by Kate McFarland | Dec 22, 2016 | News
The National League of Cities (NLC) — an advocacy organization representing 19,000 cities and towns in the United States — has published a report called The Future of Work in Cities, which briefly recommends that cities investigate universal basic income.
The Future of Work in Cities examines the changing nature of work, especially due to automation and the growth of the “gig” or “1099” economy, and the lays out several policy recommendations for cities to address these changes. One recommendation is that cities “explore basic income and other more broad-based social support systems.”
The NLC report describes basic income as “similar to US social security and welfare systems, with the major exception that the benefit goes to everyone, regardless of age, ability, class status, or participation in the workforce,” and provides a brief summary of a few arguments for and against such a universal and unconditional benefit:
Some individuals from the tech world tout basic income as a way to counteract the economic blow of automation replacing jobs currently occupied by humans. Other supporters argue that basic income is more streamlined, efficient, and transparent than currently administered social welfare systems. Finally, there are some individuals who endorse the idea of less work overall, arguing that a basic income might free up the time individuals spend working and allow them pursue other, more creative, and enjoyable pursuits. Many critiques of basic income systems center on how it will be sustainably funded or the cultural implications of instituting such a system (p. 48).
The authors mention taxation as a possible funding mechanism, but do not delve into any more detail.
Other strategies broached in the report include offering more portable benefits (e.g. health insurance that is not tied to an employer), increasing the minimum wage, ensuring that families have affordable childcare and paid leave, and easing the entry of individuals with criminal records into the workforce.
The Future of Work in Cities is the second report in NLC’s City of the Future series. The first report, City of the Future: Technology & Mobility, investigates ways in which new technologies will impact transportation systems in urban areas.
Reference
Nicole DuPuis, Brooks Rainwater, and Elias Stahl (2016) The Future of Work in Cities, National League of Cities Center for City Solutions and Applied Research.
Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 Sparky
by Kate McFarland | Dec 21, 2016 | News
On November 29 and 30, the White House, the Stanford University Center on Poverty and Inequality, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative co-hosted the Summit on Poverty and Opportunity.
Held at Stanford, the event brought together “275 high-level players in technology, philanthropy, community service, government, and academia” to listen to and participate in a series of panel discussions on social and economic policy and the role of technology and big data.
The conference included a 40-minute panel on “The Future of Jobs and the Question of a Basic Income”:
PANELISTS (from viewer’s left to right)
– Sam Altman, president of the startup incubator Y Combinator, and the initiator of its plan for a basic income experiment. Y Combinator is currently running a pilot study of a basic income in Oakland, with plans for a larger scale experiment in the future.
– Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook and (as of this month) a co-chair of the Economic Security Project, which will be distributing $10 million in grants to support basic income projects in the US.
– Juliana Bidadanure, an assistant professor in Stanford’s Department of Philosophy who specializes in political theory and public policy. Bidadanure will be teaching a graduate seminar on the philosophy of basic income in winter 2017.
Future of work expert Natalie Foster moderated the discussion.
All four participants are supporters of universal basic income.
PANEL OVERVIEW.
Bidadanure, Hughes, and Altman, respectively, begin the panel by describing how they came to interested in basic income and outlining their reasons for supporting such a policy. Following these introductory remarks, discussion turns to past and present basic income experiments: Altman talks about Y Combinator’s newly launched pilot study, Hughes describes the work of the charity GiveDirectly, and Bidadanure lays out the results of past experiments in Manitoba, Namibia, and India. Altman additionally stresses the ability of a basic income to alleviate financial anxiety for people who currently live paycheck to paycheck. Finally, panelists present their thoughts on the question of how to finance a basic income. Due to concerns about feasibility, Hughes proposes beginning with a small basic income of $100 or $200 per month; Bidadanure and Altman, however, raise concerns with the implementation of a basic income that is it not sufficiently large to allow for freedom and security.
