by Kate McFarland | Jan 29, 2017 | News
Germany’s basic income political party, Bündnis Grundeinkommen, will be on the ballot for the first time in the federal state of Saarland, which holds state elections on March 26, 2017.
Founded in September 2016, the German political party Bündnis Grundeinkommen (“Basic Income League”) is devoted to a single issue: the establishment of an unconditional basic income in Germany.
Unlike Switzerland–which held a national referendum on basic income in June 2016 after campaigners collected more than the necessary 100,000 signatures–Germany does not allow national referenda. Thus, basic income supporters decided to launch a dedicated political party as a means to put the issue on the ballot in the nation’s federal elections, to be held on September 24, 2017.
The party achieved a significant step forward in January, when the election commission of the federal state of Saarland announced that Bündnis Grundeinkommen would appear on the ballot in the state’s election on March 26, 2017.
In a press release announcing the achievement, press officer Ronald Heinrich said:
Bündnis Grundeinkommen will be on the ballot [in] one of three electoral districts, but it is the first real test for the idea of basic income in Germany in an election. To fulfill the legal requirements in Saarland was a real stunt. The federal chapter was just founded six weeks ago, and to get everything sorted and done over the Christmas holidays is a huge achievement for everybody involved.
Ronald Trzoska, chairman of the party, added:
Every casted vote in Saarland for the basic income party in March will help to get the attention of the citizens towards the idea of an basic income. In September are the national elections in Germany. It is the great goal of Bündnis Grundeinkommen to get the word of basic income spreading on over 45 million ballots, and we are eager and confident to get the job done.
To date, Bündnis Grundeinkommen has established chapters in 11 of the 16 federal states of Germany, with the other five in progress. Along with establishing chapters in each state, the party must collect 23,000 signatures to be admitted to the national elections. Signatures are being gathered in each state in which Bündnis Grundeinkommen is established.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan and Dawn Howard
Image: Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany; CC BY-NC 2.0 Wolfgang Staudt
by Kate McFarland | Jan 28, 2017 | Research
Jurgen De Wispelaere (Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Tampere) and Lindsay Stirton (Professor of Public Law at the University of Sussex) have coauthored a new article in which they argue that basic income advocates must not ignore questions about how the policy is to be administered (“When Basic Income Meets Professor Pangloss: Ignoring Public Administration and Its Perils”).
De Wispelaere and Stirton consider several reasons for which basic income supporters believe that issues of administration are immaterial, such as the assumption that technology will render administration unproblematic and the comparative claim that administering a basic income could not be more difficult than administering conditional benefits. The authors find such justifications insufficient, maintaining that the challenges of administering a basic income are non-trivial, and that their resolution can impact the political feasibility and even ethicality of a basic income proposal.
The article has been published in the British political journal The Political Quarterly.
Jurgen De Wispelaere and Lindsay Stirton, “When Basic Income Meets Professor Pangloss: Ignoring Public Administration and Its Perils,” The Political Quarterly, December 14, 2016.
Abstract:
Basic income advocates propose a model that they believe will dramatically improve on current welfare programmes by alleviating poverty, reducing involuntary unemployment and social exclusion, redistributing care work, achieving a better work–life balance, and so on. Whether these expected social effects materialise in practice critically depends on how the model is implemented, but on this topic the basic income debate remains largely silent. Few advocates explicitly consider questions of implementation, and those that do are typically dismissive of the administrative challenges of implementing a basic income and critical (even overtly hostile) towards bureaucracy. In this contribution we briefly examine (and rebut) several reasons that have led basic income advocates to ignore administration. The main peril of such neglect, we argue, is that it misleads basic income advocates into a form of Panglossian optimism that risks causing basic income advocacy to become self-defeating.
Post reviewed by Danny Pearlberg
Photo: Scene from theatrical production of Candide (Pangloss on viewer’s left), CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 shakespearetheatreco.
by Kate McFarland | Jan 27, 2017 | News
A cross-party committee of the Scottish Parliament will hold a committee meeting on basic income on March 9, which will be broadcast live on television.
