by Kate McFarland | May 20, 2017 | News
Institut Barcelona Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), an inter-university research and education center in Barcelona, will host a conference on technology, employment, and basic income on May 25 and 26, 2017.
As IBEI summarizes the event, “In this workshop we begin with a dialog about technology and the potential for creative destruction or destructive creation regarding the well-being of the population particularly when it pertains to employment. From this preamble we then look at the notion of universal basic income as a potential solution to the disruptive market forces we face today. Experts will present recent research, experiments, and analysis about these efforts as well as look at the potential steps and alternatives that governments have and the steps that some of them have taken as they consider this solution.”
On Thursday, May 25, morning sessions will focus on technology and employment. In the afternoon, basic income will take center stage, beginning with a session on current and upcoming experiments. Sjir Hoeijmakers, Bru Lain (Basic Income Spanish Network), Jaime Cooke (RSA-Scotland), and Jurgen De Wispelaere (University of Bath) will speak about the trials of basic income and related policies that are being planned or conducted in the Netherlands, Barcelona, Scotland, and Finland, respectively. Additionally, Martha Garcia-Murillo, Daniel Navarro, and Ian MacInnes (Syracuse University, Pompeu Fabra University) will deliver a presentation on basic income and incentives.
Following the experiment session, Sergi Raventós (Red Renta Básica) will discuss possible mental health impacts of basic income, Daniel Raventós (Universidad de Barcelona) will address issues of financing, and Ian MacInnes and Martha Garcia-Murillo (Syracuse University) with talk about policy alternatives.
The first day of the conference will conclude with a showing and discussion of Zygmund Bauman’s film In the Same Boat.
On Friday, May 26, Luis Sanzo Gonzalez (Basque Department of Employment and Social Policy), Lluís Torrens (Barcelona City Council), Julen Bollain (Member of Basque Parliament of Elkarrekin Podemos), and Jose Noguera (Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona) will speak on issues related to basic income and public policy in the Spanish context.
The conference will close with a roundtable discussion with all invited speakers.
More information about the conference, including a full schedule and registration information, is available at the Technology Employment and Basic Income page on IBEI’s website.
Photo (somewhere in Barcelona) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Luc Mercelis
by Kate McFarland | May 15, 2017 | Research
The European policy journal Intereconomics has published a forum on basic income (“Universal Basic Income: The Promise vs the Practicalities”) in its March/April 2017 volume, featuring five short articles on the topic.
The introduction to the forum asserts that “real-world implementation [of a UBI] is anything but basic. No serious answers have been found to the question of how to finance such a system, and until a workable solution is found, a UBI is simply not feasible.” Several of the articles in the forum reflect this skepticism concerning the possibility of sustainably financing a basic income — including “The Basics of Basic Income” (available in full online) by John Kay of St John’s College in Oxford, “Universal Basic Income Financing and Income Distribution – The Questions Left Unanswered by Proponents” by Heiner Flassbeck (Makroskop Mediengesellschaft mbH), and “Universal Basic Income – Empty Dreams of Paradise” by Hilmar Schneider (Institute of Labor Economics).
On the other hand, Thomas Straubhaar (University of Hamburg) endorses UBI in “On the Economics of a Universal Basic Income” — calling it “the best social-political prerequisite for ‘prosperity for all’ in the 21st century.” Finally, Olli Kangas, Miska Simanainen, and Pertti Honkanen, three members of Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, discuss potential pros and cons of a partial basic income in their nation in the article “Basic Income in the Finnish Context” — concluding that “there are many strong arguments being made both in favour of and opposed to basic income. Unfortunately, there are not enough facts yet. The Finnish experiment hopes to change that.”
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo CC BY-ND 2.0 Hans Splinter
by Kate McFarland | May 14, 2017 | News
Karl Widerquist (Georgetown University-SFS Qatar), who has served as co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) since 2010, has recently been asked by MIT Press, the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to write a book on Basic Income for MIT’s Essential Knowledge series. Widerquist will write the introductory text Universal Basic Income: Essential Knowledge. The MIT Essential Knowledge series is intended to provide short and accessible introductions to a variety of topics written by leading experts.
