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)
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.
The current economic system is generating increasing inter-personal inequality in income and wealth. This is well documented by several observers, including others in this collection of essays, such as James Galbraith, and not least Thomas Piketty in his two books and on-line database … . I therefore don’t intend to rehearse the data analysis of inequality in this brief paper, but to take it as a working assumption. My aim rather is to locate causes of inequality, and to consider whether universal basic income (UBI) can claim to alleviate inequality … . The main focus for evidence is the UK, but the issues generalise. …
The Basic Income Conversation is launching a Summer Discussion Series on Basic Income. It’s a 3 part series that explores the Future of Work, Pilots, and Monetary Financing – some of the most talked about subjects when it comes to UBI.
The first event is on Wednesday 15th July, 6.30pm on Basic Income & the Future of Work. It’s hosted by Prof Nick Pearce (IPR at University of Bath) who’s joined by author Daniel Susskind and Director of Future of Work Anna Thoma
The second will be on Monday 27th July, 6.30 p.m. onBasic Income Pilots: Learning from Finland and Scotland: Michael Pugh, the Director of the Basic Income Conversation, will be joined by Olli Kangas (University of Turku, Finland) and Paul Vaughan (Fife Council)