Scotland’s basic income movement has recently enjoyed time in the media spotlight due to the planning of pilot studies in the city of Glasgow and council area of Fife (see, for example, articles in The Guardian by Libby Brooks and Kevin McKenna). While these efforts are being pursued by the respective regional councils, the country’s legislature is also investigating the possibility of a basic income for all of Scotland.
On March 9, 2017, the Social Security Committee of the Scottish Parliament will convene a meeting at which a panel of experts is to present evidence concerning the feasibility of a basic income. The cross-party committee intends to investigate what level of basic income would be sufficient, how the program could be funded, and whether it could be implemented in Scotland given the current devolution of powers in the UK.
Sandra White, MSP from the Scottish National Party (SNP), is the Convener of the Social Security Committee. Explaining the importance of the session on basic income, she says, “We all know the current benefits system is riddled with complexity, and on the face of it the concept of a universal income for everyone is an interesting alternative. However, whilst there is much talk at the moment of the benefits of a citizen’s income, this Committee wants to investigate if the principle can work in practice. Whilst we all want a system that is fairer and looks after those most in need, it’s clear that the implementation of such a concept is far from straightforward.”
The SNP, Scotland’s largest political party, passed a motion endorsing basic income at its conference in March 2016.
The website of the Scottish Parliament notes five experts will address the committee, all of whom have previously written on basic income proposals for Scotland or the UK (see background reading below):
• Donald Hirsch (Professor and Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University)
• Siobhan Mathers (Reform Scotland Advisory Board)
• Annie Miller (Chair of Citizen’s Income Trust, co-founder of BIEN and Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland)
• Anthony Painter (Director of the Action and Research Centre of the Royal Society for Arts)
• Howard Reed (Director of Landman Economics)
The meeting will be broadcast live on www.scottishparliament.tv.
More information: https://www.parliament.scot/newsandmediacentre/103064.aspx
Background Reading
Annie Miller, “Why an independent Scotland would fair better with a Citizen’s Income (CI) or Basic Income (BI) scheme,” Evidence to the Expert Working Group on Welfare, December 13, 2013.
Miller has previously submitted evidence on basic income to the Scottish Government, describing the purported benefits of, philosophical arguments for, and existing empirical research on the idea. (She does not propose any specific basic income scheme here.)
Donald Hirsch, “Could a Citizen’s Income Work?,” Joseph Rowntree Foundation, March 2015.
Hirsch considers major shifts in popular opinion that would be required for the acceptance of a universal basic income. He maintains that UBI is not immediately viable but that reforms in the UK’s Universal Credit system could start to make UBI eventually “more thinkable than it is today.”
Anthony Painter and Chris Thoung, “Creative citizen, creative state: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income,” RSA, December 2015.
Painter and Thoung present multiple arguments for UBI, and develop a proposal for a scheme for the UK, modifying an earlier proposal put forward by the Citizen’s Income Trust. The RSA won a 2016 “Think Tank of the Year” award in part due to this report.
James Mackenzie, Siobhan Mathers, Geoff Mawdsley, and Alison Payne, “The Basic Income Guarantee,” Reform Scotland, February 2016.
The authors critique the UK’s existing welfare system and propose the replacement of many benefits with a universal basic income. They develop a funding model for UBI at the level proposed by the Scottish Greens (£100 per week per adult and £50 per week per child).
Howard Reed and Stewart Lansley, “Universal Basic Income: An idea whose time has come?” Compass, May 2016.
Reed and Lansley simulate and analyze basic income schemes for the UK: three variants of a “full scheme” that replaces most existing means-tested benefits, and two variants of a “modified scheme” that exists alongside existing means-tested benefits in place. They recommend the latter, possibly as transition to the former, and discuss possible funding sources.
Reviewed by Asha Pond
Photo: Scottish Parliament Building, CC BY-NC 2.0 Hamish Irvine
by Kate McFarland | Jan 26, 2017 | News
Videos of two lectures on Finland’s basic income pilot are now available online. The lectures, delivered by Marjukka Turunen and Olli Kangas of Kela, were originally aired as part of a public event on Finland’s “social innovations”.
