by Kate McFarland | Apr 8, 2017 | Research
Matthew Dimick, Associate Professor of Law at University at Buffalo, has written a new article for the Indiana Law Review in which he compares the promises of basic income to those of working-time regulation, presenting a case to prefer the latter.
According to Dimick, the potential benefits of working-time regulation outweigh those of basic income, in large part because they would be shared more equitably throughout the population. For example, on Dimick’s assessment, a basic income would not allow the majority of people to increase their leisure time (a benefit he sees as largely confined those who “earn subsistence-level incomes or lower” and thus “would have either the option not to work or the bargaining power to secure a more favorable work-leisure trade-off with employers”); working-time regulation, in contrast, would increase leisure time for middle- and even upper-class workers as well. Additionally, Dimick argues that working-time regulation could allow not only leisure but also jobs to be more widely available and equitably distributed — whereas a basic income would deepen the divide between the working and non-working populations.
And working-time regulation might have other positive effects. For instance, due to the across-the-board increase in leisure time, Dimick contends that the policy would likely result in decreased consumption, while a basic income might spur additional consumption — leading to a preference for the former from an ecological viewpoint.
Further, because working-time regulation is a less radical departure from current policies — and, in particular, does not aim to sever benefits from work — it is much better positioned to gain popular and political support.
Dimick notes that basic income might do more than working-time regulation alone to “transform the workplace” (e.g. by giving more bargaining power to employees themselves) but that, with respect to this goal, working-time regulation should be conceived as part of a larger set of legislative reforms.
Matthew Dimick’s current areas of research include labor and employment law, tax and welfare policies, and income inequality. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied organized labor under Erik Olin Wright and Ivan Ermakoff, and a JD from Cornell Law School.
Matthew Dimick, 2017, “Better Than Basic Income? Liberty, Equality, and the Regulation of Working Time,” Indiana Law Review.
Post reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo CC BY-ND 2.0 Laurence Edmondson
by Kate McFarland | Apr 3, 2017 | Research
Photo Neil Conway/Flickr, CC BY
Psychologists for Social Change, a UK-based network of applied psychologists, academics, therapists and psychology graduates, publishes reports on topics at the intersection of psychology and public policy, such as the psychological impact of austerity policies and, now, basic income. It’s an important movement that could lead to significant social understanding and change for the better. Projects like this drive social advancement but rely on the bravery of individuals to start them. To do this you’d need leadership qualities amongst many other skills, but you can learn everything there is to learn if you have enough passion.
A briefing paper published in March 2017 examines the potential psychological effects of a universal basic income (described therein as “a regular, non-means tested, guaranteed income, delivered to every citizen of and beyond working age”) and offers recommendations for further research.
According to the report, there is evidence to suggest that basic income could increase five important psychological indicators: agency, security, connection, meaning, and trust. With respect to agency, the authors maintain that a basic income would allow individuals to “make meaningful choices about the kind of work they would like to do”. Additionally, they claim that the removal of sanctions on benefits would increase the sense of agency for recipients. With respect to connection, they note that a basic income is individual rather than household based, eliminating economic constraints on relationship formation, and that the policy could potentially allow individuals to work less, spending more time with friends and family. Meaning, according to the authors, would be promoted insofar as individuals are able to take advantage of the basic income to “prioritize spending time on creative projects, volunteering or other non-paid work (such as caring) that has meaning for them”.
At the same time, Psychologists for Social Change acknowledge that the effects of basic income are uncertain, and they call for more trials of the policy in the UK, which, in particular, would gather data on mental well-being and other psychological indicators.
Read the full report:
Psychologists for Social Change, “Universal Basic Income: A Psychological Impact Assessment” (March 2017).
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Photo CC BY 2.0 Neil Conway
by Kate McFarland | Mar 31, 2017 | Research
Luke Martinelli, Research Associate at the University of Bath’s Institute for Policy Research (IPR), has prepared a new working paper that uses simulation techniques to analyze the effects of four different revenue-neutral basic income schemes. Martinelli’s analysis suggests that the design of a basic income falls prey to the “iron triangle of welfare reform” — wherein it is impossible simultaneously to meet the goals of keeping the program at a reasonable cost, meeting the needs of beneficiaries, and maintaining work incentives (see pp. 6, 44-46).
