Basic income: why we need to start talking about money

Cleo Goodman co-founded the Basic Income Conversation and is also the basic income lead at Autonomy, an independent think tank. We caught up with Cleo at the 23rd Basic Income Earth Network Congress, recently held at the University of Bath, to discuss the importance of discussion, narrative and respecting the opinions of others when trying to shift the policy conversation on social protection in the UK.

Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Why did you start the Basic Income Conversation?

Cleo Goodman: We felt that basic income is an idea that needs to be talked about and understood at every level. It would affect everyone, and everyone has their own insight into how it would play out. The only way they can share that insight is if they feel confident talking about it. So we decided to create tools, communities and spaces where people could have those conversations.

BTS: Where did you go from there?

Cleo: We launched the Basic Income Conversation in April 2020, and two weeks later Covid-19 kicked off. Overnight, we went from a narrative that said people need to earn their own living, to a narrative that said we need a universal system to get money to people right now. It really felt like politicians were starting to understand basic income like never before.

We saw this shift, and we got to work. We started petitions, coordinated open letters to the prime minister signed by hundreds of politicians, and have since worked on lots of projects. We’ve always wanted to work at the intersection between civil society and basic income campaigning – and this was that opportunity.

BTS: What projects did you start working on?

Cleo: We started projects on mental health, on farming, and lots of other cool stuff on the ground. The biggest projects we've done are the two-year community consultations in Jarrow, in northeast England, and Grange, which is a community in north London.

We spent two years working with the locals and a group of volunteers there to speak to the community about basic income and to see if they liked the idea – which they did. There was so much energy in both communities that we spent that two-year period designing some pilot proposals, bringing on Northumbria University as the research partner.

We launched the proposals last year and they went a bit viral. They were globally recognised, which was really exciting. Now we’re trying to line up investment to carry them out. But, whether or not they actually happen, that project has shown us just how much appetite there is for a basic income in the UK. We're hoping to move from conversation to demonstration, finding ways to put cash in people's pockets and demonstrating the real-world impact that happens when you do just that.

Sometimes people leave with their minds completely changed – and sometimes they don't. But that's democracy. That's the way these things should go

BTS: So did you just rock up to Jarrow and say, “let’s have a town hall about basic income – everyone’s invited”? I mean, how did those conversations start?

Cleo: We met some folks from Local Trust. It’s the lottery-funded charity that ran the Big Local programme, which gave 150 areas across England and Wales £1 million each to spend over 10 years. They introduced us to people in the areas they work in, and we started having conversations with them.

We have this conversation format that’s outlined in the Basic Income Conversation Toolkit. Essentially, it asks people how their lives would be different if they had a basic income.

After starting the conversations with people in several different areas, we decided to keep talking with the people in Jarrow and Grange. The people in these areas had found this idea really captivating and wanted to do more, so it evolved naturally after that initial conversation. They had this amazing energy and it was such a privilege to follow it and work with them.

BTS: Where have you found pushback rather than enthusiasm?

Cleo: We've had a Conservative government for most of the time we’ve been doing this work. So of course there’s been pushback. We’ve written lots of letters to the PM, and the answer is usually, “Universal Credit is great and we don't need to change anything”.

This is the biggest pushback that we usually get, which is less than it could be. But we all know that Universal Credit is not enough.

So much of this is about countering narratives about who is deserving and who isn’t. Doing this in a conversational format is such a beautiful way to navigate questions of deservingness, because you can have pushback but also still have an interesting conversation about it. Sometimes people leave with their minds completely changed – and sometimes they don't. But that's democracy. That's community. That's the way these things should go.

BTS: How do you navigate a conversation when there are such strong beliefs about who deserves this kind of support and who doesn’t?

Cleo: The main question we ask in these conversations is how would life be different? We ask people to put all objections aside for just a second and imagine what life would be like if they had this unconditional income.

I think being in a group and hearing the different responses to that question really helps people to reframe what it means to deserve a basic income. I'm still always surprised at how much goodwill and connection happens in these conversations. People arrive as strangers, and then they get into these incredibly intense and heartfelt conversations about how financial insecurity affects their lives and their choices.

We've had people say, I'd have had more kids if I had a basic income. Or, when I was incredibly unwell, that was the most depressing part of my life. Not just because of my health, but because of how my lack of income affected my quality of life and my feelings about myself. It wouldn’t have been so bad if money had still been coming in.

Bringing that personal experience into it takes us out of the ideological space. And we come to a place where, generally, we can agree that we are all people who deserve to have our needs met regardless of anything else.

It’s so culturally accepted to feel that we and others don’t deserve to have our basic needs met

It's a massive privilege to sit in on those conversations and watch them unfold. They're always different. The combination of people is always different. And even when people still disagree with the idea at the end, the space to explore the concept is very productive.

Sometimes we get resistance from people. They might say, ‘I don't need that’, or ‘I'm not deserving of it’. When that happens we gently challenge them. We might remind them that they had just said that they’ve never felt secure, for example, or that they have always struggled to meet their basic needs. Or that they wanted to invest in a car or feel comfortable paying rent.

We hold a mirror up and suggest that they do deserve those things. It’s so culturally accepted to feel that we and others don’t deserve to have our basic needs met. And these conversations are the polar opposite of that.

BTS: What’s the biggest challenge you face in scaling this project up?

Cleo: There is so much appetite for this movement. Everyone I meet finds the idea captivating and would like to do more on it. But while we have hundreds if not thousands of very willing volunteers, we only have a very small handful of people in paid jobs. And we don’t currently have the funds to expand our work.

Investment in actually getting basic income projects off the ground is definitely our biggest challenge. We just don't have the infrastructure to properly support the movement, because we don’t have the investment.

I think this is mostly a reflection of the discomfort that people and institutions with power feel around unconditional money. To me, there’s a kind of institutionalised objection to it.

In terms of selling it to the public, you have to put on a brave face. People laugh at the concept because they think it’s idealistic. But even if people say it's silly, approaching them about it still gets the idea in front of them. If you can hold them there long enough to explain why it's a serious option that could actually work, then the conversation can organically develop and you have a path forward.

Holding attention is key. It’s been easier to get the public’s attention than it has been to get investors’ attention, but hopefully that will follow.

BTS: What kinds of arguments do you use for UBI in conversations with policymakers?

Cleo: I think arguing for basic income as an upstream measure can be very compelling. By that, I mean seeing it as prevention rather than treatment. There’s abundant evidence to suggest that being poor is bad for your health. Anyone who’s ever worked with people living in poverty, or has experienced poverty themselves, knows that most interventions are pointless if someone doesn’t have enough money to live on.

The other argument we often use when talking to policymakers is efficiency and affordability. We have a lot of good evidence in the UK to indicate that a revenue neutral, low level base income could reduce poverty to historic lows. In the policy space, these kinds of arguments get us much further than warm and fuzzy niceness.

BTS: Last question. You've been doing this for a while now. What is the single biggest lesson you've learned from talking to people about a basic income?

Cleo: The biggest lesson is talking with people not at them. I know that's a bit of a cliché, but we don't need to argue our way into convincing people of a basic income. I’ve seen how powerful it can be to just give people space to work it out for themselves.

If people have an initial gut reaction or a bit of discomfort with the idea, that's fine. That’s natural. It is such a massive idea, and it’s so different from how we currently do things, that initial skepticism can be expected. The best thing to do is to give them the space to ask questions and not take them as criticisms, but instead to treat them with curiosity.

Explore the rest of the series

This series looks at the specific challenges that campaigners face when arguing for universal basic income in highly individualised and neoliberal contexts like the United States and the United Kingdom, and how they work to overcome them.