by Daniele Fabbri | Apr 9, 2019 | News
Picture credit: CC (Giuseppe Milo)
With an article on The Conversation, Fabian Shuppeter investigates how Universal Basic Income may be the key to make the green transition possible.
A letter demanding to take swift action to address the threat of climate change, with over 600 signatories, was proposed earlier this year (on the tenth of January) to the American Congress.
Afterwards, a resolution was proposed on February 7 by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), outlining the ambitious Green New Deal, which calls for the federal government to have a pivotal role in the green transition.
The Green New Deal (GND) sets out to reach a reduction in greenhouse gases emission from human sources of 40 to 60 percent from 2010 levels in 2030, and net zero emissions by 2050, in order to tackle climate change.
These ambitious targets would be met via expansionary economic policies (the opposite of austerity): the GND requires a great involvement of the federal government,, which would be required to pump large amounts of money into the economy in order to support the transition, even more so as one of the milestone of the proposals is the promise of employment for everybody. In order to do so while decarbonizing the economy, governments and central banks would need to use state expenditure, incurring in an increase in national debt.
To be able to grant full employment, the state will need to act as an employer of last resort, as many job will be lost in the green transition, both in the industries that operates directly in the extraction of fossil fuels and in those which are dependent on them, the article states.
While it is true that many jobs will be created in the new green industries, Shuppeter maintains that two main issues remain: whether workers will be able to retrain in order to enter the new jobs created, and whether those new jobs will last in time, rather than just peak in the immediate, remains to be seen.
Given that full employment in the short-medium term appears quite unrealistic, what the author suggests is, rather than state created jobs, the introduction of Universal Basic Income (UBI).
UBI would not only be a more efficient way to administer benefits (rather than the plethora of existing means-tested social welfare payments), but would also protect workers in a time of transition.
Shuppeter writes that the workers harmed by the green new deal may find more support in UBI than in a job guarantee, which would inevitably force somebody in jobs they don’t want, created for the sake of creating employment: on the other hand, UBI would allow people to reinstate themselves in the new green economy. Moreover, UBI would stimulate the economy and empower people to engage in a more sustainable lifestyle.
“To win popular support for the Green New Deal its benefits must be truly universal. What better way to guarantee a just, green transition and ensure no one is left behind than universal basic income?”
More Information at:
Shuppeter, Fabian, “Green New Deal: universal basic income could make green transition feasible“, The Conversation, March 21st 2019.
by Daniele Fabbri | Mar 26, 2019 | News
Picture credit to: Ståle Grut / NRKbeta
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), during a talk at SXSW, was addressed by a tech entrepreneur with a question about automation (how should we act as a society and how will we be able to find a purpose in life as jobs are appropriate by machines).
AOC’s answer placed automation in the broader context of socio-economic inequality: automation is not the problem, and we shouldn’t be haunted by its specter, but rather be excited about it. The problem, AOC states, is that “(…) we live in a society where if you don’t have a job you are left to die (…)”.
The risk is in the reinforcement of the trends that are already occurring with the “automation of injustice”. Automation accelerates economic inequality, she says, and we should be concerned about fixing the current socio-economic system: we are at the most prosperous time in our history, but many are left behind, thus it is imperative for us to figure out new ways to administrate wealth.
While AOC did not address Universal Basic Income (UBI) directly, her view on the matter seems compatible with those seeing it as the necessary answer to the fourth industrial revolution.
Whether the solution is “taxing robots” as proposed by Bill Gates (which AOC considers a clever, acceptable way to suggest taxing corporations), higher tax rates on top income brackets, or some form of wealth redistribution, we need to entertain ideas that would leave us with the possibility to siphon off the benefits brought by automation. It could give us the potential to focus more on studying, inventing and creating art: “Not all creativity should be bound by wage,” she says.
By entering a time in which scarcity is no longer the only reality known to man, and with capitalism being based on scarcity, “our technological advancement as a society has outpaced our system for handling finite resources”, AOC states.
If the system was not broken, people could already be working less, and focus on activities which are currently not considered work, but that would nonetheless benefit individuals and society. But money is appropriated by corporate greed:
“We’re paid on how little we’re desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and given to a billionaire.”