The paper was published as part of the IPR’s ongoing project Examining the Case for a Basic Income, which also includes a series of lectures, workshops, and other events.
Abstract:
In line with a dramatic resurgence of interest in basic income in recent years, there have been a number of studies analysing the fiscal and distributional consequences of specific basic income schemes. These ‘microsimulation’ studies use representative household surveys to examine the effects of hypothetical reforms at the national level and for specific demographics.
We make several original contributions to this burgeoning literature, modelling a number of original basic income schemes. These include a wide variety of schemes with full coverage and a number of schemes with partial coverage. We also carry out a detailed analysis of four revenue-neutral full schemes.
- Among systems with ‘full’ coverage, we have modelled four levels of generosity, and four types of compensatory tax and benefit reform for each.
- For the partial coverage schemes, we model how expansion of coverage could be sequenced in order to distribute the fiscal burden over a longer period of time.
- The revenue-neutral schemes assume that increases in expenditure must be broadly matched by increases in tax revenue. We suggest that besides the elimination of the personal income tax allowance and national insurance lower and upper thresholds, the income tax rate would have to increase by 4% (for a basic income set at the standard level of existing benefits) and 8% (for one with premiums for individuals determined as disabled) to pay for our schemes.
For each scheme, we discuss the fiscal implications and the implications for levels of poverty and inequality. For the revenue neutral schemes, we provide a more detailed breakdown of distributional effects, disaggregating changes in household income levels by income quintile, family type, number of children, and labour market status. The main argument of the paper is that we are faced with a series of trade-offs with respect to policy design, between the goals of meeting need / alleviating poverty, controlling cost, and eliminating means-testing. Our schemes aims to replace a large range of existing benefits with a basic income. The unavoidable reality is that such schemes either have unacceptable distributional consequences or they simply cost too much. The alternative – to retain the existing structure of means-tested benefits – ensures a more favourable compromise between the goals of meeting need and controlling cost, but does so at the cost of administrative complexity and adverse work incentive effects.
Paper
Luke Martinelli, “The Fiscal and Distributional Implications of Alternative Universal Basic Income Schemes in the UK,” Institute for Policy Research, March 2017.
Photo: “lots of iron triangles” CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 danna § curious tangles
by Kate McFarland | Mar 23, 2017 | Research
Three University of Manitoba economists, Wayne Simpson, Greg Mason, and Ryan Godwin, have jointly authored a new research paper about the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment (“Mincome”), a trial of a guaranteed income that took place from 1974 to 1979.
The Mincome experiment consisted of randomized studies in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba, as well as a saturation study in the town of Dauphin, where all residents were eligible for participation in the study. Participants received an income supplement that was phased out as personal earnings increased, and several combinations of minimum income level and taxation rates were tested. The guaranteed income scheme tested, a negative income tax, is equivalent in its distributional effects to a basic income that is taxed back with personal income over a certain amount. Decades after Mincome ended, its outcomes were analyzed by economist Evelyn Forget. The results are now frequently mentioned as evidence of the effectiveness of basic income / negative income tax.
At present, the province of Ontario is preparing a new major trial of a guaranteed income (which, as in Mincome, is likely to be designed as a negative income tax). In a lengthy discussion paper about the new trial, project advisor Hugh Segal notes that the Dauphin saturation study, showed “population health improvements, the potential for government health savings, and no meaningful reduction in labour force participation.”
In their new article, Simpson, Mason, and Godwin re-examine Mincome, and consider how it might answer questions about contemporary experiments in Ontario and elsewhere.
Abstract
The recent announcements of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot and Finland’s cash grants to jobless persons reflect the growing interest in some form of guaranteed annual income (GAI). This idea has circulated for decades and has now been revived, no doubt prompted by concerns of increased inequality and employment disruptions. The Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment (Mincome), conducted some 40 years ago, was an ambitious social experiment designed to assess a range of behavioural responses to a negative income tax, a specific form of GAI. This article reviews that experiment, clarifying what exactly Mincome did and did not learn about how individuals and households reacted to the income guarantees. This article reviews the potential for Mincome to answer questions about modern-day income experiments and describes how researchers may access these valuable data.
