by Kate McFarland | Aug 17, 2017 | News
Slovenian basic income advocate Dr. Valerija Korošec has announced her bid to run in her country’s presidential election on October 22, 2017.
Basic income is the main pillar of her independent candidacy, which also includes e-direct democracy and gender parity.
Korošec made the announcement at a July meeting of Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE), BIEN’s European affiliate. To officially run in the election, she needs to collect 5,000 signatures before the 26th of September.
Valerija Korosec
Korošec, a sociologist and social policy analyst at Slovenia’s Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development, is the author of “Predlog UTD v Sloveniji: Zakaj in kako” (“UBI Proposal in Slovenia: Why and How”), which she presented in English at BIEN’s 2012 Congress in Munich, and the co-editor of the book UTD v Sloveniji (UBI in Slovenia).
She is also Slovenia’s representative in BIEN, and a member of both UBIE and BIEN’s Slovenian affiliate, Sekcija za promocijo UTD.
Basic income has enjoyed a surge of interest in Slovenia in recent years.
In 2013, Slovenia was the second EU nation to attain the required level of support the European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI) for Unconditional Basic Income. Ultimately, the ECI failed to obtain the number of signatures required across Europe for the EU to consider UBI. However, it helped to cultivate lasting awareness of UBI among Slovenians.
In 2016, UBI received a further boost in interest in the country due to international headline events such as Switzerland’s vote on a referendum to establish a nationwide basic income, and the Finnish government’s launch of an experiment to test the effects of an unconditional basic income for the unemployed.
One particularly notable event occurred on October 17, 2016–the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty–when Sekcija za promocijo UTD joined the Slovenian Red Cross and Slovenian Philanthropy, an organization encompassing many charities, in signing the Coalition Against Poverty, accepting the idea that only a basic income can fight poverty efficiently.
In June 2017, Alenka Bratušek, a former Prime Minister now serving as a Member of Parliament, convened a meeting on basic income in Slovenia’s National Assembly.
The occasion marked the second time debate about the idea has been held in a national representative body in Slovenia, with the first having been held in the National Council in 2011. At the National Assembly meeting, three basic income advocates–including Korošec, Dr. Igor Pribac, and Sebastjan Pikl–presented arguments in favor of the implementation of the policy.
Those present voted unanimously to request the government to produce a feasibility analysis of basic income by the end of the year.
At this time, new candidates are still declaring their bids for the Slovenian presidential race.
Polls show incumbent president Borut Pahor as a clear frontrunner, unbeatable by any major political party. In Korošec’s view, joining the election as a basic income candidate has the potential not only to spread the idea to more Slovenians but also to show politicians that the idea can have a substantial impact on the election–which might affect not only this year’s presidential election but also next year’s parliamentary race.
Draft of article reviewed by Valerija Korošec; additional copyediting by Russell Ingram.
Top photo: Ljubljana, Slovenia CC BY-NC 2.0 Gilad Rom
by Kate McFarland | Aug 17, 2017 | News
On Tuesday, August 29, the RSA will hold an event titled “Universal Basic Income: Can Scotland Lead the Way?” featuring Annie Miller (Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland), who will launch her new book at the event, and Jamie Cooke (RSA Scotland).
Several regions in Scotland, including the city of Glasgow and the council areas of Fife and North Ayrshire, are currently investigating the possibility of conducting basic income pilot studies. Earlier in the year, the City Council of Glasgow partnered with the RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) to explore the design and feasibility of a municipal-level pilot. Over the summer, the Council and RSA convened workshops to discuss issues of financial, administrative, and constitutional feasibility, and a report of their conclusions is being prepared for release in September.
In the meantime, the RSA will hold a public event centered on the question of whether Scotland is “ready for such a radical policy” as basic income.
At the time of this writing, the event’s full list of keynote speakers is still awaiting confirmation, but will include Jamie Cooke, the head of RSA Scotland, and Annie Miller, a cofounder of both BIEN and (in November 2016) BIEN’s Scottish affiliate, Citizen’s Basic Income Network in Scotland.
Cooke has been working with the councils of Glasgow, Fife, and North Ayrshire to plan pilot studies, and recently delivered a TEDx talk in Glasgow on the potential of basic income to improve social and economic conditions in Scotland.
Miller has recently written a handbook about basic income, aptly titled A Basic Income Handbook, which she will launch at the RSA event.
The RSA was founded in London in 1754 as the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and was granted a royal charter in 1847. Today, the think tank sustains a global network of more than 28,000 fellows, and is known for innovative social policy research–as evidenced by its receipt of a Think Tank of the Year Award in 2016.