More information at:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | SXSW 2019, YouTube
Adi Robertson, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says ‘we should be excited about automation’, The Verge, March 10th 2019.
by Daniele Fabbri | Mar 17, 2019 | News
Picture Credit: (NASA/Rawpixel Ltd)
Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis, authors of the book “The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene”, published an article on Apolitical, suggesting that Universal Basic Income (UBI) may be the answer to the threat of mass extinction caused by anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD).
The impact of the human race on earth is so massive that we have entered a new geological era, the Anthropocene, characterized by the changes to our ecosystem brought on by human activity. The planet has reached its limits, and can’t sustain civilization as we know it much longer: pollution, rising temperatures, reduction in biodiversity are interconnected phenomena that are in dire need to be addressed immediately.
As humans are responsible for the situation, Maslin and Lewis re-analyse human history in order to suggest possible solutions: they identify five chronologically ordered types of human society, from hunter-gatherers to consumer capitalists. Each stage relies more on energy consumption and in the diffusion of information and knowledge, which translate in rising natality and productivity.
In order for a sixth, sustainable type of society to emerge, something has to change, and renewables, coupled with new ownership models, will have a pivotal role. Innovation by itself it’s not enough, as it may lead to even greater production and consumption:
“The core dynamic of ever-greater production and consumption of goods and resources must be broken”
UBI may have a role in breaking the link that sees consumption as the reward for being productive at work, and has the potential to reduce our environmental impact. By providing the potential to plan long term, and to retrain, UBI would allow people to avoid environmental damaging work, and to devote more attention to sustainable activities.
“UBI would give people the right to choose when it comes to fulfilling their own basic needs (…) With carefully designed policies that push society towards a new mode of living for a new epoch, we can do what is necessary: reduce human suffering, enable people to flourish and not destroy the life-supporting infrastructure of Earth in the process.”
More information at:
Lewis, S., Maslin, M., “Mass extinction on the horizon: Is Universal Basic Income the answer?”, Apolitical, February 28th 2019.
by Daniele Fabbri | Mar 11, 2019 | Research
Credit Picture: CC(Billy Wilson)
The International Labour Organization published a paper investigating Universal Basic Income (UBI) proposals in light of ILO standards.
With the ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation (No. 202) providing relevant guidelines for the discussion on the adoption on UBI, namely:
“(i) adequacy and predictability of Universal Basic Income (UBI) benefits to ensure income security, set at least at the national poverty line; (ii) social inclusion, including of persons in the informal economy; (iii) social dialogue and consultation with stakeholders; (iv) enactment of national laws regulating UBI entitlements, including indexation of benefits; (v) coherence with other social, economic and employment policies, and (vi) sustainable and equitable financing”,
the paper shows how some models of UBI can be in accordance with ILO standards, while others cannot.
The paper consists of five parts:
1) Universal Basic Income: A tool for social justice or a strategy to dismantle social security?
In the complex and variegated scenario of UBI proposals, the paper identifies two main currents, one which sees UBI as a tool for social justice which would grant social security to all, and the other, neo-liberal or right libertarian in its concoction, which seeks to substitute the welfare state with a minimalistic safety net.
The first is designed to reduce poverty and inequality, promoting individual rights and freedom, giving people the opportunity to engage in forms of work not recognized by the market (domestic work, volunteering). It would also reduce the administrative costs of existing social protection systems, and increase workers’ bargaining power providing an exit option. The second is a way to reduce the complexity of the modern welfare state and the degree of involvement it requires from governments. For UBI to be an instrument of social justice, the first current is the one to follow.
UBI impact on poverty and inequality, on growth, on work and employment, and on gender inequality varies depending on how the policy is designed, what its source of financing is, and on which level it set at. It is thus complex to generalize its effects, and even for specific contexts in which experiments have been done it would be an error to imply that local effects would be the same once replicated on a larger scale.
The positive effect attributed to UBI is that of tackling the issues of increased social and economic insecurity, growing inequalities and the existing gaps in social protection coverage. The growing debate surrounding it “reaffirms the necessity and importance to provide every member of the society with at least a minimum level of income security which is essential to the realisation of human dignity”, principles that are at the hearth of the ILO Constitution and the Recommendation No. 202. UBI would thus represent the income component of the recommended social protection floor.
Social protection floors should guarantee “effective access to essential health care and basic income security throughout the life course, to allow life in dignity.” This means that UBI can’t represent the entirety of social protection floor, as a nonmonetary component would nonetheless be required, and that UBI would need to be integrated in the institutional settings of the state.