In order to devote more time to this high-profile book project, along with other projects (such as the book, The Prehistory of Private Property: Implications for Contemporary Property Theory for Edinburgh University Press, Justice as the Pursuit of Accord for Palgrave-Macmillan, and a project on the upcoming basic income trials), Widerquist will step down from the position of Co-Chair to the newly created position of Vice Chair until the 2018 General Assembly, a formal meeting, open to all Life Members, held at each of BIEN’s Congresses. Louise Haagh (University of York), meanwhile, will become the Chair of BIEN.
Reviewed by Sarah Harris
by Kate McFarland | May 10, 2017 | News
On Tuesday, May 9, an article published in The Independent alleged that Finland’s Basic Income Experiment has already produced evidence that unconditional payments lower stress and improve mental health for unemployed Finns.
This widely shared article generated rumors that the Finnish government has released the first results of this two-year pilot study, which commenced on January 1, including the above findings. These rumors are inaccurate, and the present post aims to address this misconstrual.
Background on Finland’s Basic Income Experiment
Directed by Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Finland’s nationwide pilot study of basic income generated widespread international interest from its announcement in 2015 to its launch at the start of 2017. In its current design, the experiment is restricted to those between ages 25 and 58 who were receiving unemployment assistance at the end of 2016. Nonetheless, it differs from several other contemporary so-called “basic income experiments” in that the experimental group–consisting of 2,000 randomly selected individuals from the above target group–receives cash payments (€560 per month) that are indeed unconditional, individual, and not means tested (compare, for example, to the experiments planned or underway in Ontario, the Netherlands, Barcelona, and Livorno, Italy).
Many basic income supporters and followers are, no doubt, eagerly anticipating the results of this experiment, which will continue through December 31, 2018. Here, though, it is important to keep in mind several caveats–especially as rumors of initial results begin to surface.
1. Kela will publish no results prior to the end of the experiment (i.e. December 31, 2018).
In a blog post published in January, in response to the widespread media attention directed at the experiment, research team leader Olli Kangas and three colleagues explain that publishing any results during the course of the experiment runs the risk of influencing participants’ behavior:
A final evaluation of the effects of the basic income can only be made after a sufficiently long period of time has elapsed for the effects to become apparent. The two-year run of the experiment is not very long for changes in behaviour to materialise. The potential of the experiment, short as it is, to provide reliable results should not be undermined by reporting its effects while it is underway.
2. Kela will conduct no questionnaires or interviews of participants while the experiment is in progress.
As the same blog states, the researchers will minimize their reliance on questionnaires and interviews to gain information about study participants–again to minimize the effect of observation on behavior–relying instead on data available from administrative registries. If any individual questionnaires or interviews are used, they “will not be conducted without careful consideration, and not before the experiment has ended.”
3. Analysis of the experiment will focus on labor market effects.
A major reason for the Finnish government’s interest in basic income has been the policy’s potential to improve employment incentives (in contrast to Finland’s current unemployment benefits, which are reduced by 50% of earned income if a recipient takes a part-time job and which demand much bureaucratic oversight of individuals). Correspondingly, a main objective of the experiment, as stated by Kela, is to determine “whether there are differences in employment rates between those receiving and those not receiving a basic income.”
Some basic income proponents have criticized the Finnish pilot for its lack of attention to other potential beneficial effects of basic income, such as its effects on individual health and well-being; however, Kela has no current plans to examine such effects.
“Reduced Stress” Claim
It is in this context that we must read The Independent’s recent article “Finland’s universal basic income trial for unemployed reduces stress levels, says official.”
As its data, the article quotes Kela official Marjukka Turunen (Head of Legal Affairs Unit) as saying, “There was this one woman who said: ‘I was afraid every time the phone would ring, that unemployment services are calling to offer me a job’,” and, “This experiment really has an indirect impact, also, on the stress levels [of people] and the mental health and so on.”
These quotes originate in a recent interview on WNYC’s podcast The Takeaway, in an episode on automation and the future of work, in which host John Hockenberry interviewed Turunen about Finland’s basic income experiment, having presented basic income as a possible policy response to technological unemployment. After stressing the potential of basic income to promote employment (by avoiding the welfare trap and reducing bureaucracy and paperwork), Turunen related the anecdote above in reply to a question in which Hockenberry turned about the effects of basic income on feelings of confidence and self-respect.
