BIEN Norway’s Emergency Basic Income proposal
BIEN Norway has proposed an Emergency Basic Income. Click here to read the proposal.
Challenges facing the implementation of an emergency Basic Income in the United Kingdom
As in countries all over the world, a significant effect of the social distancing and other measures that the UK Government has put in place to slow the coronavirus’s spread is that individuals’ incomes are experiencing significant damage. This is particularly true of individuals working in the tourism, hospitality, and leisure industries, and workers on zero hour contracts or in the gig economy. Such income loss impacts both the individuals concerned, and the level of demand in the economy, making a recession a significant risk.
An obvious suggestion, now made frequently in the press and by members of parliament in most of the UK’s political parties, is that a temporary Basic Income – an unconditional income – should be paid to every individual legally resident in the UK.
Unfortunately, this option is not currently open to the UK, because there is no database that could be used for that purpose. There are lots of disconnected lists – driving licence holders, National Insurance numbers, National Health Service numbers, income tax references, passport holders, etc. – but no single list that contains names, contact details, dates of birth, and, crucially, bank account details, for every individual legally resident in the UK.
If the political will were available, government departments and a variety of financial institutions were willing to work together, and the necessary legislation could be passed, then it would not take long for systems analysts to construct the required database: but because the mechanisms that the Government has put in place to protect most workers’ incomes use existing tax and benefits systems, embarking on an emergency Basic Income project that would require a substantial amount of work to create the required administrative systems is not likely to be at the top of the Government’s agenda given the other challenges that it faces.
This is one reason for the Government not implementing a Basic Income to serve the UK’s population during the current crisis. Whether the fact that every other parliamentary party has members calling for a Basic Income is another reason for the Government not wishing to implement a Basic Income must remain a matter for speculation.
Different countries will be better able to construct the required database than the UK, and it would be interesting to know how much work different countries would have to put in in order to do so.
This article is based on two articles on the Citizen’s Basic Income website:
https://citizensincome.org/news/coronavirus-and-the-next-time-it-happens/
What did Pope Francis mean on Easter Day 2020?
On Easter Day, the 12th April 2020, Pope Francis sent a message to ‘our brothers and sisters in social movements and organizations’, during which he said this:
… I know that you have been excluded from the benefits of globalization. You do not enjoy the superficial pleasures that anesthetize so many consciences, yet you always suffer from the harm they produce. The ills that afflict everyone hit you twice as hard. Many of you live from day to day, without any type of legal guarantee to protect you. Street vendors, recyclers, carnies, small farmers, construction workers, dressmakers, the different kinds of caregivers: you who are informal, working on your own or in the grassroots economy, you have no steady income to get you through this hard time … and the lockdowns are becoming unbearable. This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage which would acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks you carry out. It would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights. …
Fraternally, Francis
Vatican City, Easter Sunday, 12 April 2020
A question: Was he referring to a national or global statutory minimum wage, or was he referring to Basic Income? Comment would be welcome.
To read the full text of the Pope’s message, click here.
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Emergency Basic Income during the Coronavirus crisis
There is a translation of this article into French.
A basic income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement (BIEN’s definition of Basic Income)
The coronavirus pandemic is causing huge suffering for those individuals who experience serious attacks of the disease, and for the families and friends of those who die from it. Everybody understands the social distancing measures that governments around the world are having to implement, because nobody wants health services to be put under so much pressure at any one time that those who need treatment cannot receive it. The global economy has been tanking as all sectors have had to shut down. Only two sectors – food and medicine – have really been keeping the economy afloat. As we all still shop for food, supermarkets have been a lifeline. However, an even bigger lifeline, quite literally, has been that of the medical industry. With medical devices and equipment such as needles and facemasks in such high demand, medicine has been keeping both people and the economy alive.
Governments have been doing what they can to protect employees’ incomes when their employers can no longer pay them, and to protect the incomes of self-employed people when their businesses have to cease trading either temporarily or permanently: but the measures put in place often struggle to protect the incomes of large numbers of workers in the informal sector and migrant workers.
