by Kate McFarland | Dec 17, 2016 | News
Photo: Results of “ball poll” at UNISON West Midlands Regional Games in Birmingham (credit: Becca Kirkpatrick).
The trade union UNISON has called on West Midlands mayoral candidates to commit to running a basic income pilot in the region.
UNISON, a major public service employee union, has released a 20-point manifesto, calling on candidates in the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) mayoral election to declare which of the 20 “asks” they would implement if elected.
The election, which is to take place on May 4, 2017, will decide the first mayor of England’s West Midlands region. The WMCA was established to the govern the seven-authority area in June 2016.
One of the points of UNISON’s manifesto, which has been published in full on the West Midlands political blog The Chamberlain Files, is a demand for a “micro-pilot” of universal basic income (no further details of the pilot have been specified):
WMCA to run a micro-pilot on the use of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). A UBI could have many benefits including helping the long-term unemployed get back into work via part-time work and providing a basic income that would allow people to undertake entrepreneurial activities.
Unemployment is a pressing concern in the West Midlands. A new report from the Resolution Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, reveals that WMCA has an employment rate of 64.5%, as compared to an overall employment rate of 71.6% within UK city regions other than WMCA.
The UNISON manifesto also calls for a range of improvements in education, transportation, housing and development, and government accountability in the WMCA.
UNISON has approximately 1.3 million members across the UK. It has over 120,000 members in the West Midlands, making it the largest union in the region. Members in the region comprise employees in eight main types of work: local government, health care, education services, water, energy, community, police and justice, and private contractors.
Sources
Kevin Johnson, “Nationalisation, seats for unions and free public transport – Unison unveils mayoral manifesto,” The Chamberlain Files, December 15, 2016.
Neil Elkes, “Call for universal basic income trail [sic] in the West Midlands,” Birmingham Mail, December 15, 2016.
Becca Kirkpatrick, personal communication.
by Kate McFarland | Dec 16, 2016 | News
Universal basic income (UBI) has been receiving an increasing amount of attention in India–including from the national government, with the Chief Economic Adviser having announced that UBI will be examined as part of the country’s next Economic Survey.
Within the government, UBI tends to be viewed chiefly as a way to overcome the inefficiencies and corruption that plague existing programs of social welfare. Some academic economists, including Abhijit V. Banerjee (MIT) and Pranab Bardhan (UC-Berkeley), have also emphasized the efficiency of UBI in comparison to India’s current welfare state.
One critic of this approach to UBI is Nimai Mehta, Academic Director of Global Economics and Business at Washington DC’s School of Extended and Professional Studies. Mehta maintains that UBI should not be seen only–or even primarily–as a way to make India’s welfare system more efficient, but should instead be conceptualized as a route to other reforms.
In an article published in October, Mehta argues that a UBI alone would not suffice to solve the most fundamental problems faced by the poor in India. Indeed, the adoption of a UBI could threaten to leave many worse off if the government were to take it as a license to make substantial cuts in its spending on health, sanitation, education, and other public goods:
Where entrepreneurship and job creation continue to face formidable challenges, and public sector failures in education, health and sanitation severely degrade the poor’s expenditure on human capital, a UBI will prove insufficient or even wasteful. This is not because, as many fear, the poor would spend it unwisely, but because, without wider reforms, the poor remain handicapped in their ability to “buy” themselves out of poverty, whether through entrepreneurship or investments in their human capital. Worse, a UBI handout could reduce the political incentive for these reforms.
Mehta proposes what he calls “UBI-for-reform” programs as a way to address further handicaps faced by the poor. Crucial to his proposal, these programs would be organized within individual Indian states rather than nationwide. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has preferred that states take the lead in initiating reforms, and has promised support for states undertaking difficult but important reforms. Thus, Mehta suggests that the national government provide money to a state to help fund a UBI for its residents, while making its renewal contingent on the state’s carrying out additional reforms aimed at, for example, improving educational quality and access, removing barriers to entrepreneurship, or helping laborers to find more secure and stable work.
Reference
Nimai Mehta (Oct 28, 2016) “A universal basic income to step up economic reform” Ideas for India; originally published as “A UBI to step up economic reform” (Oct 18, 2016) Mint.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Cover Photo CC BY 2.0 Trocaire
by Kate McFarland | Dec 16, 2016 | News
The Opportunities Party flag
In November 2016, Gareth Morgan–economist, investment manager, philanthropist, and advocate for a universal basic income in New Zealand–launched a new political party: The Opportunities Party (TOP). TOP will be unveiling in policy positions through early 2017.
Morgan has supported basic income (along with comprehensive tax reform) as part of his Big Kahuna plan for New Zealand. Thus, some hoped that basic income would also be included in the TOP platform. In its December newsletter, Basic Income New Zealand (BINZ) announced: “BINZ is supportive of the formation of this party [TOP] and we hope it will invigorate national debate on UBI, even though Morgan hasn’t yet committed to UBI for his party platform.”
On December 8, however, Morgan announced to reporters that UBI would “not be on the table” this time [1]. Although he speaks about UBI as a “great concept”, he believes that New Zealand’s present focus should be tax reform, such as removing tax breaks for homeowners that have driven up housing prices across the country.
Morgan states that UBI will be in “phase two” if TOP is still around.
Watch Morgan talk about UBI at approximately 8 min 2 sec into this video:
#Watch: Gareth Morgan joins us to talk politics and explain what The Opportunities Party will stand for.
