Basic Income World Wide Survey

Basic Income World Wide Survey

During the first Worldwide Meeting of UBI Advocates and UBI Networks, held on 7th of April, 2020, comprising members of BIEN who were interested in advocacy, a proposal resolved to carry out a survey about the economic measures taken by different countries in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Our survey has three aims:

1) To discover how many jurisdictions/governments around the world, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, have claimed to have implemented a basic income, OR have implemented new measures that fulfil some characteristics and functions of a basic income, even if such new measures are not claimed to be basic income.

2) To explore and compare the social service context of each jurisdiction which has introduced a basic or partial-basic income scheme.

3) To find out more about the organizations whose remit is basic income only, and of those whose remit includes basic income among other ideas, and the extent to which these organizations work together.

You can complete the survey in the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeDRaOhMqurn7wu4yxAyAmUrivkLsQWej7Jm-omtjuky2U-_Q/viewform?usp=sf_link

This survey should be completed by an individual familiar with the defining characteristics of basic income on the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) website (basicincome.org/about-basic-income). You may be:
– An office holder or another responsible member of an organization interested in basic income;
– A Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) member;
– An individual basic income advocate.

The team who produced the following survey includes; Liz Fouksman, Reinhard Huss, Ali Mutlu Köylüoğlu, Julio Linares, Annie Miller, Sheila Regehr, Toni Pickard and Malcolm Torry. We thank others who contributed to this process.

In case you experience any problems or have questions, please contact ubicovidsurvey@gmail.com

Thank you in advance for your contribution.

Julio Linares
Social Outreach
Basic Income Earth Network

United Kingdom: Study suggests that welfare conditionality does more harm than good

United Kingdom: Study suggests that welfare conditionality does more harm than good

 

The Welfare Conditionality (WelCond) project recently released a report on how people receiving benefits in the UK experience welfare conditionality within a social security system. Welfare conditionality is where a person’s eligibility for benefits is dependent on meeting certain requirements, for example attending regular interviews, which will be taken away if a person does not meet the latter.

 

The study used longitudinal qualitative methodology to investigate the experience of people receiving welfare in the UK and the changes in their behaviour over time. Over five years, from 2013-2018, the study conducted 1082 qualitative longitudinal interviews with 481 people receiving welfare (including jobseekers, single parents, migrants, homeless people, and offenders who have left the judicial system), 52 semi-structured interviews with policy stakeholders and 27 focus groups with frontline welfare practitioners.

 

Longitudinal qualitative methodology enables researchers to gain an insight into people’s experience of and perspectives on welfare conditionality over a period of time. However, qualitative research does not enable the assessment of the effectiveness of welfare conditionality intervention on relevant outcomes (such as the motivation to work). Accordingly, the results of the study cannot be taken to show the effectiveness of welfare conditionality as an intervention but can be used to gain a greater understanding of the potential benefits and harms of this practice.

 

The results of the study indicated that benefit sanctions do little to enhance people’s motivation to prepare for, seek, or enter paid work. On the contrary, in some cases the imposition of benefits sanctions led to feelings of reduced motivation and disengagement with the social security system. Welfare conditionality was viewed to be largely ineffective in facilitating people’s entry into paid labour market or in sustaining employment. Participants often reported a lack of change or sustained change in employment status, where they shifted between short-term, insecure, and low paid jobs, and periods of receiving benefits.

Additionally, welfare conditionality and benefit sanctions were reported to be connected to adverse outcomes such as poverty, increased reliance on charitable providers and informal support networks, increased debt and loss of tenancy, etc. People dealing with high debts may have to go for a rental property after losing their home and take the assistance of a letting agents to find a property at a reasonable rate. Welfare conditionality can also be associated with negative health outcomes, including fear, anxiety, psychological distress, and exacerbating existing health conditions, particularly in people with mental health issues.

 

The study also indicated that the current support provided often did not help people looking for work and that the provision of personalised, holistic support could be more effective in helping people to gain and retain employment. This was noted as a potential facilitator to increase motivation to prepare for, seek and enter work, and to enable people to overcome personal and structural barriers to work.

 

The authors of the study concluded that the perceived benefits of welfare conditionality to increase motivation to work did not outweigh the potential drawbacks and recommended a trial of conditionality-free benefits for those looking for work and the removal of benefit sanctions for people receiving incapacity benefit for existing health conditions. As an alternative to welfare conditionality, the authors recommended that personalised, holistic employment support should be given to help people enter the job market.

 

More information at:

Welfare Conditionality, “Final findings report – Welfare Conditionality Report 2013-2018“, Welfare Conditionality, June 2018

Is Basic Income Better than Research Grants?

Is Basic Income Better than Research Grants?

Researchers Krist Vaesen from the Netherlands and Joel Katzav from Australia, have published a paper in Plos One where they analyze what would happen if research money was equally distributed among researchers without the need for grant applications. The paper discusses the results of such a policy in the United States, Netherlands, and the United States. This paper was then discussed by  Times Higher Education writer David Mathews who published an article discussing the idea that Basic Income could be a better option than writing research grants for academics. The Times Higher Education is a leading company that uses data to create University Rankings. They also publish academic articles and book reviews with the highest standards.

Joel Katzav and Krist Vaesen

According to the paper, if money was distributed by all researchers, each would be entitled to a stipend of 600,000 dollars every five years in the United States and 500,000 in the Netherlands. In the UK the five-year stipend would be lower, around 364,000 dollars, which would limit the possibility of hiring post-doc students and fund equipment and could lead to a dilution of resources. However, in order to fund projects, researchers could pull their funds together. These stipends are on top of researchers’ salaries and would be used for the projects,  hiring postdocs and Ph.D. students, as well as traveling and purchasing equipment.

