with a new venture support system and it’s got to pass the scrutiny of serial entrepreneurs. It would need a majority of them to agree: yes, I can genuinely see enough people getting off their arses and starting enough successful ventures that it wouldn’t just be cost neutral but a genuine engine of job and wealth creation. I’ll leave thoughts on this for future blogs. I think it could work though.