The Richer, the Poorer charts the rollercoaster history of both rich and poor and the mechanisms that link wealth and impoverishment. This landmark book shows how, for 200 years, Britain’s most powerful elites have enriched themselves at the expense of surging...
United States: Andrew Yang briefly addresses racial and inequality inquiries
In this video from MSNBC, Democratic candidate for the United States presidency Andrew Yang answers some direct questions about racial issues and economic inequality. According to him, racial issues get diluted if communities are economically better off,...
UK: The current welfare state is reaching its limits, as evidence on inequality and poverty in the UK is surfaced
Philip Alston. Picture credit to: BBC News Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, was in the UK last November 2018, presenting his findings on this press conference. It seems that the UK, the 5th world economy in terms of GDP, drags...
A Partial Basic Income as a Response to our Society Widening Inequality
Picture credit: David Pacey In an article on Left Foot Forward, Karen Buck MP and Declan Gaffney argue for a partial Basic Income as a more practical option than Universal Basic Income (UBI). With all the different expectations pinned to UBI, arising from its...
International: The International Monetary Fund offers analysis of UBI as part of its ‘Fiscal Monitor: Tackling Inequality’ report
In a paper released in October 2017, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has analysed the feasibility and effects of introducing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in various economies, looking at how it might help ease destructive levels of inequality present in many...
Cure health inequality by reducing income inequality
As health outcomes liaise to income inequality, policy should aim to address this phenomenon. A widening income gap is threatening overall health.
“Reducing poverty and inequality through tax-benefit reform and the minimum wage: the UK as a case-study”
The Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex has released the paper as part of its EUROMOD working paper series.
Scott Santens: “Is the solution to extreme wealth inequality really – Alaska?”
Scott Santens. Credit to: Singularity Bros. Scott Santens, writer and long time UBI advocate, speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum 2017, views the Alaska Permanent Fund as a foundational aspect for the funding for a Universal Basic Income - a UBI....
Ben Mangan, “Will universal basic income end inequality? Maybe.”
Ben Mangan is the executive director of the Center for Social Leadership (CSSL) at UC Berkeley-Haas business school, as well as a lecturer there. He is also a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute. In a January 2017 article for TED, Mangan notes that universal basic...
Anthony Painter, “A universal basic income: the answer to poverty, insecurity, and health inequality?”
Anthony Painter, Director of the Action and Research Center at the RSA, in an editorial article described an experiment in the middle of the 1970s in the small town of Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada. As Painter describes, there were “statistically significant benefits” to...
Robert Skidelsky, “A basic income could be the best way to tackle inequality”
Political economist Robert Skidelsky argues in favor of a universal basic income.
Conor Lynch, “Stephen Hawking sobre el futuro del capitalismo, la desigualdad…y la Renta Básica” [“Stephen Hawking on the future of capitalism, inequality…and the basic income”]
Machines are getting better and better at performing work that was or still is performed by humans. This article starts with Stephen Hawking's thoughts on the issue, which are that without proper wealth distribution, society will become a distopia in which an elite...
Jack Smith, “Even Big Banks Think Robot Automation Will Lead to Further Income Inequality”
A report (pdf) by Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicts that unemployment due to technological innovation could eliminate nearly half of all jobs in the United States. This will further exacerbate income inequality, as the potential $7 trillion in new wealth from...
Stewart Lansley, “How Social Wealth Funds Could Help Tackle Inequality.”
ABSTRACT: This article examines the potential to tackle the roots of inequality by the introduction of one or more social wealth funds. Such funds would aim to capture some of the financial gains from the private ownership of capital—a principal driver of...
Inequality: What Can Be Done? by Anthony B. Atkinson, a review
Anthony B. Atkinson, Inequality: What Can Be Done?, Harvard University Press, 2015, ix + 384 pp, hbk, 0 674 50476 9, £19.95 Politicians of all political parties tell us that inequality is a problem and that they are working to reduce it. Now they have the manual that...
Drew Nelles, “Review: Four new books, including Joseph Stiglitz’s The Great Divide, look at economic inequality”
SUMMARY: This news outlet reviews four books about income inequality, one of which (Atkinson’s Inequality: What Is To Be Done?) proposes basic income as a solution for the growing inequality. Drew Nelles, “Review: Four new books, including Joseph Stiglitz’s The...
Sir Anthony Atkinson, “Inequality: What Can Be Done?”
Sir Anthony Atkinson, a long-standing expert on inequality and basic income advocate, has released a book which brings together several decades of theoretical and practical experience in the field. “Inequality: What Can Be Done?” serves both as a program for change...
Scott Santens, “Does Guaranteeing a Basic Income Reduce Income Inequality?”
Santens discusses basic income’s impact on income inequality by analyzing its effect on Gini coefficients.
Peter Barnes, “Alaska Bolstered Its Economy and Curbed Inequality—By Paying Everyone Thousands in Oil Dividends Every Year”
Peter Barnes, “Alaska Bolstered Its Economy and Curbed Inequality—By Paying Everyone Thousands in Oil Dividends Every Year” Yes! Magazine. February 3, 2015
Laura Beaulne Stuebing, “Politics, not economics, the main hurdle to addressing income inequality: expert”
This article considers the movement for a universal basic income in Canada and reports that the issues in implementing such a plan are not economic ones but political ones.