The World Bank has published a substantial report titled Exploring Universal Basic Income: A guide to navigating concepts, evidence, and practices
Universal basic income (UBI) is emerging as one of the most hotly debated issues in development and social protection policy. But what are the features of UBI? What is it meant to achieve? How do we know, and what don’t we know, about its performance? What does it take to implement it in practice? Drawing from global evidence, literature, and survey data, this volume provides a framework to elucidate issues and trade-offs in UBI with a view to help inform choices around its appropriateness and feasibility in different contexts. Specifically, the book examines how UBI differs from or complements other social assistance programs in terms of objectives, coverage, incidence, adequacy, incentives, effects on poverty and inequality, financing, political economy, and implementation. It also reviews past and current country experiences, surveys the full range of existing policy proposals, provides original results from micro–tax benefit simulations, and sets out a range of considerations around the analytics and practice of UBI.
The report can be downloaded free here.
Brief comment
The report employs throughout a definition of Universal Basic Income that matches BIEN’s definition of Basic Income. Consistency of definition is a commendable characteristic of the report as a whole.
The only caveat is that chapter 4 assumes that a UBI would replace existing social assistance provision. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that in some countries poverty and inequality would increase if the UBI were to be implemented. The authors do not simulate the option of leaving existing social assistance provision in place and reducing it by the extent of the UBI. In the context of a progressive tax system, such schemes would not increase poverty or inequality.
Apart from that, this is a most useful report.
Access to acceptable livelihood and freedom to choose one’s route in life is a human right confirmed in most if not all constitutions in the so-called democratic societies. Governments, however, have outsourced their responsibility of securing every citizen’s access to their rights to employers, big and small, the big ones use their power to manipulate ´their´employees but the smaller ones can’t afford the slightest bumps on the goal-reaching road. Employees accept that their lifeline is anchored to insecurity and absence of power to run their own lives independently, and Unions see this slavery system Master/slave as a natural unavoidable phenomenon. Governments have to fulfil their mandatory obligation of security for all, UBI, Terms of payment will be the quickest and cheapest way towards everybody’s freedom to choose resulting in self-financing the eradication of poverty as we know it.
I haven’t read the report, however I have done a quick search through it. It does not once mention the concept of Solar Dividends as a means for funding UBI as outlined in the book ‘Solar Dividends’ by Robert Stayton. This book was reviewed in the pages of BIEN late 2019. It occurs as a missing that the World Bank report ‘Exploring Universal Basic Income’ does not know of this really great idea.
Your book on UBI contains several incorrect or misleading descriptions about the Manitoba Basic Income (Mincome) experiment; an experiment which I directed on behalf of both the Governments of Manitoba and Canada, 1972-1977. Should this inaccuracy be of concern to you, I would be pleased to provide details. Ron Hikel
Universal Basic Income has to be set at a level which causes a redistribution of wealth if social justice is one of the aims.
This in turn implies that it has to be combined with change in taxation to tax wealth.
Otherwise it is merely a survival dole.
“The only caveat is that chapter 4 assumes that a UBI would replace existing social assistance provision”
For me it is not a caveat. This replacing will make life simpler and better.
Simplicity is not a goal in and of itself, the goal of a basic income should be to make the lives of everyone better not to meet some simplicity target.
For instance, if a certain subset of society has a mental illness that makes it so they cannot live alone or conduct economic transactions, merely handing out a basic income will not help them. They are not a majority but eliminating the safety nets of these people would effectively be killing them.
With that said, there are plenty of opportunities to cut back money in situations where money is being allocated to achieve a specific goal that any rational individual would want to achieve anyway. Like food stamps. In these cases an individual has the necessary resources, and motivation to allocate their basic income to achieve the same goal.
The universal basic income changes the current procedure for the redistribution of state budget revenues and the payment of social benefits. In this way, it changes the existing traditional social policy and pursues the main goals:
1. Guarantee social security for all according to income;
2. Minimize the risk of poverty, inequality and exclusion;
3. Effective management of public finances and the entire financial sector;
4. To promote systemic transformations and innovation in the system of education, health, culture taking into account the modern needs of society.
Universal basic income is therefore a new paradigm for current social policy, bringing together the public and private sectors, public finances, the financial sector, fiscal and monetary policy and its instruments, with the common goal of public and national well-being.