 

Giving a Basic Income Research Grant to all researchers would eliminate the need for endless grant proposals, saving researchers a lot of wasted time and resources, since the writing of grants has become an industry and is now often done by specialized companies that charge for their services. This equal distribution could also eliminate gender and ethnic bias. Furthermore, there could be “higher” Basic Income Research Grants in areas where research projects are more expensive to run or that are deemed to have higher social value, such as cancer research. Researchers would be able to negotiate larger projects by pulling their grants together with all researchers at an equal footing. According to the Times Higher Education, the paper claims that the current competitive system would only make sense if those who “win” perform “extraordinarily” above average to compensate for all the wasted time and resources, which may not be the case. The paper shows that this method of distribution would not dilute funds and could be functional, while still having some transformative results in academic research.

United States: CQ releases basic income research compilation

United States: CQ releases basic income research compilation

Congressional Quarterly (CQ) has published a research paper on basic income (BI) that explains its universal popularity due to automation growth estimates worldwide. The CQ Researcher covers everything from Scott Santens’ crowdfunded self-financing mechanism to U.S. ex-President Obama’s belief that the debate may last 10 to 20 years.

 

The 21-page research paper, written by London freelancer Sara Glazer, includes an explanation of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) – a basic income like payment to all residents – and revels in the prediction of automation worldwide. Predicted percentage of job losses are shown in charts for 8 countries, as well as for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (made up of 21 countries).

 

BI appeal to the political Left is explained as the continuation of a welfare state. Its appeal to the political Right is explained as a libertarian limit on government intrusion and cost. However, the research warns that many people believe the poor may be worse off: “Some anti-poverty advocates say a UBI would increase both poverty and inequality by using welfare funds now spent on the poorest two-fifths of the population to provide cash to people of all income levels“.

 

The report also mentions the current endorsement of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs like Chris Hughes. Moreover, references are made to the 1960s precedent of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson’s instituted War on Poverty as well as U.S. President Richard Nixon un-instituted 1970s negative income tax credit. This latter issue has been today resurrected by Congressman Ro Khanna, by his proposed bill for extending the earned income tax credit for the poor.

 

The Canadian 1970s experiment, called Mincome, is described as a positive pilot project, acting as a precedent for current basic income pilot projects in Finland, the U.S. (California ), Canada (Ontario ), Spain (Barcelona), Africa (Give Directly) and the Netherlands. In this report Karl Widerquist says that, with a BI, people will be allowed without fear to work the way they feel best. In an opposite viewpoint, Pavlina Tcherneva argues that a Job Guarantee program would be a better, less costly, way to make sure everyone had work they cared for.

 

More information at:

David Wheeler, “What if everybody didn’t have to work to get paid?”, The Atlantic, May 18th 2015

Chris Weller, “President Obama: We’ll be debating unconditional free money over the next 10 or 20 years” Business Insider, October 12th 2016

Kate McFarland, “SPAIN: Barcelona prepares study of Guaranteed Minimum Income”, Basic Income News, February 26th 2017

Peter Vandevanter, “United States: Ro Khanna introduces EITC bill, garners comparison to BI”, Basic Income News, October 2nd 2017

Kate McFarland , “THE NETHERLANDS: Government authorizes social assistance experiments in first five municipalities”, Basic Income News, July 11th 2017

Ashley Blackwell, “KENYA: GiveDirectly’s Guaranteed Monthly Income Expands to 200 Villages Fall 2017”, Basic Income News, September 10th 2017

Kate McFarland, “FINLAND: First Basic Income payments sent to experiment participants”, Basic Income News, January 12th 2017

Peter Vandevanter, “United States: Ro Khanna introduces EITC bill, garners comparison to BI”, Basic Income News, October 2nd 2017

Ashley Blackwell, “KENYA: GiveDirectly’s Guaranteed Monthly Income Expands to 200 Villages Fall 2017”, Basic Income News, September 10th 2017

Kate McFarland, “FINLAND: First Basic Income payments sent to experiment participants”, Basic Income News, January 12th 2017

 

US: Undoing poverty’s negative effect on brain development with cash transfers

US: Undoing poverty’s negative effect on brain development with cash transfers

Kimberly G. Noble, associate professor of neuroscience and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, has published an article in Nature which summarizes her research background and an upcoming experiment into brain development and poverty. Noble asks whether poverty may affect the development, “the size, shape, and functioning,” of a child’s brain, and whether “a cash stipend to parents” would prevent this kind of damage. Noble here describes the background and methodological underpinnings of a larger experiment not yet begun; the development of which Basic Income News has covered in the past.

Noble writes that “poverty places the young child’s brain at much greater risk of not going through the paces of normal development.” Children raised in poverty perform less well in school, are less likely to graduate from high school, and are less likely to continue on to college. Children raised in poverty are also more likely to be underemployed when adults. Sociological research and research done in the area of neuroscience has shown that a childhood spent in poverty can result in “significant differences in the size, shape and functioning” of the  brain. Can the damage done to children’s brains  be negated  by the intervention of a subsidy for brain health?

Noble summarizes her 15 years of research into this subject. This most recent study’s fundamental difference from past efforts is that it explores what kind of effect “directly supplementing” the incomes of families will have on brain development. “Cash transfers, as opposed to counseling, child care and other services, have the potential to empower families to make the financial decisions they deem best for themselves and their children.” Noble’s hypothesis is that a “cascade of positive effects” will follow from the cash transfers, and that if proved correct, this has implications for public policy and “the potential to…affect the lives of millions of disadvantaged families with young children.”

Paper: Kimberly G. Noble, “Brain Trust,” Scientific American 316, 44-49, March 2017

Photo Credit: Childhood CC Farhad Sadykov