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A Citizen’s Income could make zero-hours contracts useful

The employment market is becoming more flexible – but is this a good thing?

It sometimes is as far as the employer is concerned. In a restaurant in which the number of customers varies from day to day, it can be efficient for the employer to employ people when demand is high, and not to employ them otherwise. So ‘zero-hours’ contracts – which pay people to work when required to do so, but otherwise do not – can be efficient for the employer.

Provided that such contracts are not restrictive – that is, as long as they enable the employee to decline to work a shift if it is offered at short notice, and as long as they do not prevent someone from accepting other employment – they can also be efficient for the employee, particularly if they are a student or they have varying caring responsibilities. The only problem with such contracts is the varying wages that they pay: a problem compounded by the current benefits system. The calculation of means-tested benefits – whether in-work benefits or out-of-work benefits – takes into account the level of earnings. Where successive calculations are designed to be rare events, and to set a benefit level for a lengthy period, it can be difficult to decide precisely what to count as someone’s wage level if their pay changes rapidly. Where calculations are undertaken monthly (as with the UK’s new Universal Credit) keeping up with changing earnings from a variety of sources can be impossible.

The only solution is to abandon such calculations and to pay a Citizen’s Income. This would provide an income floor on which people could build a variety of zero-hours contracts and other earnings. They would never again have to declare their earnings to an administrator, and never again would an administrator wonder how to calculate the correct amount of benefit.

At the time of writing, there is talk of prohibiting zero-hours contracts. Some employees would regret the end of a type of contract that suits them. Zero-hours contracts need to be non-restrictive, and they need to come with better employment conditions, but abolition is neither necessary nor sensible.

For most of us, full-time secure employment will remain the norm, and there are reasons for thinking that a Citizen’s Income would make it more common; but for some people, for some of the time, zero-hours contracts can be useful. To turn them into a positive experience, all that is required is the financial security that a Citizen’s Income would help to achieve.

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About the Book

101 Reasons for a Citizen’s Income offers a short, accessible introduction to the debate on a Citizen’s Income, showing how a universal, unconditional income for every citizen would solve problems facing the UK’s benefits system, tackle poverty, and improve social cohesion and economic efficiency. For anyone new to the subject, or who wants to introduce friends, colleagues or relatives to the idea, 101 Reasons for a Citizen’s Income is the book to open up debate around the topic. Drawing on arguments detailed in Money for everyone (Policy Press, 2013), it offers a convincing case for a Citizen’s Income and a much needed resource for all interested in the future of welfare in the UK.