Basic income plan proposed in the UK where everyone under 55 gets $14,000

• The Royal Society of Arts said payments of £5,000 each year for two years would stimulate innovation, encourage retraining and help people who have caring responsibilities to be in a more prosperous position.
• "The simple fact is that too many households are highly vulnerable to a shock in a decade of disruption," Anthony Painter, director of the RSA's Action and Research Center, said.
• While most benefits would be cut under the scheme, the RSA said the dividends would support people through the challenges of automation over the next decade.

Everyone in Britain under the age of 55 should be entitled to £10,000 ($14,127) from the government, a leading think tank has proposed.

The report, published by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) on Friday, claimed the payments could potentially lay the foundations to all citizens eventually getting a basic state wage.

Britain's Labour Party, led by opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, has already said the party is assessing the merits of similar arguments for a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

The RSA said payments of £5,000 each year for two years would stimulate innovation, encourage retraining and help people who have caring responsibilities to be in a more prosperous position.

'Storm clouds on the horizon'

While most benefits would be cut under the scheme, the RSA said the dividends would support people through the challenges of automation over the next decade.

The research suggests pooling a new sovereign wealth fund that would be invested to make a profit. Similar basic income payments are already used in Norway, Finland and Alaska with these schemes being publicly supported by several notable advocates, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton and Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla.

"The simple fact is that too many households are highly vulnerable to a shock in a decade of disruption, with storm clouds on the horizon if automation, Brexit and an ageing population are mismanaged," Anthony Painter, director of the RSA's Action and Research Center, said.

"Without a real change in our thinking, neither tweaks to the welfare state nor getting people into work alone, when the link between hard work and fair pay has broken, will help working people meet the challenges ahead," he added.

The think tank said the payments would not be means tested, with applicants only needing to show how they intended to use the money.

Last month, Labour's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell hinted he would be in favor of a UBI for all British citizens. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said he was "deeply interested" in the idea before warning the global elite had a "moral duty" to pay their taxes.