The United Kingdom: Only for Children?

The United Kingdom already has an unconditional and nonwithdraw-able income—for children. I shall therefore tell the story of how Family Allowance came about, how it became Child Benefit, and how it fares today; and at each stage of the story I shall seek reasons for why things happened as they did. Beyond hearings by parliamentary committees, there has been no legislative process relating to an unconditional and nonwithdrawable income for every adult citizen, but during the early 1970s there was an attempt to legislate a Tax Credits scheme that bore some resemblance to a Negative Income Tax. I shall draw lessons from that attempt. The Tax Credits proposal of the early 1970s should not be confused with the last Labour government’s means-tested wages supplement, which it erroneously and confusingly called “Tax Credits.” I shall then study parliamentary committee discussions of universal benefits for adults and a recent proposal for something like a citizen’s pension; and finally I shall discuss the factors that might determine whether the United Kingdom will ever legislate for a Citizen’s Income (CI).