2) Benefit levels, adequacy and coverage
For UBI to be a solution to inequality and poverty it needs to be set at a level sufficient to meet at least people basic needs, and needs to be financed in a sustainable and equitable way. With Recommendation No. 202 requiring social protection floors to be set at “a sufficiently high level to enable individuals to live in dignity and to ensure effective access to essential goods and services” a possible benchmark is represented by national poverty lines.
UBI proposals vary greatly in the suggested benefit levels, but given that in most of them it would supplant social assistance benefits, following the guidelines set by the aforementioned recommendation, the level should be enough to allow access to a set of necessary goods and services. Proposals built taking this into account are promising, whilst those with benefits level set below the poverty line are not able to fulfill the promises of poverty and inequality reduction.
The amount provided via UBI cannot be uniform through the populations, as it wouldn’t be able to account for those in special need, and if the amount was to be uniform UBI would be required to coexist with other forms of social security benefits safeguarding those with specific needs. UBI would thus need to be integrated in the existing systems, in order not to leave individuals worse off, the paper states.
The paper also recommends that, in order to ensure adequacy over time, attention should be given to adjustments to changes in purchasing power and overall standards of living, as to ensure the adequacy of benefits over time. For UBI to maintain its effects over time, it would need to be indexed to inflation and wages.
UBI, a cash benefit, would nonetheless need to be complemented by effective access to services (e.g.: health, education). If UBI was to be financed via the reallocation of the budget dedicated to such services, it would have detrimental effects.
Even with universalism being often presented as one of the key features of UBI, some proposals restrict its coverage in two ways: 1) depending on the age of the recipient (children wouldn’t receive benefits in some instances, whilst older persons would be subject to different rules); 2) depending on the requisite of nationality, or that of residency after a minimum duration, in order to prevent migration.
With ILO standards requiring states to provide “all members of society with adequate social protection” and with the principle of universality of protection being “at the core of the social protection floor concept, stipulating that everyone should enjoy at least a basic level of social security throughout their life course”, a UBI restricted to only nationals, or not granting sufficient benefits to meet children’s needs, would be insufficient to provide the required protection.
3) Costs, Affordability and Financing
The paper presents two scenarios for the cost estimates of UBI:
- A basic income transfer at 100 per cent of the national poverty line for all adults and children;
- A basic income transfer at 100 per cent of the national poverty line for adults and 50 per cent to children up to 15 years old.
Under scenario I. the global average cost as a percentage of GDP would be around 39.4%, with a cost of 79.1% of GDP for low income countries, 28% for lower middle-income countries, 22.8% for upper middle-income countries and 29.9% for high income countries.
Under Scenario II. the global average cost as a percentage of GDP would be 32.7%, with a cost of 62.3%of GDP for low income countries, 23.1% for lower middle-income countries, 19.8% for upper middle-income countries and 27.4% for high income countries.
One possible benchmark for adequacy of the benefit level supported by Recommendation No.202 is that of national poverty lines, but many UBI proposal are far below them. Even so, an UBI set at 25% of equivalent disposable income is nonetheless deemed unfeasible under the existing fiscal context. In order to provide benefit levels capable of reducing poverty and inequality, new financing sources need to be explored, among them the paper briefly explores:
- The reallocation of public expenditures
- Increasing tax revenues
- Lobbying for aid and transfers
- Eliminating illicit financial flows
- Using fiscal and central bank foreign exchange reserves
- Restructuring existing debt
A mix of the aforementioned would be needed, with an increase in tax revenues being central in order to assure progressivity to the policy. For low income countries, lobbying for aid and transfers may be a feasible method, as the estimate cost for the introduction of an UBI is just 0.68% of the global GDP, 3% of what has been spent by the G20 to rescue the financial sector in 2009.
Regressive proposals are not in line with ILO standards as they would further inequalities. Budget neutral proposals, which rely on cutting existing social benefits in order to provide a modest UBI coupled with social insurance, result in a social net loss which would exacerbate income and gender inequalities.
4) Who would benefit from UBI? Different implementation scenarios
The paper investigates three different scenarios for the implementation of an UBI, in order to find out which one could be beneficial to society to investigate winners and losers.
Only under scenario 1, which assumes the introduction of a UBI set at the level of the poverty line, the majority of the population is found to be net winner, thus reducing inequality.
