Beliefs about Poverty
The author contrasts the thoroughness of the statistical knowledge of poverty with the inadequacy of the current attempted solutions, and proposes the “Living Income Guaranteed” as the optimal solution.
Living Income Now, “Beliefs about Poverty”, Living Income Now, 2014 September 25
Don Pittis, “Free money for all could 
the economy”, CBC News, 24th September 2014
In this article, Zoe Williams surveys the options available to voters looking for a left-wing alternative. She mentions the basic income as one of the possible policies on offer from sections of the UK left, most notably the Green Party. She writes that ‘a huge amount of work has been done on a basic citizen’s income – how it could be afforded, how it could remake our perception of welfare, security, citizenship and belonging – yet very little has been said.’ This is indicative, she suggests, of a tendency on the left to ‘do the sums’ first but then fail to take things forward.
The full article is available here:
Zoe Williams, “Fed up with growth-focused politics? For real change, look left”, The Guardian, 6th October 2014
In this article, Cristina Brooks deals with the UK Conservative Party’s recent pledge to reduce the tax paid by low earners. She suggests that David Cameron, the party leader, ‘should consider the £12,000 basic income handout put forward by supporters of Basic Income UK (BI), targeting the same people who would be saved by the tricky tax rebate, as a way to proportionately simplify the unfair tax system.’
The full article is available here:
Cristina Brooks, “Tory tax cuts to ta
ke minimum-wage earners back to 2010”, Basic Income UK: Towards an emancipatory welfare, 6th October 2014
Speaking as part of a roundtable discussion in the McKinsey Quarterly, Jeremy Howard suggests that we have to ‘accept that in this new world, there’s a large group of people who can’t really add economic value anymore, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get to live a decent human life.’ In response to this, ‘we have to start thinking about the policy implications—like a basic living wage, which Germany will be introducing, or a negative income tax, which has been off the agenda for decades but deserves to be back on it. I think people should start to think about these policy implications because the point at which we need to make decisions will be upon us suddenly.’
The full article is available here:
Erik Brynjolfsson, Jeremy Howard, Robert Schiller, “The Great Decoupling”, McKinsey Quarterly, September 2014
Let’s Scrap the DWP
Simon Duffy and John Dalrymple, “Let’s scrap the DWP: The case for basic income security in Scotland“, The Centre for Welfare Reform, 2014 September