In comments to Basic Income News, Turunen explained that this situation involved a participant who agreed to participate in a media interview and volunteered this information to the reporter. While some participants themselves offer feedback to Kela, Kela itself is not allowed to divulge this information to the media, nor to provide any personal information about the study participants. However, this does not prevent participants themselves from volunteering to talk about the experiment to media, as in the present situation.
Thus, it is important not to mistake this unsolicited feedback from experiment participants for official and formal results–which are still more than a year and half away. As Turunen comments,
We do not have any results yet, not until the end of next year; these insights are coming from the customers themselves willing to talk about this in the media. And these are only insights, the results must be very carefully analyzed according to the information we only get at the end of next year.
More Information:
Kela, Basic Income Experiment 2017–2018. (Official website on the experiment.)
Olli Kangas, et al, “Public attention directed at the individuals participating in the basic income experiment may undermine the reliability of results,” Kela blog, January 16, 2017.
“The Shift: Exploring America’s Rapidly Changing Workforce,” The Takeaway (podcast), May 4, 2017. (Marjukka Turunen’s remarks in context.)
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
Photo (Helsinki) CC BY-NC 2.0 Mariano Mantel
by Kate McFarland | May 9, 2017 | News
Researchers in several Dutch municipalities are preparing experiments to test the effects of the removal of conditions on social assistance. Although not testing basic income per se, the experiments will examine one of its key attributes (the reduction of conditionality).
This year, popular sources have occasionally continued to report that the Dutch city of Utrecht is preparing to launch–or has already launched–a pilot study of universal basic income (sometimes continuing to cite a now-outdated article published in The Atlantic in June 2016). In this light, it is particularly important to clarify the facts surrounding the Dutch social assistance experiments.
It is true that researchers have proposed experiments in several Dutch municipalities that will examine the effects of reducing conditions on welfare benefits, including the removal of job-seeking requirements and a lessening in the amount benefits are reduced with income. However, as explained below, these experiments will not test a full-fledged basic income. Moreover, at the time of this writing, none of the municipal social experiments have been launched: those in Groningen, Tilburg, and Wageningen are awaiting approval from the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs; meanwhile, the experiment in Utrecht has been delayed indefinitely, having been denied approval by the Ministry.
Background: The Participation Act, Motivation, and Design
The Dutch Participation Act, enacted in 2015, imposes conditions on recipients of social welfare that are intended to promote their reintegration into paid employment. For example, beneficiaries are typically required to complete five job applications per week, attend group meetings, and participate in training activities in order to continue receive cash assistance.
Researchers at Utrecht University School of Economics, such as Loek Groot and Timo Verlaat, have criticized the conditions and sanctions imposed by the Participation Act from standpoint of behavioral economics. Research in behavioral economics has demonstrated, for example, that performing tasks for monetary rewards can “crowd out” individuals’ intrinsic motivation to perform such tasks. Furthermore, deprivation and fear of losing benefits may engender a scarcity mindset that impedes rational decision making. Drawing from such findings, researchers like Groot and Verlaat have hypothesized that reducing conditions on welfare benefits would better promote individuals’ reintegration and productive contributions to society (see, e.g., “Utrecht University and City of Utrecht start experiment to study alternative forms of social assistance,” last accessed May 6, 2017; note that the start date mentioned in the article, May 1, is no longer accurate).
The social experiments proposed in Utrecht and other Dutch municipalities have been designed to test the above hypothesis: randomly selected welfare recipients (who agree to participate) will be randomly assigned either to a control group or a treatment group, one in which reintegration requirements on receipt of benefits will be removed. (Although the exact design of the experiments has differed between municipalities–and between versions of the proposal–all have included a treatment group with the elimination of job-seeking conditions. Proposals experiments have also included groups with different interventions, such as, in several recent versions, increased reintegration requirements and relaxation on means-testing; see below.) These treatment groups will be compared to a control group, as well as a reference group composed of individuals not selected for the experiment, with respect to outcomes such as labor market participation, debt, health, and life-satisfaction.
