ATD Quart Monde sponsors UN Panel on UBI

The solidarity movement, ATD Quart Monde, which works with poor communities living in first world countries, has organised a panel at the United Nations with Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Philip Alston, devoted to the theme of a universal basic income.

Thirteen governments from all world regions as well as three UN agencies and fifty NGOs took part in the program on 8 June 2017.

ATD Quart Monde's reports notes that the idea has not raised great hopes nor excessive enthusiasm with both advantages and disadvantages being recognised.

Among the advantages it listed:

1. Reducing stigmatisation of the poor;

2. Enabling everyone to live in dignity and to have access to the necessary minimum;

3. Giving more power to people who would not be in a situation of dependency or insecurity;

4. No longer living below the poverty because of a system that discourages initiatve.

On the other hand, potential risks included:

1. Fear of being permanently excluded from the world of work.

2. Would not enable people to be integrated into society, to be recognised and to develop themselves.

Hence, any policy of UBI would need to form part of an overall policy to eradicate extreme poverty.

SOURCE

Un revenu universel de base : une solution pour mettre un terme à la misère ? (ATD Quart Monde)

What about UBI for women in South East Asia?

UBI might be one way to both empower women and reduce hunger in South East Asia, argues Tamara Nair, Nanyang Technological University.

"My research focuses specifically on women from the region who live below the poverty line, which, for East Asia and the Pacific, the World Bank defines as living on less than US$3.20 a day," she writes at the Huffington Post.

"Women are primarily seen as wives and mothers, a gender stereotype reinforced in both everyday experiences and in the theological texts of the main religions in the region.

"By giving women the financial freedom to act as “agents” of development in the region, universal basic income could be a tool that ultimately paves the way for their future economic and political involvement.

"This process would start with something simple (and seemingly uncontroversial): women being able to put food on the table," Nair proposes.

"If women were provided with sufficient income to feed their families, it would translate into better nutrition, health and general well-being for children and others entrusted in their care, and by extension, their communities.

"Tacked onto the state’s existing social safety nets, UBI can give much needed specific attention to women’s broader economic empowerment, which is vital to a developing country’s growth.

"The first step toward doing so in Southeast Asia would be to identify women living below the poverty line.

"Accessible through cheap mobile phones, this money can be used to purchase food and other basic necessities in participating shops, which may be incentivised to participate with credits or subsidies of their own," she says.

Zuckerberg praises Alaska model

On a visit to Alaska, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has once again backed the development of UBI.

"Alaska has a form of basic income called the Permanent Fund Dividend," he wrote. "Every year, a portion of the oil revenue the state makes is put into a fund. Rather than having the government spend that money, it is returned to Alaskan residents through a yearly dividend that is normally $1000 or more per person. That can be especially meaningful if your family has five or six people.

"This is a novel approach to basic income in a few ways. First, it's funded by natural resources rather than raising taxes. Second, it comes from conservative principles of smaller government, rather than progressive principles of a larger safety net. This shows basic income is a bipartisan idea," he continued.

He also linked the development of UBI to a profit-making society.

"Seeing how Alaska put this dividend in place reminded me of a lesson I learned early at Facebook: organizations think profoundly differently when they're profitable than when they're in debt," he added.

"When you're losing money, your mentality is largely about survival. But when you're profitable, you're confident about your future and you look for opportunities to invest and grow further. Alaska's economy has historically created this winning mentality, which has led to this basic income. That may be a lesson for the rest of the country as well."

Zuckerberg also highlighted another form of basic income developed by the Native Corporations. 

"In Alaska, native land is owned and developed by private corporations, which are run and owned by Native Alaskans. These corporations also pay out annual dividends to their shareholders, who are largely natives, based on the resources they develop.

"So if you're a Native Alaskan, you would get two dividends: one from your Native Corporation and one from the state Permanent Fund," he concluded.

SOURCE

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103857892105091

Canadian island province to try UBI

Canada's tiny St Edward Island province  has unanimously voted in favour of trialling a universal basic income for its citiziens in partnership with the national government, The Independent reports.

According to the successful bill, every citizen will receive a basic income in an attempt to reduce or "potentially eliminate poverty in the province".

Green Party leader in Prince Edward's legislature, Peter Bevan Baker, proposed the motion with support of all three other parties.

Mr Bevan Baker told CBC: "A universal basic income could enable the greatest unleashing of human potential ever seen."

The national Canadian government will use the pilot to weigh up the benefits against the heavy costs. The details of how the pilot will be implement have yet to be finalised.

SOURCE

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/canda-universal-basic-income-prince-edward-island-pilot-programme-a7462916.html

Hawaii passes UBI bill

Australia debates UBI

Australia's Green Institute says that leaders of the Federal (Opposition) Labor Party should review their opposition to a universal basic income, the Guardian Australia reports.

