Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee. Picture credit: dailyO
Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer were awarded the Economics Nobel Prize this year. That alone would not represent a huge novelty, given the standard these professionals and scholars have set in the last few years. However, in an article as far back as June 2016, Banerjee had already defended the basic income policy for India, as a way to reduce poverty, cut through corruption and minimize bureaucracy. Later on, already in 2019, Indian voters got not to elect the party (Congress Party) which was more serious about implementing (a version of) basic income in India, favoring the BJP ruling party. That, however, did not end the discussion about basic income in the Indian continent, in part because Banerjee, Duflo and other respectable scholars like Thomas Piketty, have been thinking, writing and speaking about the issue at the highest levels.
This award comes right before the release of Banerjee and Duflo new book, entitled “Good Economics for Hard Times”, a forward-looking elaboration on society, economic problems and creative social solutions. In it, basic income features as an important, if not crucial policy, for reducing poverty, simplifying governmental aid programs and increasing universality in cash transfers. In the authors’ own words:
Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth and accelerating climate change–these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC. The resources to address these challenges are there–what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us. If we succeed, history will remember our era with gratitude; if we fail, the potential losses are incalculable.
Meanwhile, also, other heavy-weight economists like Angus Deaton, also a recent Economics Nobel Prize laureate, have come forward in defense of basic income-like type of policies.
Basic Income seems to be a hot issue to debate at the local elections run in Thunder Bay (Ontario, Canada). Ever since the cancellation of the Ontario basic income pilot project, by the Doug Administration, discussions over basic income type of policies have been growing in number and intensity. Thunder Bay was one of the localities over which the pilot was being run.
At Thunder Bay’s Chamber of Commerce, last week on October 9th, political candidates from all six colors (Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Greens, People’s Party and Liberatarians) agreed, at least in principle, on the necessity of implementing a basic income over time. Although differences existed between the candidate’s approach to it, all agreed that something needed be done about poverty in Canada, and that people needed assistance to cope with the ever-changing nature of work and life challenges. The Libertarian candidate, though, underlined that, according to him, basic income was unlikely to be implemented in Canada within the next four years. The Ontario interrupted basic income pilot project was mentioned several times over the event, since it represents the most palpable reference as a basic income experiment within Thunder Bay’s territory.
Elisabeth May. Picture credit to: Mission City Record.
Elisabeth May, Canada’s Green Party leader has spoken about a “robot tax” which, according to the party’s Platform, focuses on large companies (exempting slam businesses) laying off employees due to investments in artificial intelligence (AI). In this scheme, these companies would pay the equivalent amount of income tax which would be due from the displaced workers. However, funds collected this way would be used not to finance a universal basic income (UBI) – also called a Guaranteed Livable Income in the Platform document – but to backup educational and retraining programs.
This is line with the Party’s professed uncertainty – as expressed in their Platform 2019 Costing – about how to finance and administer a UBI in Canada, although the Party supports UBI as an idea and has pleaded the Federal Government to restart the Ontario basic income pilot project.
As reported before, an Estonian collective of basic income activists, led by Jaanus Nurmoja, delivered a petition to the Social Affairs Committee (SAC) of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu), calling for the investigation of a universal basic income (UBI) implementation in Estonia, on March 29th 2019. Five months later – three months passed from the excepted date of reply – the SAC decides not to study the issue, although that apparently contradicts the initiative expressed text, and Estonian Law. In the words of SAC’s spokesman (Tõnis Mölder), pronounced at the committee meeting on Tuesday, 17th of September 2019: “At the moment, however, the implementation of such a system in Estonia does not seem reasonable, as there is no financial analysis and no assurance that the current social system could be replaced by something more efficient”.
According to the activists, this decision is not consistent with Estonian Law, since the Working Rules Act is not being observed. Abiding to these rules would imply only rejecting proposals submitted “less than two years earlier or obviously [violating] constitutional principles of Estonia and international agreements”. Also, these argue that the rejection is based on a self-referring (circular) argumentation: that the proposal of investigating UBI in Estonia cannot be accepted, because there has not been any investigation on UBI in Estonia. This led the activists to question if the proposal text had even been read in full by the SAC members.
Jannus Nurmonia and the other co-signatories of the “Investigating the Feasibility and Impact of Unconditional Basic Income (Civic Salary) in Estonia” petition are now calling for a withdrawal of this decision, postponing the actual discussion of the proposal for the next SAC meeting. They are convinced a UBI will eventually be unavoidable in Estonia, and so starting feasibility studies over it should start as soon as possible.
A United States Air Force Veteran (1) is getting 1300 US$/month. He has been receiving this money from the Veteran Administration (VA) for almost three years. The transfer is unconditional, and is for life so, in a sense, it is like a basic income (as in defined at the Basic Income Earth Network). It is not universal, of course, since only USAF veterans may receive it.
However, this particular veteran’s experience with this unconditional stipend is that it truly helped him and his family, which includes a chronically ill son. He, contrary to some popular opinions, did not rest idle with this monthly cash transfer and merely survived, but rather started a successful real estate business.
