New book on income inequality in the UK features basic income

New book on income inequality in the UK features basic income

The Richer, the Poorer charts the rollercoaster history of both rich and poor and the mechanisms that link wealth and impoverishment. This landmark book shows how, for 200 years, Britain’s most powerful elites have enriched themselves at the expense of surging inequality, mass poverty and weakened social resilience. It reveals how Britain’s model of ‘extractive capitalism’ – with a small elite securing an excessive slice of the economic cake – has created a two-century-long ‘high-inequality, high-poverty’ cycle, one broken for only a brief period after the Second World War.

Why, he asks, are rich and poor citizens judged by very different standards? Why has social progress been so narrowly shared? With growing calls for a fairer post-COVID-19 society, what needs to be done to break Britain’s destructive poverty/inequality cycle? The book has two chapters on the way forward and this includes adopting a guaranteed income floor through a modified basic income along with a top-up social dividend paid through a citizen’s wealth fund.

For a review, click here.

FRIBIS Winter School with Phillipe van Parijs

FRIBIS Winter School with Phillipe van Parijs

The Freiburg Institute for Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS) is inviting you to the first FRIBIS winter school, entitled “Today’s global challenges and the UBI debate”, and under the guidance of Philippe van Parijs, from January 16th to 20th 2023. Over the five days, the participants will focus on whether today’s big challenges, such as the climate crisis, the pandemic and international tensions and conflicts, put UBI on the back burner or provide grounds for its growth.

Read more and apply here.

UBI and the Cost of Living Crisis

UBI and the Cost of Living Crisis

UBI Lab Food is organizing an online event about ‘Universal Basic Income and the Cost of Living Crisis’ on Monday, 21 November 2022, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM UK time. The panel will consist of Ian Byrne MP, Lucy Antal (Feedback Global), Mary O’Hara (Author), Penny Walters (Food Poverty Campaigner) and James Anderson (Depher UK CIC). The meeting will end with a general discussion and Q&A session. You can register and find out more here.

Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland: What can we learn?

Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland: What can we learn?

The Government of the Republic of Ireland has started the Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Scheme. UBI Lab ArtsUBI Lab Leeds and Network and Culture declares Emergency would like to invite you to the online event ‘Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland – What Can We Learn?’ on Wednesday, 7 December 2022, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM UK time. This will be the first in a special series of discussions dedicated to reflecting on what we can learn from the Irish Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Scheme, as it unfolds. Please pass this info to artists and other people with a precarious income who may be particularly interested to learn about the trial in Ireland. You can register for the event here. Everybody is welcome!

Videos of sessions and papers presented at the BIG 2022 Conference now available for viewing

Videos of sessions and papers presented at the BIG 2022 Conference now available for viewing

The 20th annual Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) Conference was held June 23-25 and videos of 27 sessions are now available for viewing free on YouTube.

Click here to see them. You can scroll down the playlist at the bottom right of the screen to see the titles of the sessions and view a specific session by clicking on the session title.

The papers submitted from the BIG Conference for posting in the USBIG Discussion Paper Series, and a few others, are now posted. To check them out, and hundreds of others from earlier conferences, click here: https://usbig.net/discussion-papers/.