On the other hand, the Australian Green Party has argued a universal basic income should be considered in conjunction with a four-day working week.

The Green Institute has released a new paper, Views of a UBI: Perspectives from Across Australia, that records the views of different Australians on universal basic income (UBI), a contentious policy idea that is slowly gaining international currency.

However, Chris Bowen, the shadow treasurer, argued forcefully against a UBI during a speech to the progressive thinktank PerCapita, calling it a "terrible idea" adding that Labor should not give up on the principle "of ensuring dignity through work."

Tim Hollo, the executive director of the Green Institute, challenged this view.

"Might we not actually be better off heading towards what John Maynard Keynes was talking about almost 100 years ago, that we should, by this stage, be looking at a 15-hour working week and re-evaluating our ideas of employment and paid work?" he asked.

READ MORE

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/15/universal-basic-income-could-greatly-improve-workers-lives-report-argues

EU funds basic income pilots

The Barcelona district of Besós has been picked to test a €13 million European Union funded pilot scheme investigating “innovative and creative solutions” to urban poverty, The Local reports.

Barcelona was chosen alongside Utrecht in the Netherlands and the Finnish city of Helsinki to test the scheme, which will see the poorest residents in each chosen district given grants for two years to lift them above the breadline.

In the B-Mincome experiment, 1,000 randomly selected low-income households in the Besós district will be given grants of between 400 and 525 euros a month for two years.

Those taking part will be divided into four distinct groups and given the grants in different forms as a way of analysing the ways in which low income families can be best helped.

FULL STORY

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/universal-basic-income-scheme-trials-barcelona-utrecht-helsinki-finland-spain-netherlands-a7768351.html

UBI to be tested with 26,000 people in East Africa

The time has come to find out whether UBI is effective, argues Michael Faye at LinkedIn.

" In 2017 we plan to launch the largest and longest evaluation of a basic income yet conducted, studying the effects of a 12-year income guarantee delivered by the NGO GiveDirectly to 26,000 individuals in East Africa using random assignment of villages," he says.

"Studying a program of this duration will let us unlock key questions - for example, does making a long term commitment of support matter, or is it simply cash in hand (which is already well-studied) that matters?

"And the size of the transfers will be enough to enable transformational life changes, not merely incremental improvements in standards of living.

"By coordinating research activities across projects, we will be able to gain insight into the extent to which findings from one setting can be generalized to another.

"We may learn that a universal basic income is a universally bad idea. We may find it suits the needs and circumstances of some economies but not others. Or we may find it the universally liberating force of which its most ardent supporters dream," Faye concludes.

SOURCE

Basic income could transform society. But first, it needs to be tested. (LinkedIn)

Robert Reich on the need for UBI

Robert Reich, who was Secretary for Labor in the Clinton administration, explains why he believes UBI will be needed.

Explore UBI: Zuckerberg

In his commencement speech at Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg added his name to the list of technology pioneers calling for exploration of the universal basic income.

"Every generation expands its definition of equality," Zuckerberg said. "Previous generations fought for the vote and civil rights. They had the New Deal and Great Society. Now it’s our time to define a new social contract for our generation.

"We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things.

"We’re going to change jobs many times, so we need affordable child care to get to work and health care that aren’t tied to one company. We’re all going to make mistakes, so we need a society that focuses less on locking us up or stigmatizing us. And as technology keeps changing, we need to focus more on continuous education throughout our lives.

"And yes, giving everyone the freedom to pursue purpose isn’t free. People like me should pay for it. Many of you will do well and you should too," Zuckerberg said.

READ MORE

Mark Zuckerberg’s full commencement address at Harvard, the school he left to start Facebook (Quartz)

Freeing the poor from the anxiety of poverty

"In a nation so contorted at times by its Calvinistic impulses, public assistance has come to be seen not as a hand-up to struggling families but as a paternalistic mechanism for “takers” and “abusers” that contributes to so-called cycles of poverty," writes Kevin Clarke at US Catholic.

"Increasingly even modest assistance to the poor has been challenged—healthcare, for example, is seen not as a human right but as a market commodity deliverable not on the primacy of need but the ability to pay," he says.

"What if the problem of how public assistance is offered is not that it promotes dependency but that it is so parsimonious—and provided with so many confusing strings attached—that it merely maintains the misery? What if public aid could be truly liberating instead of incapacitating?" Clarke asks.

"It is hard to imagine a program of poverty mitigation that is as well directed toward those ends than a basic income. It frees the poor not only from need but also the gnawing, exhausting anxiety of poverty and the tyranny of a perplexing social apparatus that has been constructed around poverty alleviation," Clarke concludes.