Posted by Stuff.co.nz on Tuesday, December 6, 2016
The Big Kahuna
In 2009, Morgan called for a $10,000 guaranteed minimum income for all New Zealanders, combined with a flat-rate income tax of 25% (a negative income tax). In addition to the 25% income tax (which would apply to corporate as well as personal income), Morgan proposed a Comprehensive Capital Tax on all forms of capital (land, buildings, equipment, etc) [2]. Later, he adjusted his recommended figures to an $11,000 minimum income and 30% flat tax rate.
[1] Amanda Saxton, “Gareth Morgan’s divisive policy to tackle inequality,” The Dominion Post, December 8, 2016.
[2] Bernard Hickey “ ‘Big kahuna’ tax overhaul proposed,” NZ Herald, December 1, 2009.
Reviewed by Ali Özgür Abalı.
Cover Photo CC BY 2.0 Rosa Stewart1; Gareth Morgan is the adult pictured.
by Kate McFarland | Dec 15, 2016 | News
The idea of a universal basic income (UBI) is rising in popularity in India, where it is often seen as a way to streamline and expedite the distribution of aid to the poor, avoiding the corruption and wastefulness that plague current social welfare programs.
In a recent article for LiveMint, the economist Himanshu (Associate Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University) contrasts this view of UBI with its perception in developed nations that enjoy mature welfare states, such as the Nordic countries. Himanshu contends that developing nations are more likely view UBI as substitute instead of a supplement to existing programs.
He goes on to argue that, contra extreme forms of the “substitution” view, even developing nations such as India should adopt UBI only if it is accompanied by other reforms aimed at improving and increasing the availability of public services:
Given the huge deficits in availability of public education and health facilities, UBI can only increase the demand for these services without increasing the access to these services. While dependence on private providers may fill the gap in the long run, it does not absolve the state from providing universal provision for these services.
Himanshu states that UBI can promote better social and human development outcomes only given “adequate provision of basic social services”.
The article is clear to differentiate the question of universal/targeted transfers from that of cash/in-kind transfers. Leakages and corruption, he says, are problems that accompany targeting, and they have been largely eliminated in states that have shifted to universal provision of services. Yet this leaves open the question of whether the universal benefits ought to be provided in-cash, in-kind, or both.
For more contributions to these debates, see the recent articles by Maitreesh Ghatak, Abhijit Banerjee, Pranab Bardhan, and Vijay Joshi. Some of these economists, like Himanshu, stress that a UBI must supplement, rather than replace, other social services. At the same time, the inefficiency of the present welfare system is a clear common theme in their work.
Reference
Himanshu (November 8, 2016) “Is India ready for universal basic income?” LiveMint.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Free medical camp held in India CC BY-ND 2.0 Welfare party
by Kate McFarland | Dec 12, 2016 | News
Photo: “Thomas Heatherwick – Thames Garden Bridge” CC-BY-2.0 準建築人手札網站.
The controversial Garden Bridge is a proposed privately-owned bridge over the River Thames in London, intended to open in 2018. According to the “Lady of the Future”, its construction was a triggering event to the Precariat Revolt; listen to the lecture below to learn more…
As previously announced in Basic Income News, BIEN cofounder Guy Standing (SOAS, University of London) was invited to speak on the “politics of utopia” at Oktoberdans, Norway’s most prestigious contemporary dance festival, on October 25, 2016.
He was asked to speak without notes and standing atop two pallets, creating the feel of a speaker’s corner:
Standing framed his talk as the received word of the “Lady of the Future”, who informed him about the precariat revolt of 2017, which eventuated in a series of reforms beginning with basic income. Throughout his talk, he stressed the importance of the arts (e.g. their “subversive potential” and thus capacity to effect political change). Although adapted to the unique setting and audience, Standing drew from material in his latest book, The Corruption of Capitalism, as well as his previous works on the precariat.
Watch Standing’s complete performance, including Q&A, above.
by Kate McFarland | Dec 11, 2016 | News
Entrepreneur Gary Fowler has written a guest column for the San Francisco tech zine VentureBeat in which he argues that universal basic income is a viable solution for technological unemployment and that, rather than making people lazy, it would permit the flourishing of human creativity.
After considering the capacity of AI technologies to reduce the need for human labor, and reflecting on the results of basic income trials and psychological studies of motivation, Fowler asserts that people will not become lazy and uncreative “if robots take our jobs and the government gives us a universal basic income.” He goes on to hypothesize that UBI could “lead to a decrease in unemployment as people work towards achieving their needs beyond physiological requirements.”
Fowler is the CEO and cofounder of Findo, a search assistant program, and the founder of Fowler International, an international business development consulting company. His VentureBeat draws from his experience with smart search assistants; in predicting the future of work, he envisions a society in which AI assistants look after individuals’ day-to-day needs.
Gary Fowler (November 6, 2016) “Universal basic income: If a robot takes your job, it could actually be good for you” VentureBeat.
Basic Income Fact-Checking.
It is worth clarifying a couple of ambiguous statements that Fowler makes about basic income pilots.
• Fowler writes, “Finland, for example has initiated a two-year trial period where each individual will get $600 a month as basic income.” To be precise, the two-year trial will only select participants from a subset of the population of working-age adults currently receiving social welfare benefits (see, e.g., “Legislation for Basic Income Experiment Underway“).
• The pilot in Namibia to which Fowler refers was not nationwide (as Fowler’s comment might suggest) but confined to the village of Otjivero. Additionally, it was administered by the Basic Income Grant (BIG) Coalition — a coalition of organizations including NGOs, churches, and unions that has committed to work with the Namibian government — rather than the government itself. (See the BIG Coalition for more information.)
Reviewed by Ali Özgür Abalı
