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14 to 24 may be the most vulnerable of all since the Second World War. Their mental health has been affected by a global financial crisis, a decade of austerity and now the Covid pandemic. For young people in the north, the position is especially acute. Decades of deindustrialisation, failure to invest in infrastructure and wholesale cuts
to public services mean that pathways out of poverty, inequality and abusive relationships have been cut off. Now, more than ever, young people are dependent. 

Our research suggests that the answer to this problem is extremely simple: give people free money. Universal basic income (UBI) is a system of regular, secure, unconditional cash transfers to all citizens. People get paid whether they work or not, whether they have savings or not. We argue that every adult citizen ought to be entitled to annual payments to the tune of the minimum income standard: about £12,000 a year. That’s a cost to the Exchequer of about £650-£700 billion a year.