FULL ARTICLE

Can a basic income liberate the poor? (US Catholic)

UBI tests show positive results

The most entrenched criticism of UBI is that too many would exploit a guaranteed income to sit on their hands, grinding the economy to a halt buthere are signs that this is too gloomy a view, New Scientist reports.

For four years beginning in 1975, the 10,000 citizens of Dauphin in Manitoba, Canada, were guaranteed a basic level of financial security: if their monthly income dropped below a certain level, the government would top it up. Support for this experiment soon dried up, and it was never properly analysed.

Evelyn Forget at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg recently revisited the experiment, comparing public records from Dauphin with those from similar small towns. Forget found the only groups that spent less time in work during the trial were teenage boys and new mothers. The boys were staying in school rather than bowing to pressure to take agricultural jobs, and the mothers were nursing. What’s more, Dauphin had noticeably lower hospitalisation rates and fewer depression-related illnesses.

Other tests are also now taking place in the Netherlands and private firms are also looking at the idea, New Scientist says.

SOURCE

What happens if we pay everyone just to live? (New Scientist)

Basic income a necessity: Yanis Varoufakis

Finnish UBI pilot reduces stress

Citizens receiving a basic monthly income as part of a radical Finnish pilot scheme have seen a reduction in their stress levels, according to local officials, the Independent reports.

Under the scheme, 2,000 people receive 560 euros every month for two years. Recipients do not have to report whether they are seeking employment or how they are spending the money, which is deducted from any benefits they are already receiving.

Marjukka Turunen, head of KELA, the legal unit at Finland's social insurance agency, said as well as cutting bureaucracy, reducing costs and tackling poverty, the scheme was having an indirectly positive effect on people's mental health.

“There was this one woman who said: ‘I was afraid every time the phone would ring, that unemployment services are calling to offer me a job," Ms Turunen said.

The woman was not able to work because she was caring for elderly parents.

Under the pilot, if a participant finds work, they will continued to receive the stipend, easing claimants' fears they will lose out by finding employment, the Independent says.

FULL STORY

Finland's universal basic income trial for unemployed reduces stress levels, says official (Independent)

Finland's guaranteed basic income is working to tackle poverty (Kera News)

Ontario UBI trial to begin this summer

The Canadian province of Ontario will launch a trial run of universal basic income with about 4,000 participants this summer, making it the first North American government in decades to test out the policy, The Guardian reports.

Participants in the three-year, C$150m pilot program will be drawn from the cities of Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay. A randomly selected mail-out will invite applications in the coming months, with participants screened to ensure they are between the ages of 18 and 64 years and living on a low income.

The pilot will include a mix of those who are working in low-paying or precarious jobs and those on social assistance, with participants able to opt out at any point during the three years.

Unconditional monthly payments will begin to flow this summer; single people will receive up to C$16,989 ($12,570) while couples will receive C$24,027. All participants will continue to receive child or disability benefits, if applicable, the papers says.

FULL STORY

Ontario plans to launch universal basic income trial run this summer (The Guardian)

READ MORE

Canada is launching an experiment that will give 4,000 people free money until 2020 (The Independend)

Richard Nixon's UBI plan

Rutger Bregman tells the story of US President Richard Nixon's ill-fated plan to introduce a basic income in 1969.

https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/rutger-bregman/2017/27/2017/1493250489/bizarre-tale-president-nixon-s-basic-income-plan

Introducing UBI in the Australian context

It’s high time we take it seriously, argues Charlie Young at The New Daily.

"While the (Australian) Greens have been advocating UBI for years, earlier this month Luke Whitington, the deputy chair of NSW Labor’s Economic Policy Committee, proposed investigating a nationwide program," Young notes.

"A multitude of recent articles, research papers and government reports have started looking seriously into UBI’s feasibility in Australia. Some proposals suggest paying out between $10,000 and $30,000 per citizen per year, which is no small thing. And it doesn’t look like the idea’s on its way out.

"Left wing proponents say a UBI would reduce crime, reward hitherto unpaid labour in the home, and massively reduce gender and income inequality, while essentially eliminating poverty – as payments would likely be set above the poverty line," he argues.

One source of funding would involve "replacing elements of government welfare spending coupled with progressive taxation."

"There’s a lot of money to be saved via the elimination of the bureaucratic means-testing involved in programs like Newstart," he notes.

A UBI could help relieve in other areas, Young says "such as the manifold economic pressures of Australia’s ageing population and jobs at risk from the rise of automation."

However, he notes that UBI champions from the conservative end of the political spectrum have a different notion of it.

"Some Liberals believe UBI could replace the inefficient behemoth that is the Australian welfare system. Mikayla Novak, a senior researcher at the Institute of Public Affairs, Australia’s leading free-market think tank, argued that federal and state welfare spending could have been redistributed in 2013-14 to give 'each adult Australian resident … about $714 per month in a basic income'."