Wayne Simpson, Greg Mason and Ryan Godwin (2017), “The Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment: Lessons Learned 40 Years Later,” Canadian Public Policy.
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
Photo: Northern Lights in Manitoba, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 AJ Batac
by Kate McFarland | Mar 15, 2017 | Research
Labor policy researcher Anne Gray has written a new research article, “Behavioural Effects of a Citizen’s Income on wages, job security and labour supply,” for the Citizen’s Income Trust (BIEN’s UK affiliate).
Gray begins her article by noting two predictions about the labor supply effect of basic income that appear in tension with one another: the first is that a basic income would increase the labor supply by removing the poverty trap (unemployed individuals could take jobs without the elimination of their benefits); the second is that a basic income would decrease the labor supply by allowing individuals to quit jobs to (for example) perform unpaid labor, retrain, or take more time to find a suitable job. She examines both of these hypothesizes in some detail, stressing that a basic income could result in employers’ reducing wages if the labor supply increases.
Gray then proceeds to “guestimate” the effect of a basic income on workforce participation for various groups (differing according to employment status, socioeconomic status, and household status, for example). She concludes that labor supply would indeed increase among low-wage workers. Thus, a minimum wage would be necessary to enforce in addition to a basic income, in order to prevent the basic income from becoming an employer’s supplement to low wages.
Reviewed by Dave Clegg
Photo: CC BY 2.0 Stephen Bowler
by Kate McFarland | Mar 11, 2017 | Research
Daiga KamerÄde (Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Research Methods at the University of Salford) and Matthew R. Bennett (Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Birmingham) have written a paper for the journal Work, Employment and Society in which they examine changes in the structure of the labor market and their impact on mental health and well-being. Indeed, it is known that there is a link between these two areas, which is why many will use private label capsules of CBD oils to help manage their own mental health, but a formal study is still important.
KamerÄde and Bennett use data from the European Quality of Life Survey to analyze differences in mental health status between unemployed individuals in different nations, as well as between those who engaged in volunteer work and those who did not. (The dataset consisted of 2,440 individuals, all unemployed, from 29 European countries.) While it is known that unemployment is associated with lower mental health, KamerÄde and Bennett investigate whether receipt of government support and participation in voluntary work can improve mental health and well-being. This can lead to other opportunities if seen as viable, such as gaining an online yoga certification yoga alliance qualification to those who want to contribute to ongoing mental wellness and health systems.
One of their most important findings is that, in countries with less generous unemployment benefits, volunteer work is associated with worse mental health outcomes — even though volunteer work shows beneficial effects on mental health in countries with more generous benefits. Based on this result, the authors conclude that “financial support for the unemployed” – possibly through (as they mention) a guaranteed basic income or citizen’s income scheme – “should occupy a central position in theoretical perspectives focusing on reducing the negative effects of unemployment”:
Unemployment could lead to negative psychological and physiological health effects such as depression, lower self-esteem, eating disorders, cardiovascular diseases, etc. Aged care courses Melbourne, or similar accreditations could, therefore, prove beneficial to the unemployed youths. This would help benefit the people in terms of their mental health, and in turn, they could also be of service to the government and society by their volunteering work. Financial and psychological support in trying times can be of tremendous comfort to the people who are signing up for voluntary services.
The findings indicate that financial support during periods of unemployment remains crucial for well-being and mental health. Although individuals can boost one dimension of their own well-being (feeling that their life is worthwhile) by exercising their agency through engaging in work that is an alternative to paid work, such engagement without any financial support can also damage their mental health. These findings suggest that financial support for the unemployed – through unemployment benefits, guaranteed basic income (Gorz, 1989), citizens income (Standing, 2011), etc. – should occupy a central position in theoretical perspectives focusing on reducing the negative effects of unemployment.
Full article available at the following link:
Daiga Kamerade-Hanta and Matthew R. Bennett (December 2016) “Rewarding work: cross-national differences in benefits, volunteering during unemployment, well-being and mental health,” Work, Employment and Society.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: CC BY 2.0 Virginia State Parks
