by Sara Bizarro | Nov 29, 2017 | News
Anna Dent, fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), recently wrote an article titled “How has Basic Income progressed from a radical idea to a legitimate policy?” In this article, Anna Dent looks for an explanation of why Basic Income developed from a fringe idea to a popular policy proposal.
Dent researched four different current Basic Income pilots in order to learn what motivated them. The pilots analysed were in Finland, the Netherlands, Ontario and Scotland. Dent found that even with the disparity of location, all the pilots shared “a striking number of common factors” from which more can be learned about the rising popularity of the idea of Basic Income.
Common factors between all pilots were: 1) The feeling that poverty, precarious work and unemployment have grown and that traditional policy solutions are not working; 2) Basic Income is considered as an innovative solution that can help with a wide range of problems; 3) Experimenting with Basic Income enables places to “project positive qualities such as innovation, progressiveness and leadership” and something that serves local cultural identities, the prime example being Scotland; 4) The pilots involve a lot of different people and organizations, from activists, to experts and academics, “providing a critical mass of engagement and interest in basic income, which helped to legitimise it as a solution.”; 5) All pilots were interested in evidence-based social policy.
Dent’s analysis indicates that the countries currently performing of preparing pilots are doing so because of current issues, poverty, precariousness, unemployment and dissatisfaction with traditional yet failing social security solutions. The policy is considered innovative, wide reaching and having a positive impact for the country’s status or social identity. Finally, Dent notes that overall the diversity of people involved, including experts and academics, has given Basic Income additional credibility; therefore, the policy is thought of as a more legitimate solution.
More information:
Anna Dent, “How Basic Income progressed from a radical idea to a legitimate policy?”, October 11th, 2017
RSA on Basic Income.
by Sara Bizarro | Nov 21, 2017 | News
Stockton, California and Mayor Michael Tubbs announced plans for a Basic Income trial – the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED). The project is still in its initial stage, and the design phase of the project will be launched in January 2018. The design period will last 6 to 9 months, and according to a Sukhi Samra, representative of the SEED project, the design phase is being used to “solicit community input and to ensure that SEED is really reflective of the needs of the Stockton community.”
The concrete outline of the project is still in the early stages, but there are some starting points. The basic income stipend will be $500 per month and will apply to anywhere from 25 families for 5 years to 100 families for 1.5 years. The project has secured a $1 million grant from the Economic Security Project and a grant from the Goldhirst Foundation of $250,000 which was announced last Thursday. The project also hopes to be able to raise additional funds. According to the guidelines in the SEED website, the demonstration will gather both research and storytelling partners, and those who are interested in participating can follow the info here. The site also states the project will prioritize high quality data with the cooperation of academics and academic institutions, while also engaging in storytelling, encouraging documentary filmmakers and creative storytellers to join the team.
The city of Stockton has had a difficult past. In 2012, it became the first city in the United States to file for bankruptcy. Since then, the city has been recovering, but it continues facing important challenges since 1 in every 4 residents still live below the poverty line. Mayor Michael Tubbs became the youngest Mayor in history, and the first African American Mayor of Stockton, in 2017. He has a progressive agenda in many areas, and the Basic Income demonstration is intended as a way to show what happens when a group of people have an income floor that is guaranteed. Stockton will be the first public/private trial in the United States with significant leadership from a public official. Mayor Tubbs is inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. who defended a guaranteed basic income. Tubbs is interested in finding out “if a guaranteed income will unleash potential and provide the needed stability.”
More Info:
Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration Website.
Economic Security Project.
Dylan Matthews, ”Three years ago, Stockton, California, was bankrupt. Now it’s trying out a basic income”, Vox, October 18, 2017
Alexis C. Madrigal, “Free Money at the Edge of the Tech Boom”, Atlantic, October 19, 2017
by Sara Bizarro | Nov 18, 2017 | News
Peter S. Goodman, a veteran economics journalist, wrote a comprehensive piece about the recent Basic Income developments for the New York Times. In this piece, Goodman refers to the main motivations behind the idea of Basic Income as including the current wage stagnation, the lack of jobs to support the middle class and the threat of automation. The idea, Goodman says, is “gaining traction in many countries as a proposal to soften the edges of capitalism.” Basic Income can be use to insure “food and shelter for all, while removing the stigma of public support.”
The article also refers to several Basic Income experiments currently underway. In Europe, the article includes the experiments in Finland, Netherlands and Barcelona. In the USA, the article mentions the experiments being prepared in Oakland and Stockton, CA. Also mentioned are the Canadian experiment in Ontario and the experiment in Kenya organized by Give Directly.
Regarding how to finance Basic Income, Goodman says that the cost of Basic Income is a simple multiplication of amount of money distributed by the amount of people. He says: “Give every American $10,000 a year — a sum still below the poverty line for an individual — and the tab runs to $3 trillion a year. That is about eight times what the United States now spends on social service programs. Conversation over.” This argument however, has been challenged by several Basic Income researchers, including Karl Widerquist, who is was interviewed and quoted in the piece. In his paper “The Cost of Basic Income: Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations”, Widerquist says that the cost of Basic Income is “is often misunderstood and greatly exaggerated.” In the paper, Widerquist argues that a Basic Income of “$12,000 per adult and $6,000 per child with a 50% marginal tax rate” would cost “$539 billion per year: about one-sixth its often-mentioned but not-very-meaningful gross cost of about $3.415 trillion.“
Beyond the issue of financing, the article covers a lot of ground regarding current discussion of Basic Income and its motivation, as compared to other social security schemes. Goodman refers to the bureaucracy of social support and the poverty trap, when “people living on benefits risk losing support if they secure other income” and the idea that “poor people are better placed than bureaucrats to determine the most beneficial use of aid money.” The article also refers to the left wing worry that Basic Income could be an excuse to cut social programs, “given that the American social safety programs have been significantly trimmed in recent decades.”
