by Guest Contributor | Dec 5, 2018 | Opinion
By Amy King, in collaboration with Basic Income Waterloo Region
Basic income is currently a hot topic in Canada. From debates across the political spectrum of a basic income and reminders of the success of Manitoba’s Mincome experiment in the 1970s, to the cancellation by the Progressive Conservative (PC) government of Ontario of the previous Liberal government’s basic income pilot, “basic income” is the subject of lively discussion among Canadians.
While this widespread attention is welcome, it has also raised the concern that the discussion of a “basic income” often conflates two distinct concepts: a basic income (BI) and a negative income tax (NIT). The result of this conflation is that the concept of BI has been marginalized in current social and political discourse, as the term “basic income” is co-opted to refer to an NIT and not a basic income as advocated for by the basic income movement. This co-optation creates confusion around which concept one is referring to when they use the term, “basic income” and, perhaps more damagingly, leaves the basic income movement without a term to capture the concept they so passionately believe in and advocate for.
NIT is referred to by Parijs & Vanderborght (2017) as a “cousin” of BI. Briefly, a basic income is distributed upfront to all individuals in the same amount, without an obligation to work or otherwise contribute something in return and without income or means testing (Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). A negative income tax, in contrast, is distributed within an income tax scheme and is determined based on the level of income of the individual or household (Parijs & Vanderborght, 2017). A negative income tax, therefore, differs from a basic income in important ways: It is not necessarily universally distributed; it is not necessarily distributed to individuals; it is not distributed in the same amount to all individuals; and finally, the amount may be determined through income testing.
Distinguishing between the BI and NIT is, therefore, crucial, as each has a clear, and often disparate, vision of the implementation and ends of a “basic income.” Advocates of a basic income push for the implementation of a basic income program that is universally and exclusively individually distributed. Universal distribution ensures that recipients will not be stigmatized or privileged based on income or employment and does not require individual administrative oversight by public employees. Individual distribution allows recipients to manage their own financial affairs. While an NIT has poverty alleviation as its goal and it may well succeed in achieving this, BI has a robust vision of socio-economic justice that aims toward liberty and equality for all.
Ontario’s so-called basic income pilot followed a negative income tax model. Participants were between the ages of 18 and 64, with an income below $34,000/a for an individual, and $48,000/a for a couple (Ontario Basic Income Pilot, 2017). The pilot followed a tax credit model, so that single participants were guaranteed $16,989, less 50 percent of any earned income and couples were guaranteed $24,027 per year for a couple, less 50 percent of any earned income (Ontario Basic Income Pilot, 2017). The scheme implemented during the pilot therefore differed from a basic income in that it was not universal, distribution was not exclusively individual, and it was income tested.
Another example of this co-optation occurs in Mark Gollom’s article for the CBC, “Basic income finds support on right as ‘most transparent’ form of redistribution” (2017, April 25). As indicated by the title, Gollom (2017, April 25) reports support from the right for the Ontario Liberal government’s NIT trial and discusses the championing of the concept of an NIT by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.
In this article, Gollom (2017, April 25) offers a useful outline of arguments from the right for an NIT, which may be considered by some a “welfare” program more amenable to supporters of left-leaning economic policy. However, it also offers a helpful example of the conceptual blurring that occurs around the term “basic income”. The terms “basic income” and “negative-income tax” are employed often, but the article’s focus is a negative-income tax—there is no mention of support for a basic income. If someone unfamiliar with the distinction between the concepts of a BI and an NIT were to read the article, they would conclude that an NIT scheme is a basic income scheme. This is conceptually misleading—an NIT is not a BI—and it results in the marginalization of the concept of a basic income in the current debate.
It is evident then that there are important philosophical and political differences between BI and an NIT that are obscured when the term “basic income” is employed indiscriminately. Indiscriminate use of the term “basic income” is also problematic because it has resulted in co-optation of the term to refer to an NIT. This marginalization and co-optation of the term “basic income” is problematic for many reasons.
First, in Canada, as we’ve seen, NIT currently serves as the default against which basic income programs are measured. The argument is made that the differences between an NIT and a BI are negligible, or that they do not make a substantive difference. The argument is also made that an NIT is more politically feasible than a BI. These factors, along with NIT’s support from vocal advocates, has positioned NIT at the forefront of the discourse around a basic income. However, the discourse does not often refer to an NIT as an NIT. Instead, an NIT is referred to as a “basic income”, and even sometimes, a “universal basic income” (for example here). Because the concept of a BI has been absorbed in the discourse into the concept of an NIT, BI advocates struggle to describe and argue their case.