Meanwhile, however, researchers must grapple with another consequence of the Participation Act: the law limits the extent to which they are legally permitted to test alternative welfare policies. For one, as mentioned in a previous Basic Income News article, the Ministry of Social Affairs has required that the municipal officials overseeing the experiment must check after six and twelve months to determine whether experimental subjects have made sufficient efforts to find paid work. At these times, if an individual has been found to have undertaken too few employment-promoting activities, their participation in the experiment must be ended. This constraint reintroduces some degree of conditionality even for treatment groups in which the requirement to participate in reintegration activities has been lifted from social assistance.
In addition, the Ministry has also requested that experiments include an additional treatment group in which stricter reintegration requirements are introduced. The experiments proposed for the municipalities of Tilburg, Wageningen, and Groningen, are currently under review by the Ministry, include such a treatment group; the initial (and unapproval) design of the Utrecht experiment did not.
Relationship to Basic Income
Largely for political reasons, proponents of the Dutch social experiments have avoided the use of the term ‘basic income’ (‘basisinkomen’ in Dutch), with researchers in Utrecht calling their proposed experiment by the name ‘Weten Wat Werkt’ (English: ‘Know What Works’). (In the Netherlands, “basic income” is often associated with the stereotype of “giving free money to lazy people”.)
This avoidance is apt, however, since the experiments have indeed not been designed to test a universal and fully unconditional basic income. The designs of the experiments have either not been finalized or are still pending government approval (see below). Regardless, however, it seems certain that any of the experiments (if approved) will test policies that differ from a basic income in several key respects. First, the population of the experiment is not “universal”; participants are to be selected from current welfare recipients (as is also the case in Finland’s Basic Income Experiment, launched on January 1, 2017, which has also been designed to test the labor market effects of the removal of conditions on welfare benefits for the unemployed).
Furthermore, within the treatment conditions themselves, the benefit will remain means-tested and household-based (rather than individual-based), in both respects unlike a basic income. In all designs proposed to date, participants within all treatment groups will have their benefits reduced if they take a paid job during the course of the experiment. However, the Tilburg, Wageningen, and Groningen experiments, as currently planned, will include a treatment group in which benefits would be reduced at slower rate (50% of earned income instead of 75%).
In the latter respects, the Dutch municipal experiments bear more similarity to the Ontario Basic Income Pilot than Finland’s Basic Income Experiment [1]. While the Finnish pilot is indeed investigating non-means-tested benefits paid to individuals, the pilot studies in Ontario and (if approved) the Netherlands will continue to work with programs in which the amount of benefits depend on income and household status; however, in all cases, many conditionalities on benefits will be removed in some experimental conditions.
Despite these differences, some view the Dutch social assistance experiments as a possible step toward a full-fledged basic income. Moreover, as seen above, the experiments have been motivated largely by arguments from behavioral economics that have previously been invoked in arguments in favor of the unconditionality of basic income (see, e.g., the 2009 Basic Income Studies article “Behavioral Economics and The Basic Income Guarantee” by Wesley J. Pech).
Status of the Experiments
In contrast to some rumors and media presentations, none of the proposed social assistance experiments in the Netherlands has yet been launched.
The experiment in Utrecht, which had earlier in the year been to declared to have a launch date of May 1, has been deferred. According to a statement about the experiment on the City of Utrecht webpage, “The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment has indicated that we need to do the experiment in a different way. We are discussing how we can conduct the study.”
Researchers are currently considering alternative designs of the experiment that will bring them into compliance with the Participation Act, and no new start date has been announced.
Meanwhile, the Ministry is reviewing experiments proposed in Tilburg, Wageningen, and Groningen, with an announcement expected later in May. As previously mentioned, these experiments have been designed to avoid conflict with the Participation Act, as had been one concern with the originally proposed design of the Utrecht experiment.
Basic Income News will publish a follow-up article of the Dutch municipal experiments, including further details on their design and implementation, after their final approval by the government.
Thanks to Arjen Edzes, Ruud Muffels, and Timo Verlaat for information and updates, and to Florie Barnhoorn and Dave Clegg for reviewing this article.
Photo: Groningen, CC BY 2.0 Bert Kaufmann
[1] I am here using these terms as proper names given by the respective governments, despite the differences between the experimental programs and a basic income as defined by BIEN.
