May 23, 2023 Press Release
In Oregon, a ballot initiative is making progress towards establishing a statewide Universal Basic Income.
Portland, OR — The Oregon Rebate (IP 2024-017) ballot initiative campaign has announced early success in collecting the necessary signatures to qualify for the November 2024 General Election.
The Oregon Rebate will establish a statewide Universal Basic Income in the form of yearly rebates valued at approximately $750. Every Oregonian, regardless of age, income, or status will be eligible to receive a yearly rebate. For example, a 4-person household will receive four rebates, or about $3,000, tax free.
The rebates are funded by increasing the minimum tax rate of the largest corporations doing business in Oregon. Currently, the minimum corporate tax rate for corporations with more than $25 million of annual Oregon sales is less than 1% and the Oregon Rebate proposes to increase this minimum corporate tax rate to 3%, still well below the 5-10% of personal tax rate Oregonians pay.
“Oregonians know that the biggest corporations are not paying their fair share, and that yearly cash rebates will help them make ends meet.” said Antonio Gisbert, chief petitioner of the Oregon Rebate.
The scope of the Oregon Rebate is noteworthy: Every year, approximately $3.0 billion of new revenue will be rebated among the approximately 4 million Oregonians. Using the UBI Center’s Basic Income Builder, the campaign estimates an overall reduction in poverty of approximately 15% and, specifically, a reduction in child poverty of approximately 26%.
“Cash is care, cash reduces poverty and provides opportunity, and cash stimulates our local economies and communities,” said Antonio Gisbert.
To date, among others, the Oregon Rebate campaign has been endorsed by PCUN, the Oregon Working Families Party, the Pacific Green Party, and the Oregon Progressive Party.
The campaign has until July 2024 to collect the statutorily required 120,413 signatures to qualify for the 2024 General Election. Those interested in reading the full text of the petition, learning more, and getting involved or contributing to the Oregon Rebate campaign may do so at https://oregonrebate.org/.
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I’m very happy to see this progress, however; it is not enough! I’ve been advocating for years that we need $3,000.00 so people can pull themselves up out of the mud. $3,000.00 per mo would save tax payers millions of dollars per year by shifting the burden paying for peoples’ “Basic Needs” to our people receiving this measly $3,000.00. We would save billions of dollars by ending thousands of needless Social Programs to provide healthcare, food, housing & education. Imagine the cost of the social programs, the infrastructure, the labor, staffing, and all the other costs involved in providing a for people without UBI.
I agree with you totally! They also have to stop going by the federal poverty level and go by the state’s poverty level.
While a good start, and certainly worth piloting, I would advocate for a more robust UBI than this. I also belive any UBI should be means-tested (if your income is over $1m a year, you don’t get it, for example). A larger UBI would likely need to be countered by other programs already in existence due to potentially exorbitant costs. I’ve written an article that goes into a lot of detail on what a UBI is, it’s history, and what options there are: https://medium.com/@ppg223/what-is-a-universal-basic-income-actually-69b50a49b376
750 dollars are not enough to support people to have enough money to live on.
The government will withdraw all the support and argue people get basic income anyway….
Being without job would mean to be afraid of losing the place you live, ..all your savings, ..you can´t pay for your car, ..you can only buy the cheapest food,.. no money for a wintercoat, a.s.o… And jobs are not easy to get – as we all know.
Look at it as a start and not an end result. Basic income has to be proven to those who don’t believe, to those who think you’re getting something for nothing. The more it’s proven cost-effective the more it will gain traction and become accepted.
It’s great that this conversation is happening, but that comes out to $62/month.
Who the hell is that helping?