by Guy Standing | Aug 5, 2024 | Research
By Guy Standing
In July 2024, the National Bureau of Economic Research issued a report from the researchers on an income-transfer project conducted in Illinois and Texas. It has generated global attention, with some commentators saying it undermines the case for basic income, others that it supports the case for it.
This note is a critique of the project, and one point should be made very firmly at the outset: This experiment was not a test of basic income. Anybody claiming otherwise is either unfamiliar with the concept of basic income or is being disingenuous.
To be fair on the researchers, the title of their main report refers to a ‘guaranteed income’, not a basic income. But as far as I can see none of the researchers has rebutted the interpretation by critics. Moreover, as this writer knows, having been involved in the initial discussions of the project in Stanford University, the initial researchers knew they could not do a proper basic income pilot.
To read the full article, click here.
by Scott Santens | Aug 3, 2024 | Research
The results of one of the biggest basic income experiments ever came out in July 2024, and as usual, the nuances of the findings are lost among the voices of those loudly proclaiming basic income doesn’t work. This one is the three-year pilot of Sam Altman’s that provided $1,000 a month to 1,000 people in Texas and Illinois and compared that group to a control group of 2,000 people who got $50 a month. Every participant was between the ages of 21 and 40. In this article, I will explain the nuances and how the results of this pilot provide some new info but mostly replicate the findings of previous experiments going back to the 1970s and only further demonstrate that what’s at stake here is real freedom and the perceived danger it poses to those who benefit from the widespread lack of that freedom.
To read the full article, click here.
by Peter Knight | May 25, 2024 | News
Photo by Amber Weir on Unsplash
Abstract:
“The COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread social and economic policy experimentation as governments sought to protect household finances while locking down economies. Cash transfers emerged as one of the most popular policy measures, leading many to reflect on new possibilities for enacting universal basic income through temporary or emergency interventions. We take Australia’s pandemic response, and particularly its Coronavirus Supplement, as an example of this broader experimentation. We analyse the Supplement through the lens of an emergency basic income, arguing the measure reflected existing institutional structures and norms, forms of national and international policy learning, and vulnerabilities in Australia’s liberalized housing and labour markets. While temporary, we consider how its apparent success might suggest ongoing policy relevance, either as a form of capitalist “crisis management” or as an alternative pathway for implementing forms of basic income.”
To read the. full article, click here.
by Guest Contributor | Jan 9, 2024 | Events, News
“This workshop is presented by the History and Philosophy Department of the University of New Orleans in collaboration with the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society, at the University of Minho, and the Justice Studies Program at the University of New Orleans. It will be held at the University of New Orleans, February 22-23, 2024 at the Dougie Hitt Conference Room, at the Library, room 407, 2000 Lakeshore Dr, New Orleans, LA 70148.
The workshop is organized by Sara Bizarro (University of New Orleans) and Roberto Merrill (UBIECO project at the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society/University of Minho).”
Read about the speakers and solicited paper topics here.
by Peter Knight | Dec 19, 2023 | News, Research
Abstract: “What would be the consequences of a long-term commitment to provide everyone enough money to meet their basic needs? We examine this hotly debated issue in the context of a unique eld experiment in rural Kenya. Communities receiving UBI experienced substantial economic expansion|more enterprises, higher revenues, costs, and net revenues|and structural shifts, with the expansion concentrated in the non-agricultural sector. Labor supply did not change overall, but shifted out of wage employment and towards self-employment. We also compare the effects to those of shorter-term transfers delivered either as a stream of small payments or a large lump sum. The lump sums had similar, if not larger, economic impacts, while the short-term transfers had noticeably smaller effects, despite having delivered the same amount of capital to date. These results are consistent with a simple model of forward-looking lumpy investment, and more generally with a role for savings constraints, credit constraints, and some degree of (locally) increasing returns, among other factors.”
Read a summary of the report.
Read the full report.