Basic income has recently been a focal area of the RSA’s research, with Anthony Painter, the Director of its Action and Research Centre, being a leading proponent of the idea. In 2015, Painter and Chris Thoung coauthored “Creative citizen, creative state: the principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income,” which remains a frequently referenced proposal for basic income in the UK.
For more information on the August 29 event, see the RSA’s website.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo (Cairnwell Pass) CC BY-SA 2.0 Neil Williamson
by Kate McFarland | Aug 14, 2017 | News
“Basic Income on the agenda: What now for the Norwegian model?”
BIEN’s Norwegian affiliate, Borgerlønn BIEN Norway (BIEN Norge), has organized a public meeting on basic income on Saturday, August 26 — two weeks before the nation’s parliamentary elections (September 11). The event will investigate current challenges to Norway’s welfare state and the potential for basic income to reinvigorate and further develop the Nordic model.
During the first part of the meeting, Heikki Hiilamo (Professor of Social Policy at the University of Helsinki) will discuss Finland’s currently running Basic Income Experiment, and Becca Kirkpatrick (Chair of UNISON West Midlands Community Branch) will apply her experience of organizing trade unions in the UK to explaining why unions should support basic income. BIEN Norge has invited representatives from four Norwegian unions to speak at the event.
The second part of the event will focus on the current situation in Norway–where the traditionally robust welfare state has been threatened by the privatization of public services, tax cuts, benefit cuts, and a weakening of labor legislation, where the universal benefits characteristic of the Nordic model are being replaced with targeted and means-tested benefits, and where automation and digitalization are challenging another cornerstone of the Nordic model: the goal of full employment and a duty to work.
Four scholars, all of whom are prominent Norwegian supporters of basic income, will present their ideas concerning the potential for basic income to confront the concerns facing the Norwegian economy and welfare state: Nanna Kildal (Research Professor at the University of Bergen), Margunn Bjørnholt (Research Professor at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies), Karl Ove (Kalle) Moene (Professor of Economics at the University of Oslo), and Ove Jacobsen (Professor of Ecological Economics at the Business School at Bodø). A debate will follow the individual presentations.
Litteraturhuset, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Aprile Clark
The meeting will take place at Litteraturhuset, a cultural center in Oslo.
For more information, see the event page on Facebook.
Tickets can be purchased from Hoopla.
Post reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan.
Cover photo (Sognefjord – Dragsviki, Norway) CC BY 2.0 Giuseppe Milo
by Kate McFarland | Aug 13, 2017 | News
On August 31, the New Zealand Fabian Society will host a panel discussion on basic income, led by BIEN cofounder Guy Standing, as part of its seminar series in Auckland.
Standing, who has recently published Basic Income: And How We Can Make it Happen, will be delivering a lecture titled “Basic Income: the case for a significant new policy.”
Two commentators will respond to Standing’s talk: Sue Bradford, a former Green MP, political activist, and founding member and former coordinator of Auckland Action Against Poverty, and Keith Rankin, an economic historian who has written extensively on basic income.
The event will conclude with a 20-minute debate on the issue of whether an income guarantee policy should be targeted or universal.
Details and registration are available on the NZ Fabian Society website here.
The New Zealand Fabian Society, a policy forum devoted to exploring progressive policy and economic reforms, has been active in promoting discussion of basic income.
In February 2016, the organization initiated its 2016 series of events with a presentation titled “A UBI for New Zealand: on the cards, but is it the answer?” by Rankin and economist Susan Guthrie. (Guthrie is the coauthor of The Big Kahuna and other work with Gareth Morgan–the economist and businessman whose new political party, The Opportunity Party, has recently made a basic income for elders and young children part of its campaign platform.)
The NZ Fabian Society has also collaborated with BIEN’s affiliate Basic Income New Zealand (BINZ) by helping to organize some of events held in connection with BINZ’s basic income roadshow for Basic Income Week 2016, and supported past lectures by Guy Standing in Auckland. In March 2016, the NZ Fabian Society hosted Standing at an event in Christchurch, where he spoke on the theme of his previous book, “rentier capitalism and the coming precariat revolt” (video below).
Phil Harington, an active member of NZ Fabian Society and lecturer in sociology and social policy at the University of Auckland, explains that a key object of the Fabians is strengthen public confidence in progressive reforms. The arguments for basic income, he states, “make a plausible argument for rethinking the very principles we need to apply in core policy and economic creativity alongside a concern to rethink the tax side of the income pool to increase social equity and participation.”
Thanks to Phil Harington for information about the upcoming event as well as past efforts of the New Zealand Fabians.