Under scenario 2 a UBI is introduced in exchange for cuts in employers’ contributions to social security systems. This setting would reduce the capacity for social insurance to redistribute wealth across society. With net losers being among the lower and middle classes, and the net winners being corporations, this scenario is not in line with ILO standards.
Under scenario 3 UBI is introduced in exchange for the complete abolition of public social insurance:
“In this scenario virtually everybody is a net loser; the poorest will not receive anymore social assistance at the poverty line level; the low and middle classes, before covered by a better social protection system, now they will lose their accumulated social protection benefits. Eliminating public social insurance systems by a modest UBI, and promoting individual savings and private provision for those who can afford it, would reduce the potential for both vertical and horizontal redistribution, thereby exacerbating income inequality.”
5) Conclusion: Universal Basic Income in light of ILO standards
While UBI cannot be considered as a solution to all the problems of society, it can potentially act as a useful tool for closing coverage gaps and provide basic income security.
The benefit level should be set at a level sufficient to provide income security to everybody, particularly to those without other sources of income. The benefit should avoid discrimination towards those in special needs.
UBI by itself wouldn’t be enough to provide access to basic services, and it should be coupled with policies granting universal education, health care and social services. At the same time, contributory mechanism will have to remain in place, with public social insurance continuing to provide a level of social protection.
Progressive means of financing are essential in guaranteeing equity, sustainability and that UBI satisfies ILO standards. UBI implementation will need to follow a progressive realization, by setting standards and time frames: this calls for the creation of an ad hoc legal framework and effective governance and administration.
Moreover, “systematically assessing implications for the broader policy context is essential for a UBI to positively contribute to social justice and inclusive development”. UBI cannot be a stand-alone policy, but needs to work in concert with labour market institutions, and the potential interactions that could arise call for further studies.
“The momentum gathering behind the idea of a UBI can help to spur a discussion on how to respond to existing economic and social changes in a more effective and empowering way based on social solidarity and while ensuring social justice outcomes for all.”
Final remarks
The paper is clear in defining Basic Income and in discussing its potential advantages, clarifying that different UBI designs would bring very different end results.
The paper also provides a comprehensive list of experiments, proposals, and pilots, and does a service by calculating the proportions of national poverty lines that their Basic Incomes represent. This is done calculating the gross cost of UBI, which however says little about its net costs.
Much attention is devoted to proposals that eliminate current benefits, a practice that, as the authors of the paper themselves suggest, is not in line with ILO standards.
Rather than investigating a particular mean of financing and its potential effects, the paper follows a more general approach, and highlights that further studies are needed in order the understand the practical implications of UBI, nonetheless being clear about its potential to be a powerful instrument for the enhancement of social security and the reduction of poverty and inequality.
More information at:
Isabel Ortiz, Christina Behrendt, Andrés Acuña-Ulate, and Quynh Anh Nguyen, “Universal Basic Income proposals in light of ILO standards: Key issues and global costing“, Social Protection Department, International Labour Organization, Geneva, 2018
Citizens Basic Income Trust, “ILO paper on Citizen’s Basic Income and ILO social protection floors” 7th December 2018
by Daniele Fabbri | Jan 19, 2019 | Research
Picture Credit to: University of Bath
The Institute for Policy Research (IPR), based at the University of Bath, launched a research project on the economics of Basic Income (BI).
The project will “examine the economics of Basic Income, including the interaction between technology, output GDP, consumer income and expenditure.” The project has been set up with the collaboration of Geoff Crocker from Basic Income Forum.
The research will look at the fitness of BI as an element for the management of macroeconomic demand. Through the use of empirical economic data, the research will test the hypothesis that in highly technological economies the increase in productivity causes wages to fall (a phenomenon that together with falling employment rates is known as the great decoupling), requiring the introduction of a source of income disjoined from work: Basic Income.
The research project will also compare the effectiveness of BI in combating the unemployment and poverty traps with other forms of unearned income, and consider its effectiveness in avoiding economic crisis, that is, its stabilizing effect, in comparison with consumer credit and household debt.
The study will also investigate whether public sector deficit is an inescapable reality in high technology economies, and if there is potential for using debt free fiat money as a replacement for it and as a source of funding for BI, an idea already proposed by Crocker.
More information at:
University of Bath website: “The Economics of Basic Income”
André Coelho, “New Link: Basic Income Forum”, Basic Income News, July 12th, 2018
André Coelho, “VIDEO: The economics of basic income (by Geoff Crocker)”, Basic Income News, April 26th, 2018