As previously announced in Basic Income News, Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, held a series of short lectures called “Socially Innovative Finland” on January 12, 2017. The event, which was open to the public and streamed lived online, highlighted two “social innovations” from Kela: the eight-decade-old maternity package, under which all mothers-to-be receive a package of child necessities, and the two-year basic income experiment launched this year. Two speakers, Marjukka Turunen (Head of Legal Affairs Unit) and Olli Kangas (Director of Government and Community Relations), discussed the basic income experiment and fielded a variety of questions from the live and online audiences.
Olli Kangas: “Basic income – Part of tomorrow’s social security?”
Kangas situates Finland’s basic income experiment in its political and economic context: the center-right government that took office in May 2015 decided to investigate a basic income as a way to remove the disincentives to work and reduce the bureaucracy inherent in Kela’s current programs of unemployment compensation; meanwhile, changes in the labor force underscored the need for a revised system of social security.
Kangas describes the rise of short-term labor contract labor and the threat of automation as general sources of motivation for basic income. Then, focusing specifically on the Finnish context, he discusses the country’s increase in self-employment as well as its high rate of structural unemployment. He goes on to explain how Finland’s current welfare system can creates a disincentive to work. In some cases, as he describes, individuals who leave unemployment benefits to take a job face an effective marginal tax rate of 80-100%. Moreover, the current system creates “bureaucratic traps” whereby individuals are deterred from accepting short-term work (asking, e.g., “If I accept the job for six months or so, do I again qualify for the benefit I used to have?”).
Marjukka Turunen: “How the basic income experiment works in practice”
Turunen provides an introduction to Finland’s basic income experiment, including an overview of the experiment’s design, motivation, and implementation. She explains why the researchers hypothesize that the basic income will provide an incentive for unemployed persons to take on paid employment–the main outcome that the experiment has been designed to test–and describes other potential benefits to individuals. For example, she notes that financial security brings “peace of mind” and allows individuals to plan for the future with less uncertainty. Furthermore, the basic income eliminates the time-consuming task of applying to Kela to maintain unemployment benefits–which, as she mentions, requires the submission of paperwork every four weeks–or to change benefit status due to sickness or childbirth. Recipients of the basic income are not required to inform Kela of their employment status, income, or other life changes.
Turunen also describes Kela’s process of selecting a sample of 2000 individuals for the experiment, contacting them, and distributing the first funds. She points out that researchers will not conduct interviews of the subjects during the course of the experiment, in order to avoid a possible source of influence on their behavior. Moreover, it is the policy of Kela not to disclose information about the basic income recipients to the media. Nonetheless, Turunen notes, some recipients have themselves divulged information about their situations and reactions to the basic income trial; she reviews some of these preliminary reactions near the end of the lecture.
Reviewed by Danny Pearlberg
Photo: Helsinki, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Jonathan
by Kate McFarland | Jan 25, 2017 | News
In a reversal of a decision last December, the council of the Eastern Ontario town Smiths Falls has voted to send a delegate to an upcoming convention of municipalities to lobby for the town’s selection in Ontario’s basic income pilot study.
Background: Ontario’s Pilot Plans
The Canadian province of Ontario is currently in the consultation phase of the design of a pilot study of a basic income guarantee. According to the recommendations of the project adviser Hugh Segal, the pilot should test a guaranteed minimum income of approximately $1320 per month, plus an additional $500 for those with disabilities, which would replace the province’s current welfare and disability programs (Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program) for at least three years. Segal proposes that this basic income guarantee take the form of a negative income tax, in which participants with no income would receive the full $1320 cash transfer, with no strings attached. The amount of the transfer would be gradually clawed back with additional earnings, with the result that participants whose income remains sufficiently high would receive no money as a result of participation in the pilot. The pilot will likely be designed to assess a variety of outcomes, such as health, food security, education, and employment.
While the final design of the pilot has not yet been announced, Segal has recommended that it include the selection of three saturation sites: communities in which every adult resident would be assured of the guaranteed minimum income. Saturation sites allow the province to investigate the effects of a basic income guarantee at a community level (such as effects on crime, utilization of public services, and civic participation), as well as to examine the process of administering the program within an entire municipality. (Segal advises that government test the basic income guarantee in such saturation in addition to conducting a randomized control trial in a large urban area.)