Cover photo: Auckland Skyline
by Kate McFarland | Aug 12, 2017 | News
In October 2017, the city of Barcelona, Spain, will launch a two-year experiment testing several variants of a guaranteed income and active policies to reduce poverty rates.
The project has been called B-MINCOME in reference to the Canadian province of Manitoba’s Mincome experiment, a guaranteed annual income trial conducted in the late 1970s.
The design of B-MINCOME, which was first discussed in Basic Income News in February, has recently been finalized. It will be conducted in the Besòs area, the city’s poorest region, and include 2000 households. These households will comprise a stratified random sample from Besòs area households which have at least one member between ages 25 and 60 and which are current beneficiaries of the city’s Municipal Social Services. (Participation in the experiment is voluntary for the households selected, in contrast to Finland’s basic income experiment in which participation was made mandatory to avoid self-selection bias.)
Of the selected households, 1000 will be assigned to a control group, while the other 1000 will be assigned (at random) to one of ten treatment groups, all of which will receive cash income supplements (Municipal Inclusion Support or SMI). Treatment groups differ according to whether the SMI is accompanied by an additional program and whether the SMI is means tested.
The amount of the SMI will depend upon household composition and financial status, but will range from 100 to 1676 euros per month per household. For example, a four-member household with no assets and a total monthly income of 900 euros would receive an SMI of about 400 euros per month. Participants will continue to receive Municipal Social Services, but these will be deduced from the SMI.
For 450 households in the study, the SMI will be delivered without any additional associated policies. For this group, the benefit will carry no terms or conditions beyond those made necessary by the constraints of the experiment: participants must continue to reside in the Besòs area until the conclusion of the trial on September 30, 2019, and they must agree to the terms of the experiment (e.g. consent to be anonymously monitored for research purposes, communicate changes in income or household status to those administering the experiment, and install a mobile app to communicate with experimenters). Importantly, receipt of the SMI is not conditional on a willingness to work or fulfill any other participation requirement.
These 450 households will be further divided into two treatment groups: one in which the SMI is means tested (the amount of the payments will be reduced according to the amount of additional household earnings), and one in which participants will receive the full amount of the SMI for the duration of the experiment, regardless of additional income.
Thus, the latter treatment group will receive a benefit extremely similar to a basic income–a guaranteed monthly cash payment with no work requirement or means test–with the slight difference that its amount depends on household composition.
The remaining 550 households will not only receive the SMI but also be subject to an associated social policy. These households will be distributed among eight treatment groups, according to (a) the associated policy and, in the first three groups, (b) whether participation in the policy is mandatory or voluntary. The policies include (1) an occupation and education program (150 households), (2) a social and cooperative economy program (100 households), (3) a guaranteed housing program, and (4) a community participation program (200 households).
Within the fourth group, half of the households will be assigned to a treatment group in which the SMI is means tested, half to one in which it is not.
The researchers conducting B-MINCOME are interested in the extent to which the SMI reduces poverty and social exclusion, and which particular models of SMI are most effective for this purpose. For instance, is the SMI more effective when combined with any particular associated policy, or with none at all? And is the SMI more or less effective if it is means tested?
To examine the impact on poverty and social exclusion, researchers will examine, more specifically, changes in labor market participation, food security, housing security, energy access, economic situation, education participation and attainment, community networks and participation, and health, happiness, and well-being.
Researchers will additionally examine whether the SMI reduces the administrative and bureaucratic responsibilities of social workers.
B-MINCOME is supported by a grant from Urban Innovative Actions (UIA), an initiative of the European Commission that supports projects investigating “innovative and creative solutions” in urban areas. The Barcelona City Council partnered with five research organizations and institutions to design and conduct the experiment: the Young Foundation, the Institute of Governance and Public Policy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the Catalan Institution for Evaluation of Public Policies, and NOVACT-International Institute for Non-Violent Action.
B-MINCOME has maintained connections to global basic income movements throughout its design phase. The designers of B-MINCOME consulted with representatives from the governments of Finland, the Canadian province of Ontario, and the Dutch municipality of Utrecht, who have been involved with the design of guaranteed income experiments in their own areas. In addition, the project team contains several members of BIEN’s Spanish affiliate, Red Renta Básica.
The leading political party in Barcelona’s City Council, the left-wing Barcelona en Comú, hopes to implement a municipal cash transfer program following the results of the B-MINCOME pilot, in part with the goal of reducing the bureaucracy associated with the administration of Municipal Social Services and reducing total expenditures on social policies.
Thanks to Bru Laín for details of the design of B-MINCOME, and Genevieve Shanahan for copyediting this article.
Photo: Barcelona, CC BY 2.0 Bert Kaufmann