Around the world we have seen legislators, journalists, think tanks, researchers, campaigners, and many others, calling for an emergency Basic Income. This is clearly to be welcomed. Also to be welcomed are changes to existing benefits systems that take them closer to being Basic Incomes. What is not to be welcomed is the use of the term ‘Basic Income’ for benefits that are not genuine Basic Incomes: that is, they are not ‘a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement’.
The reason for the increase in interest in Basic Income is that a genuine Basic Income would provide a secure layer of income when all other sources are either absent or insecure; it would inject demand into the economy and help us to avoid a recession; and because everyone would receive it, it would contribute to the social cohesion that every nation will need if it is to get through this crisis. It would not matter that Basic Incomes would be paid to people who didn’t need them, because it would be an easy matter to raise income tax rates on higher incomes so that those who already had secure incomes would not see their disposable incomes rise, and would be helping to pay for the Basic Incomes that everybody needed.
It is a significant problem that instead of paying Basic Incomes, governments are relying on increasing the coverage of existing means-tested benefits and on implementing new income-tested benefits. These benefits fall if earned income rises, so occasional and even permanent opportunities to earn additional income might be turned down because any increase in earned income would reduce benefit payments and could risk people losing their benefit claims entirely. A Basic Income would not fall if earned incomes were to rise, so any opportunity to contribute to the economy would be gladly taken, and there would always be an incentive to start the new businesses that any new economic situation would require.
Given the clear advantages of Basic Income, why are governments not implementing temporary or permanent Basic Income schemes? There might be several reasons for this. First of all, whether a country’s economy is more developed or less developed, there might simply be no mechanism available to enable the government to pay an unconditional income to every legal resident. What would be required would be a database that contained every individual’s name, contact details, date of birth, and bank account details. Given sufficient political will, many countries would be able to construct such a database within a fairly short period of time: but in the midst of this crisis it will generally be easier to use existing mechanisms to protect the incomes that can be protected fairly easily: through expansions of existing means-tested and contributory benefits systems; through using existing ‘pay as you earn’ income tax systems to enable employers to continue to pay employees who have been laid off; and to make grants to self-employed individuals on the basis of submitted annual accounts.
Where existing benefits systems are being used to maintain household incomes, the conditions for the receipt of benefits are often being relaxed: for instance, by no longer requiring stringent employment search requirements. Such changes are steps towards the complete unconditionality of Basic Income, and they are to be recognised as such, and are to be welcomed.
A trend that is not to be welcomed, though, is the use of the term ‘Basic Income’ for mechanisms that are not Basic Incomes. The recent short-lived experiment in Ontario was called a Basic Income, but it was household-based and therefore not ‘on an individual basis’, and it was income-tested and therefore was not ‘without means test’. It was not a Basic Income, and it should never have been called one. Similarly, during this crisis, governments are sometimes using the term ‘Basic Income’ for new or reformed benefits that are not Basic Incomes. This ought to stop, because it is misleading, and it makes rational debate more difficult to conduct.
So we should recognise and welcome the efforts that governments are making to adapt existing benefits systems so that they are closer in character to Basic Income; but we should point out that anything that is not a Basic Income will not exhibit the advantages that a genuine Basic Income would exhibit, and that if it is not a Basic Income then it should not be called one.
BIEN is gathering information from its affiliated organisations on their governments’ measures to protect incomes during the crisis, and in particular information on the extent to which those measures exhibit the characteristics of Basic Income, and the extent to which they do not.
In the meantime, information on the measures that governments are implementing can be found on the IMF website.
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UBI Advocates conversations co-ordinated by BIEN’s Turkish affiliate
BIEN’s Turkish affiliated organisation, ‘Citizen’s Basic Income Research Development Culture and Dissemination Society’, is organising a series of ‘UBI Advocates’ conversations.
Three smaller groups have discussed the relationship between the coronavirus crisis and Basic Income:
A larger group of ‘UBI Advocates’ has now met:
The first UBI Advocates discussion
For further details about the UBI Advocates’ conversations, contact Dr. Ali Mutlu Köylüoğlu.