Segal further suggests that three saturation sites be chosen to represent three different “faces” of the province: Southern Ontario, Northern Ontario, and indigenous communities. He recommends that the communities be relatively geographically isolated, to limit “contagion” effects from surrounding communities, and to have stable populations. (For more discussion of the desired characteristics of saturation sites, see “Finding a Better Way: A Basic Income Pilot Project for Ontario”.)
The final design of the study is expected to be announced in April 2017, after which the pilot will enter its implementation phase.
New Support from Smiths Falls Council
Smiths Falls, an Eastern Ontario town of around 9,000 residents, now plans to lobby the provincial government for selection as one of the saturation sites. On January 16, 2017, the town’s council voted to send a delegate to the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) Conference, which will take place at the end of the month in Toronto. At the conference, municipal delegates will have an opportunity to present their cases before Ontario’s Ministry of Community and Social Services (MCSS).
The council’s vote reversed a decision of December 19, 2016, when it voted 3-2 against sending a delegate to ROMA to lobby for the town’s selection in the pilot — a decision that defied the wishes of Mayor Shawn Pankow and incited protests among the Smiths Falls residents.
Prior to the December 19 meeting, Pankow had written to MCSS, expressing a desire that the provincial government consider Smiths Falls as a site for its basic income pilot. This action was taken without the knowledge of full council, leading some councillors to hesitate endorsing the proposal (with one later stating that he had felt “blindsided” by the mayor’s action). Pankow himself was unable to attend the meeting during which the council voted down the motion to lobby in favor of the pilot, having been stuck in holiday traffic en route from Ottawa.
The December 19 vote was not a vote against participation in the pilot per se (as the provincial government could still select Smith Falls for the pilot, even if the town itself does not produce a delegate lobby for it), and not all councillors who cast negative votes were themselves opposed to the idea of a basic income guarantee (or even, necessarily, its implementation in Smiths Falls). Nonetheless, some councillors did use the opportunity to voice their general opposition to basic income. Councillor Dawn Quinn, for example, was widely cited in the press for her assertions that the distribution of unconditional cash transfers is the wrong approach to poverty and that, instead, poor people must learn how to better budget their money.
The council’s initial decision faced a backlash from residents. One resident, Carol Anne Knapp, started a petition in the days after the vote, calling upon the council to conduct a re-vote on the matter. In early January, Knapp and another resident, Darlene Kantor, interrupted a city council meeting to demand the council support efforts to bring the basic income pilot to Smiths Falls.
The town has faced economic hardship following the closure of a Hershey’s chocolate plant in 2008, as well as the loss of other manufacturing plants such as Shorewood Packaging and Stanley Tools. Residents like Knapp and Kantor believe that the council should welcome the basic income pilot (if Smiths Falls is selected) as a potential solution to its high rate of poverty.
On January 12, a public information session on the basic income pilot, convened by the Smiths Falls council, drew a crowd of more than 250 people.
The response of constituents was influential in the council’s reversal of its decision at the January 16 special meeting.
References and Further Information:
Evelyn Harford, “Smiths Falls town council won’t have ultimate sway on basic income pilot project’s location, says province,” Smiths Falls Record News, January 6, 2017.
Evelyn Harford, “Protesters make a stand in support of basic income pilot at Smiths Falls town council,” Smiths Falls Record News, January 9, 2017.
Hillary Johnstone, “‘An occupy moment’: Smiths Falls residents demand basic income pilot project,” CBC News, January 10, 2017.
Evelyn Harford, “Council votes to send basic income delegation to ask questions, lobby province,” Smiths Falls Record News, January 16, 2017.
Chris Must, “Council reverses stance on basic income lobbying,” Hometown News.
See also:
John Chang, “CANADA: Council of small town Smiths Falls rejects basic income trial, residents disagree,” Basic Income News, January 16, 2017.
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Photo: Bridge near Smiths Falls, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 David McCormack