"Remember, that would mean scrapping everything, including Medicare and child support," Young warns.

Different possible funding options are available, he suggests, including former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis' suggestion of taxing automation, while academic Thomas Pogge says we should put a global levy on natural resource extraction.

Land value tax as a funding stream, financial transaction taxes and carbon taxes are other possibilities, Young argues.

FULL ARTICLE

It’s time to take ‘free money’ seriously (The New Daily)

A UBI "social account"

"Can UBI work?" asks Kemal Dervis at Social Europe

"Implementing a full-blown UBI would be difficult, not least because it would require answering a number of complex questions about goals and priorities," he says. "Perhaps the most obvious balancing act relates to how much money is actually delivered to each citizen (or legal resident)."

"In the United States and Europe, a UBI of, say, $2,000 per year would not do much, except perhaps alleviate the most extreme poverty, even if it was added to existing social-welfare programs. An UBI of $10,000 would make a real difference; but, depending on how many people qualify, that could cost as much as 10% or 15% of GDP – a huge fiscal outlay, particularly if it came on top of existing social programs."

However, a proposal from France "is a step in the right direction," Dervis argues.

"The idea is to endow each citizen with a personal social account containing partly redeemable 'points.' Such accounts would work something like a savings account, with their owners augmenting a substantial public contribution to them by working, studying, or performing certain types of national service.

"The accounts could be drawn upon in times of need, particularly for training and re-skilling, though the amount that could be withdrawn would be guided by predetermined 'prices' and limited to a certain amount in a given period of time.

"The approach seems like a good compromise between portability and personal choice, on the one hand, and sufficient social-policy guidance, on the other," Dervis adds.

"Only by striking the right balance between individual choice and social-policy guidance can modern economies build the social-safety programs they need," he concludes.

SOURCE

Getting Basic Income Right (Social Europe)

The Charter of the Forest and a commons argument for the UBI

"Every student learns about Magna Carta, the ancient scroll that enshrined the rights of barons against the arbitrary authority of England’s monarchs," writes Jason Hickel at the Guardian. 

"But most have never heard of its arguably more important twin, the Charter of the Forest, issued two years later in 1217. 

"This short but powerful document guaranteed the rights of commoners to common lands, which they could use for farming, grazing, water and wood. It gave official recognition to a right that humans nearly everywhere had long just presupposed: that no one should be debarred from the resources necessary for livelihood.

"But this right – the right of habitation – came under brutal attack beginning in the 15th century, when wealthy nobles began fencing off common lands for their own profit. Over the next few centuries, the enclosure movement, as it came to be known, shifted tens of millions of acres into private hands, displacing much of the country’s population. Excluded from the basic means of survival, most were left with no choice but to sell themselves for wages for the first time.

"And it wasn’t only England. The same process unfolded across Asia and Africa and most of the global south as European colonisers staked private claim to lands and forests and waterways that were previously held in common, leaving millions dispossessed," Hickel adds. 

Indeed, the process continues in many countries, including post-colonial countries which continue to dispossess indigenous people.

In the context of the argument of a universal basic income, what's interesting is that Hickel bases his argument on a right to share in the commons.

"Critics of basic income often get hung up on how to fund it. But once we come to see it as linked to the commons, that problem becomes more tractable," he argues, giving the modern day example of  the US state of Alaska, where "natural resources are considered a commons, owned collectively by the people, so every resident receives an annual dividend from the state’s oil revenues."

Guaranteed minimum income as percentage of national income

Economists Kalle Moene, director of ESOP – the Centre for the Study of Equality, Social Organization and Performance at the University of Oslo, and his Indian-American colleague, Debraj Ray, have called for countries to set aside 10 to 12 per cent of gross national income for a universal basic income, Phys.org reports. 

"We propose a minimum income for everyone as a fixed proportion of gross national income – Universal Basic Share (UBS)," they argue. "The scheme can thereby be introduced in all countries, poor as well as wealthy. It would function in India equally well as in Norway."

In India, this sum of money would be shared among just over 1.2 billion people, and each person would then receive a wage that corresponds to the current poverty line, while in Norway this would constitute approximately NOK 90 000 ($US10,700).

"The whole point is to link the payments to the country's income level. This has three important implications," Ray argues. "Firstly, the poor receive an amount that is independent of personal income. Secondly, the amount paid is automatically linked to inflation. Thirdly, people have no need to fight for the authorities to adjust the amount to keep pace with the growth in the national income."

"Why are these proposals being made now?

"The keywords are: unemployment, inequality, globalization and automation in manufacturing. Those who own the robots rule the world. 

"The universal basic income gradually increases as technological development forges ahead. The scheme means that everyone shares in the prosperity," they conclude.

SOURCE:

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-economists-minimum-income.html