Labour credit
An hour of work counted against a member's quota. The accounting that lets a community treat cooking and earning as equally valuable.
Financial terms in this field mean different things in different communities, so treat every one of them as a question rather than a definition. Ask for the paragraph in the agreements, ask what the figure was last year, and ask what happens to a member who cannot pay. A community that answers all three from memory has a working economy; one that answers none has an intention.
A labour credit is one hour of work, recorded against the total a member is expected to contribute. Systems differ in the detail, but the principle is constant: an hour is an hour, whether it was spent running a business that earns the community money or cooking dinner for thirty people.
That equivalence is the whole point, and it is a deliberate rejection of how the surrounding economy values work.
Why a community would bother
Without some accounting, the work that gets noticed is the work that produces money or takes place in public. Childcare, cleaning, remembering that the insurance renews, and sitting with someone who is struggling all disappear — not because anyone decides they do not matter, but because nothing counts them.
A credit system makes them countable. In practice this tends to have two effects a group can feel within months: the people doing invisible work stop feeling invisible, and the group discovers how much of it there actually is.
What it costs
Bureaucracy, and the risk of turning a household into a timesheet. Members log hours; somebody administers the log; disputes arise about what qualifies. A community of ten does not need this and will resent it. A community of ninety with a common purse has few alternatives.
Most communities land somewhere in between, with a stated work quota and no formal credit accounting — trusting members to meet it, and dealing with shortfalls as a conversation rather than a balance.
Sources & further reading
- 1 Twin Oaks Community — FAQs — 38.5 credits a week, and what counts toward them
- 2 What daily life actually looks like — the work that never reaches a rota
Written by EcoHubs members, with AI assistance for drafting and editing, and reviewed by a person before publication. Facts are checked against the sources listed; anything we could not verify is marked. How this is written
Related terms
A single pot all member income flows into and all needs come out of. The defining feature of an income-sharing community, and a minority arrangement.
The hours a member is expected to contribute each week. Whether anybody counts them says more about a community than the number does.
A community that shares income and usually property, so membership means economic interdependence rather than proximity.