Eduardo Suplicy’s speech at the closing ceremony, 2024 BIEN Congress

Eduardo Suplicy’s speech at the closing ceremony, 2024 BIEN Congress

Below you will find the full text of Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy’s planned address at the closing ceremony of 2024 BIEN Congress at the University of Bath, UK, on August 31, 2024. He was conscious that he had to respect the ten-minute time limit set by the organization of the Congress for his oral exposition, but for the record he considered that it would important to provide a fuller account of the long journey toward making UBI a reality in Brazil, where the 2025 Congress will be held.

To read the full text, click here.

Photos from Day 1 of Bath Congress

BIEN Press Release – BIEN’s submission to the 2025 Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture

On 8 August 2024, the Basic Income Earth Network submitted input for the United Nations

Secretary-General’s report on the 2025 Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture, upon

invitation of the United Nations (UN) Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO). This proposal

was endorsed by over 125 affiliates and partner organisations from 46 countries who joined

their organisational commitment behind BIEN’s call for the consideration of basic income as

a peacebuilding instrument.

To read the full press release, click here.

Photos from Day 1 of Bath Congress

BIEN Press Release – Responding to Disturbances: Why a Basic Income is Vital

The recent riots in English urban areas and in Northern Ireland were precipitated by racism,

extremist nationalism and religious bigotry. That’s what everybody sees, and everyone is

responding to. However, the unseen underlying cause of such attitudes and behaviour is

chronic economic insecurity, just as lurches to the far right in other countries have been due

to economic insecurity and the growth of the new mass class, the precariat, whose lives are

mired in insecurity, instability, precarity and debt. When people are insecure, it’s easy to

induce them to believe the lie that other vulnerable groups are to blame for their precarity.

To read the full release, click here.

Exogenous Increases in Basic Income Provisions Increase Preventive Health-Seeking Behavior

Exogenous Increases in Basic Income Provisions Increase Preventive Health-Seeking Behavior

“Universal Basic Income (UBI) policies have the potential to promote a wide range of public health objectives by providing those who qualify with direct cash payments. One overlooked mechanism of particular importance to health researchers is the possibility that guaranteed income might increase consultation of primary and preventive care (e.g., annual doctors’ visits; regular vaccination against infectious disease) by providing people with both the time and monetary resources to do so, thereby improving general health.

This study assesses the effects of an exogenous shock to Alaska’s UBI payments to all state residents: a 2022 decision to reclassify dividend “energy relief” provisions as non-taxable (thereby increasing payments by approximately $2,000 inflation-adjusted dollars). It estimates quasi- experimental treatment effects (in 2022 vs. 2021) via mixed linear probability models that compare pre/post policy change in primary care seeking behavior in Alaska vs. the US adult population; controlling for respondent-level fixed effects and state-level random effects. Data were collected in 2021-2022, and analyzed in 2024.”

To read more, click here.