Universal Basic Income: What Would It Mean for Disabled and Long Term Sick?

The thing I keep coming back to is what happens to people who fall in the middle.

If UC is replaced with a flat UBI, and LCW and LCWRA disappear because the Greens see the current system of means testing and assessments as complicated, punitive, stressful and unfair, then there is no real recognition left for people who are unwell but do not meet the threshold for PIP. It becomes a simple yes or no system where either you qualify for PIP or you do not.

At the moment the Green Party is the only party openly floating a full UBI, but this is not about them or any political party. I am interested in the proposal itself, because once an idea like UBI is being talked about, other parties often start looking at it too. That is why I am focusing on what the policy would mean in practice.

My worry is that someone who is too unwell to work but does not qualify for PIP could end up with only the standard UBI, which is the same amount someone fit and able to work would get. Right now they would usually get LCWRA because they are not expected to work. Without that, their situation is not recognised at all.

It is also hard to ignore that the Greens have talked about a UBI of around £89 a week, which is less than the current UC standard allowance. That does not give much confidence that it would be enough to live on, especially for someone who cannot top it up by working.

That is the real concern for me. In trying to simplify everything, the system could become too flat, and people with real limitations who do not fit neatly into PIP criteria could end up with less support than they have now.

I agree, JessieJ. I don’t think UBI would work for a lot of long term sick claimants.

PIP would stay exactly what it is now, a payment for the extra costs of disability, based on how someone’s condition affects their daily living and mobility. That covers things like equipment, care, transport and other needs directly linked to a person’s condition. It has never been meant to cover ordinary living costs, and UBI wouldn’t change that. The assessment would stay the same and people would apply in the same way.

What disappears is LCWRA. That’s the part of the system that recognises when someone is too unwell to work. Under a flat UBI, that recognition simply isn’t there. Everyone is treated the same, whether they are unemployed, long term sick, or fit and working. The system doesn’t ask and it doesn’t distinguish, so it has no way of recognising people who are too unwell to work.

And that’s intentional. The whole idea behind UBI is to get rid of means testing, the WCA, groups, reviews, all of it. But once you remove all of that, you also remove every way of identifying who is long term sick. The system can’t see them because it’s designed not to look. It also saves a lot of money on administration, which is part of the appeal.

The outcome is pretty simple. Someone who is fit and working gets UBI plus their wages, so it’s a nice boost for them. Someone who’s too sick to work gets UBI and nothing else. The same flat payment that helps one person get ahead becomes a limit for someone else. And because the system no longer has any way to recognise their situation, there’s no way to fix it.

In my view, that’s a basic flaw in a flat UBI model. A single payment might look fair, but it removes the ability to tell the difference between very different circumstances. Without that, the system can’t respond to variations in health, capacity or support needs, and the results end up being far less fair than they look on paper.