Additional press on the Summit on Poverty and Opportunity:
Nitasha Tiku, “Stanford, The White House, And Tech Bigwigs Will Host A Summit On Poverty”, BuzzFeed News, November 28, 2016.
Reviewed by Jenna van Draanen
Photo (Stanford University) CC BY 2.0 Robbie Shade
by Kate McFarland | Dec 20, 2016 | News
Roderick Benns, the author of a new book of interviews on Canadians’ views of basic income, interviewed Chris Ballard, a Liberal Party Member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament. In June 2016, Ballard was appointed as Minister of Housing and Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy, and he will now be overseeing the province’s pilot study of a basic income guarantee.
In the interview, Ballard expresses optimism about the basic income pilot, and speaks about how the changing nature of work creates a need for new social policies. He also discusses federal interest in Ontario’s pilot, mentioning that he will regularly share information with Jean-Yves Duclos, Canada’s Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.
Read More:
Roderick Benns (November 29, 2016) “Ontario Minister hopeful for Basic Income pilot,” Basic Income Canada Network.
Reviewed by Dawn Rozakis
Cover photo: Ontario Waterfront CC BY 2.0 Vlad Podvorny
by Kate McFarland | Dec 20, 2016 | News
Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup Inc, a multinational investment banking corporation, has written in support of a basic income guarantee as a way to assist workers who are “left behind by technological advances”.
Buiter recently reaffirmed this position at Citi’s annual summit, held in November in London, where he participated in a panel about global political risks.
Buiter is also a prominent advocate of the so called ‘helicopter money‘ idea whereby central banks would distribue a social dividend to all citizens.
Read more [in Swedish]:
Charlotta Buxton, “Toppekonom: Statlig inkomst lösning på populism,” SvD Näringsliv (November 21, 2016).
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Willem Buiter speaks to unnamed people at LSE event, CC BY-NC-ND-2.0 UK in Spain
by Kate McFarland | Dec 19, 2016 | News
On December 1, 2016, the Volkswagen Foundation (VolkswagenStiftung) hosted a panel discussion on unconditional basic income in Hanover, Germany.
Not to be confused with the Volkswagen Group (the unaffiliated auto manufacturer), VolkswagenStiftung is a non-profit organization dedicated to research and education. The foundation is Germany’s largest private funder of research in the humanities, social sciences, and science and technology.
As part of its mission, VolkswagenStiftung hosts public events to keep the public informed of developments in a variety of fields. One of its recent events was on the topic of unconditional basic income (“bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen”):
Its advocates demand for each citizen an income independent of work and personal need. In Germany it should be between 800 and 1500 euros. The arguments of the advocates: the stigmatization of the unemployed can be eliminated, freedom for self-realization can be strengthened, and social bureaucracy can be dismantled. The opponents predict, however, that the future of the welfare state is endangered if income is no longer linked to personal performance. The principle of mutual assistance based on the principle of reciprocity would be undermined.
VolkswagenStiftung’s basic income event began with talks from two professors — Michael Opielka (Institute for Social Ecology and the Department of Social Affairs at Ernst Abbe Jena University) and Stephan Lessenich (Department of Sociology at the University of Munich) — both of whom are members of the Scientific Advisory Board of BIEN’s German affiliate, Netzwerk Grundeinkommen.
Following their opening lectures, Opielka and Lessenich joined a panel discussion and debate with two critics of basic income: Jutta Allmendinger (President of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center) and Michael Sommer (former National Chairman of the German Trade Union Federation, DGB). An article on the event from Netzwerk Grundeinkommen points out that Allmendinger has opposed UBI in previous discussions, including an exchange with the billionaire entrepreneur and UBI proponent Götz Werner. Allmendinger worried that a UBI would either be too small to be impactful or too large to be financed and to continue to incentivize work. Sommer has attacked UBI for discounting the value of work.
Audio recordings of VolkswagenStiftung’s events are available on its website.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Herrenhäuser Gärten, CC BY-SA 3.0 John D.
