by Andre Coelho | Jul 27, 2019 | News
Yv Bonnier Viger. Picture credit to: Huffpost Quebec
Gaspesie and Îles-de-la-Madeleine regional public health director Yv Bonnier Viger is convinced that basic income can have dramatic positive effects on people’s health. So much so that the local public health sector, plus other regional organizations focused on health, well-being and poverty alleviation, are pushing for a 20-year long experiment in these two localities, also including Bas-Saint-Laurent.
Viger already knows the usual results of basic income experiments: “The experiments done around the world have always given results that go along the same direction: reducing mortality, violence, urgent care visits, hospitalizations, etc.”, he says. Moreover, he is also aware that people (according to experiments) do not use unconditional cash to acquire superfluous things, or to stop working as a result of receiving it. In this context, an (basic income) experimental setup in this region would expectedly be confirming these same results tested at other locations.
This setup is being considered as a negative income tax (NIT), after knowing each recipient declared annual income. After surveying true living costs in the three municipalities abovementioned, the idea is to dispense (every two weeks) unconditional cash gradually, for all those earning less than 40000 CAN$/year. The income starting point – someone earning 0 CAN$/month – would then become 17500 CAN$/year, which approximately amounts to Quebec’s official poverty line.
Financing the experiment would be based on replacing conditional social aid already in place in the region, without touching, however, retirement income (which is based on lifetime contributions). The project’s overall annual cost has been estimated at 800 million CAN$, which is expected to diminish over time, as more savings are made available in the public health sector, social aid management and other public related expenditures.
More information at:
“Quebec is considering a 20-year basic income pilot”, Basic Income Today, July 19th 2019
(In French)
Stephanie Gendron, “Idée d’un projet-pilote de 20 ans pour un revenu de base dans l’Est-du-Québec”, Le Placoteux, June 26th 2019
by Andre Coelho | Jul 26, 2019 | Research
Economists Ori Katz (picture: on the left) and Michael Sarel (picture: on the right) believe the implementation of basic income is a task both necessary and desirable in the near future, within the Israeli social reality. So, as researchers, they conducted a thorough study on basic income applied to the economic reality of Israel (used figures from the year 2016). In that study, they considered the elimination of existing (conditional) benefits, abolishing tax exemptions and raising income tax as the financing mechanisms for sustaining an unconditional basic income for all the population.
If adopted in Israel basic income would, according to Katz and Sarel, induce significant bureaucratic savings, encourage employment, eliminate the poverty trap, reduce friction between citizens and the authorities, increase individual freedom of choice, (slightly) reduce inequality and reduce incentives to work in the black market.
In the conclusions it can be read:
Basic income is not a panacea to all the ills of the Israeli economy, and it is unable to create money “out of thin air.” However, it is a more effective way of providing a safety net for the entire population than the current welfare system, and it eliminates the perverse incentives this system creates. As a result of the transition to basic income, Israelis will be able to work, study and manage family life and relationships of their own accord, without fear that their income will be affected due to their choices and without having to justify the way of life they chose. Overall, we believe that this is a saner way of subsisting as a human society.
More information at:
Ori Katz, “Basic income in Israel”, KPF, Kislev 5779 Policy Paper nº42, December 2018
by Andre Coelho | Jul 23, 2019 | News
Echelon Insights has developed a poll where, amongst other issues, has questioned 1006 registered voters about Andrew Yang’s universal basic income (UBI) policy (to be implemented if he’s elected). It turns out that, globally, support for UBI is tightly close to opposition to it (40% support vs 43% opposed), within the surveyed sample.
However, further questions in the poll reveal exactly who is in support and in opposition to the UBI idea as proposed by Yang. Supportive are younger, Democratic voters with lower incomes. Less supportive are older, richer and politically inclined to the Right voters. Breaking down the numbers, the following charts clearly show these trends.
More information at:
Tyler McDonald, “Andrew Yang’s UBI Has The Most Support From Democrats, Voters Under 50, And Earners Under $50,000”, Inquisitr, July 13th 2019
by Andre Coelho | Jul 18, 2019 | News
In this new book, work, technology and society are discussed through a series of view points, given by several authors (e.g.: Matt Zwolinski, Michael Cholbi, Andrea Veltman, Evelyn Forget, among others). Universal Basic Income is a policy described at the center of this crucial societal challenge, analyzed by the authors in its wide implications. Michael Cholbi and Michael Weber are the editors.
In the summary it can be read:
Technological advances in computerization and robotics threaten to eliminate countless jobs from the labor market in the near future. These advances have reignited the debate about universal basic income. The essays in this collection offer unique and compelling perspectives on the ever-changing nature of work and the plausibility of a universal basic income to address the elimination of jobs from the workforce. The essays address a number of topics related to these issues, including the prospects of libertarian and anarchist justifications for a universal basic income, the positive impact of a basic income on intimate laborers such as sex workers and surrogates, the nature of “bad work” and who will do it if everyone receives a basic income, whether a universal basic income is objectionably paternalistic, and viable alternatives to a universal basic income. This book raises complex questions and avenues for future research about universal basic income and the future of work in our increasingly technological society. It will be of keen interest to graduate students and scholars in political philosophy, economics, political science, and public policy who are interested in these debates.
by Andre Coelho | Jul 16, 2019 | News
Transportation is not the only sector where automation is eating away jobs. Large commercial ports are also being hit hard, as recent events in Vancouver show. Workers at the Port of Vancouver went on strike last month, due to a pressing issue on automation with the employer Global Containers Terminal (GCT). According to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), pressing automation technology has the capacity “to eliminate 80 to 90 percent of the [human] labour requirements”.
McKinsey & Company consulting firm has studied global port operations and concluded that automated ports are safer, more predictable, much cheaper to operate (25 to 55%) and more productive (10 to 35%). Although significant technical hurdles still exist, it seems only a matter of time until these predictions come true, especially when, actually, a few automation efforts have already been proven successful (e.g.: fully automated port in Los Angeles-Long Beach, semi-automated facilities in New York-New Jersey, and Virginia, USA).
Worker unions in this field naturally oppose any suggestion of automation, for the obvious reason that it might displace their jobs, from which workers extract their livelihood. However, falling costs of automation technologies is quickly shortening the gap to economic implementation, and so human labour is losing ground. This shouldn’t be a problem, of course, if human jobs where not tightly linked to access resources. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has eloquently stated, earlier this year, “our technological advancement as a society has outpaced our system for handling finite resources”, and “we live in a society where if you don’t have a job you are left to die”. Although that reality could be more sharply defined in the United States than, for instance, Finland, the link exists virtually everywhere in the so-called “developed” world, but fortunately is starting to be contested as the global discussion around basic income progresses.
But maybe there should be no content here, between ILWU members and GCT, or any other worker-employer dispute over automation. Maybe jobs should not be the sole vehicle to get the necessary money to access the necessary Earth resources to live on. As Scott Santens has put it, on a by-now famous writing: “It’s time for technology to serve all humankind. Jobs are for machines. Life is for people.”
More information at:
Charlie Smith, “Automation at the heart of labour dispute at Port of Vancouver”, The Georgia Straight, May 26th 2019
Bill Mongelluzzo, “Vancouver, Prince Rupert terminals may consider automation”, JOC.com, June 5th 2019
Daniele Fabbri, “United States: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on automation”, Basic Income News, March 26th 2019
Scott Santens, “It’s Time for Technology to Serve all Humankind with Unconditional Basic Income”, Medium, April 13th 2018
