Another video: The case for Basic Income
The website ‘The case for Basic Income’ has published a video of the same name. To visit the website, go to ubi.org; and to contact the publisher, geoff.crocker@ubi.org
Canadian artists call for an income guarantee
75,000 artists have signed a letter calling on the Canadian government to implement an income guarantee.
We, the undersigned, are calling upon the Government of Canada to honour its
commitment to poverty reduction and instate a Basic Income Guarantee to
make a historic investment in a better tomorrow;
We call upon the Government of Canada to hereby reduce the inequities
exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: to remove the financial obstacles
faced by our most vulnerable, to alleviate gender-based poverty, and to address
the economic inequality based in persistent racism and colonialism;
We call upon the Government of Canada to implement a universally accessible
and unconditional basic income program that guarantees an income floor to
anyone in need.
To read the letter, click here
And here to read the press release.
Clarifications
We asked the letter’s authors to clarify a number of definitional matters left unclear in the letter.
- BIEN’s definition of a Basic Income is ‘a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement’.
- The letter is clear that the payments envisaged would be ‘regardless of work status’, so there would be no work requirement.
- The letter asks for an income that ‘guarantees an income floor to anyone in need’. Such an income floor could be provided by an income-tested benefit rather than by a Basic Income. The authors have written to clarify that in the Canadian context a ‘means test’ is a test that covers a variety of assets, incomes, and behaviours, and that the income proposed in the letter would be income-tested, but would not suffer from the other tests associated with a Canadian means test.
- Most of the global Basic Income debate assumes that a means test necessarily includes an income test, so the normal assumption is that a Basic Income paid ‘without means test’ would be paid without an income test, and so would be paid at the same amount to everybody of the same age. The income described in the open letter is income-tested, and so is not a Basic Income according to the normal assumption.
- The letter is not clear whether the payment would be paid on an individual or a household basis. The authors have written to say that this issue ‘was not discussed at any time by the authors of the letter’.
We can conclude that if the income envisaged by the letter were to be paid on an individual basis, and if it were to be paid without an income test, then it would be a genuine Basic Income according to BIEN’s definition.
Results from the Stockton experiment
The New Yorker has reported on the results of the experiment in Stockton, where five hundred individuals randomly selected from the city’s most deprived districts have been receiving US$100 per month unconditionally.
… For example, during the pandemic, the percentage of money that participants spent on food, consistently the largest category, reached nearly twenty-five per cent over the monthly average, while the amount spent on recreation dropped to less than two per cent.
Participants have also put the money toward rent, car payments, and paying off debt, as well as one-off expenses for themselves or their children: dental surgery, a prom dress, football camp, and shoes. They’ve also been able to cut back on working second and third jobs; one participant, a forty-eight-year-old mother of two who works full time at Tesla, was able to stop working as a delivery driver for DoorDash. Alcohol and tobacco has accounted for less than one per cent of spending per month. …
(To read previous articles on the experiment, click here)
A new video from the Green European Foundation
On the 13th July the Green European Foundation published a video, Universal Basic Income for Europe: A recipe for resilience.
Can Universal Basic Income be a possible remedy to the COVID-19 crisis? Watch this video to find out! The video was produced by the Green European Foundation for the project Change of Mindset – Civil Society dialogue around UBI, Social Justice and Climate impact: https://gef.eu/project/change-of-mind…
A new video from Massive Attack
On the 10th July 2020 Massive Attack published a video featuring Young Fathers (Massive Attack’s ‘younger brother’), Algiers, and Saul Williams, and featuring Guy Standing talking about Basic Income. The music is taken from the Eutopia EP and is written and produced by Robert Del Naja and Euan Dickinson.
To watch the video, click here.
A version of the video in Spanish can be found here.
