No one could reasonably suggest that only a few thousand people would opt to retire early if every adult had an automatic right to a sum in the region of the present basic state pension.
Suggesting that people will decide not to work if you give them £6k a year is a ridiculous strawman.
The basic income (and the pension for that matter) aren't high enough to buy any significant assets. There's an assumption with a pension that you've already bought a home, you're not going to invest in a new car, that you're unlikely to want the latest expensive gadgets (I'm not arguing that the assumption is right, just that it's there). With a basic income being the equivalent the only people who'd use it to 'opt out' of the workforce are those who already have the assets they want and have decided they won't ever want new or better ones (a vanishingly small number who could probably opt out of the workforce now if they wanted to) and people who have decided they don't want those assets in the first place (a much larger number, but still very small in the grand scheme of things).
Every single person who has £6k x years-they're-likely-to-live could opt out of the workforce right now by your reckoning. It just doesn't happen. There's no reason to believe it would suddenly become popular if a basic income were enacted.
> Suggesting that people will decide not to work if you give them £6k a year is a ridiculous straw man.
Around 1.2 million people over the pensionable age live on only the state pension (and that has other qualification requirements). That's a little more than the number of people over 60 actually in work.
Sure, 40 year olds typically have a little more energy than 70 year olds and quite probably a few years of mortgage payments left, but I still think you can safely add more than a few thousand early [semi]retirees if you open it up to everyone and remove all qualification requirements.
Suggesting that people will decide not to work if you give them £6k a year is a ridiculous strawman.
The basic income (and the pension for that matter) aren't high enough to buy any significant assets. There's an assumption with a pension that you've already bought a home, you're not going to invest in a new car, that you're unlikely to want the latest expensive gadgets (I'm not arguing that the assumption is right, just that it's there). With a basic income being the equivalent the only people who'd use it to 'opt out' of the workforce are those who already have the assets they want and have decided they won't ever want new or better ones (a vanishingly small number who could probably opt out of the workforce now if they wanted to) and people who have decided they don't want those assets in the first place (a much larger number, but still very small in the grand scheme of things).
Every single person who has £6k x years-they're-likely-to-live could opt out of the workforce right now by your reckoning. It just doesn't happen. There's no reason to believe it would suddenly become popular if a basic income were enacted.