The piece closes with an acknowledgement that Basic Income “appears to have found its moment” and a quote by Guy Standing, saying that, “The interest is exploding everywhere, and the debates now are extraordinarily fertile.”
More information:
Peter S. Goodman, “Capitalism Has a Problem. Is Free Money the Answer?”, New York Times, November 15, 2017
by Sara Bizarro | Oct 27, 2017 | Research
Researchers Krist Vaesen from the Netherlands and Joel Katzav from Australia, have published a paper in Plos One where they analyze what would happen if research money was equally distributed among researchers without the need for grant applications. The paper discusses the results of such a policy in the United States, Netherlands, and the United States. This paper was then discussed by Times Higher Education writer David Mathews who published an article discussing the idea that Basic Income could be a better option than writing research grants for academics. The Times Higher Education is a leading company that uses data to create University Rankings. They also publish academic articles and book reviews with the highest standards.
Joel Katzav and Krist Vaesen
According to the paper, if money was distributed by all researchers, each would be entitled to a stipend of 600,000 dollars every five years in the United States and 500,000 in the Netherlands. In the UK the five-year stipend would be lower, around 364,000 dollars, which would limit the possibility of hiring post-doc students and fund equipment and could lead to a dilution of resources. However, in order to fund projects, researchers could pull their funds together. These stipends are on top of researchers’ salaries and would be used for the projects, hiring postdocs and Ph.D. students, as well as traveling and purchasing equipment.
Giving a Basic Income Research Grant to all researchers would eliminate the need for endless grant proposals, saving researchers a lot of wasted time and resources, since the writing of grants has become an industry and is now often done by specialized companies that charge for their services. This equal distribution could also eliminate gender and ethnic bias. Furthermore, there could be “higher” Basic Income Research Grants in areas where research projects are more expensive to run or that are deemed to have higher social value, such as cancer research. Researchers would be able to negotiate larger projects by pulling their grants together with all researchers at an equal footing. According to the Times Higher Education, the paper claims that the current competitive system would only make sense if those who “win” perform “extraordinarily” above average to compensate for all the wasted time and resources, which may not be the case. The paper shows that this method of distribution would not dilute funds and could be functional, while still having some transformative results in academic research.
by Sara Bizarro | Oct 17, 2017 | News
After the 17th BIEN Conference in Lisbon, Portugal had a boost of interest from the media on Basic Income. There were many articles in the mainstream media, TV, Radio and Newspapers and the debate is continuing.
The main Portuguese public TV station, RTP 1, had a very interesting piece in the news, including interviews with Philippe Van Parijs and Scottish MP Ronnie Cowan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YHg92bkzgQ
Other TV pieces include a segment in the show, Tudo é Ecomonia (Economy is Everything):the section starts around minute 28 and is called Choque de Ideias, it is a debate between Ricardo Pais Mamede and Ricardo Arroja. Additionally, the Spanish News Agency Pressenza published an interview with Sara Bizarro, co-organizer of the Congress.
Examples of radio shows include an interview with Jurgen De Wispelaere on Antena 1, which aired on September 25, just as the congress was about to take off. De Wispelaere spoke about the experiment in Finland and how each country will propose its own version of Basic Income. On the 26th there was an interview with Jorge Pinto on Antena 1, and on the 28th and interview with Gonçalo Marcelo on Rádio Renascença (starts on minute 34). There was also a radio interview with Philippe van Parijs on TSF and another in Rádio Renascença.
The newspapers featured many articles and opinion pieces, including Amílcar Correia’s editorial, O pão, o tempo, trabalho e remuneração, in Público; Natália Faria, Da Finlândia à Escócia, os testes ao rendimento básico espalham-se pela Europa, in Público; Margarida David Cardoso, Rendimento básico entusiasma mais os académicos do que os políticos. Margarida David Cardoso also interviewed Evelyn Forget and mentions the idea of Cannabis legalization being used to help finance a Basic Income in E se a legalização da cannabis ajudasse a pagar um rendimento básico para todos? Entrevista a Evelyn Forget. The newspaper Correio da Manhã had a piece about Cascais PAN candidate, Francisco Guerreiro, by Débora Carvalho, Candidato a Cascais quer dar salário extra de 557 euros para todos. Other opinion pieces are Ricardo Arroja’s, RBI? A esquerda não deixará; Paulo Tavares, O RBI pode matar o Estado social; Diário de Notícias; Pedro Duarte, Ser social-democrata em 2017; Paulo Tavares, Como enfrentar as dores de crescimento da revolução 4.0; and Ricardo Sant’Ana Moreira, Rendimento Básico Incondicional: receber dinheiro por existir é uma boa ideia?. Diogo Queiroz de Andrade wrote about the Inequality Conference, Conferência sobre desigualdade; Philippe van Parijs was also interviewed by Filomena Naves in Rendimento universal seria muito mais justo and by Pedro Esteves in Quem limpa casas de banho pode vir a ganhar mais do que um professor; finally, Pedro Ramajal was interviewed by Isabel Guerreiro in O Rendimento Básico Incondicional (RBI) começa a ser levado a sério em Portugal.
To follow the media events regarding Basic Income in Portugal, please go to the Rendimento Básico Portugal website, Media section.