Second, when we envision a just society, where people are not prevented by socio-economic barriers from realizing their potential, where people do not face insurmountable obstacles to breaking the cycle of poverty and where people are not discriminated against, oppressed or stigmatized because of socio-economic factors, it is clear that only a BI holds this transformative socio-political promise. Why not measure proposals against a vision of a society worth striving for, rather than ignoring the differences between an NIT and a BI and limiting our vision to considerations of political feasibility? BI’s transformative potential is obfuscated when NIT-based proposals are referred to as BI proposals and the discourse centres around these NIT-based proposals. The potential of BI is dismissed and marginalized from the discourse.
Third, because the language to describe a BI has been assimilated to an NIT, BI advocates must resort to using clunky and obscure terms such as “demogrant” to describe the concept, or else engage in lengthy explanations to describe what could otherwise be summed up in the term “basic income.”
Fourth, internationally, the term “basic income” is still used to refer to a universal, unconditional and exclusively individually delivered basic income. Because of the co-optation of the term “basic income” in Canada to refer to an NIT, there is a discrepancy between the understanding of the concept in Canada and in the rest of the world. This not only creates confusion, it can create a sense of deception in supporters of a basic income when they learn about a “basic income” pilot in Ontario, where the basic income is not universal, unconditional or exclusively individual. These supporters may question their involvement in the movement when the basic income they advocate for is so different from what is implemented in a “basic income” pilot.
This is not to underestimate the importance of the NIT concept to the basic income movement, nor to set it up in opposition to BI. Because of their appeal across the political spectrum and amenability to current income tax schemes, advocacy for, and implementation of NIT schemes, may be a crucial step toward realizing the aims of the basic income movement. NIT schemes are considered by Parijs & Vanderborght (2017) to be the most appealing of basic income’s cousins because they do not exclude people who do not perform paid work from being recipients, offering a step forward in terms of liberty and equality, while also reducing the stigma against people who do not have paid employment.
Distinguishing between BI and NIT is critical at this time as support for and dialogue around the idea of a “basic income” has reached critical mass. The hope is that clarifying the distinction between the two concepts will unite supporters of both negative income tax and basic income to form an inclusive movement based on their mutual recognition of overlapping aims. The strength in unity is especially critical now as a bulwark against current and future government policies that target and punish the least well-off in society.
References
Gollom, M. (2017, April 25). Basic income finds support on right as ‘most transparent’ form of redistribution. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/basic-income-ontario-right-political-economic-1.4083630.
Lowrey, A. (2018, July 13). Smart money: Why the world should embrace universal basic income. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-smart-money-why-the-world-should-embrace-universal-basic-income/
Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (2017). Ontario Basic Income Pilot. Retrieved from www.ontario.ca/basicincome.
Parijs, P and Vanderborght, Y. (2017). Basic income: a radical proposal for a free society and a sane economy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP.
by Faun Rice | Nov 13, 2018 | Research
Photo by Stefan Kühn, CC BY-SA 3.0
The CESifo Group of Munich is a European research group that seeks to employ both high-quality economic theory and the methods of an empirical institute. Operating since 1999, CESifo is a collaboration between the Center for Economic Studies (CES), the ifo Institute (“Information and Forschung” or research), and the CESifo GmbH (Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research).
CESifo publishes a quarterly journal, the latest issue of which is devoted to Unconditional Basic Income (UBI). Five of seven pieces within this 48-page publication present a variety of perspectives on UBI research and theory, predominantly addressing the European context.
- Straubhaar, Thomas, “Universal Basic Income – New Answer to New Questions for the German Welfare State in the 21st Century”, CESifo Forum 19 (3), 2018, 03–09 | Details| PDF Download
The focus: Transforming social support in Germany by replacing Bismarckian welfare state ideals
Straubhaar describes a series of proximate social and economic changes due to globalization, aging societies, income polarization, and dissolution of traditional economic safety nets. He comments that the contemporary version of the welfare state is founded upon 19th century Bismarckian principles that rely on a classic population pyramid (weighted by youth at the bottom), a male-breadwinner model, a fast-growing economy, and a labor-focused Protestant work ethic, none of which will continue to be relevant indefinitely. He proposes UBI as a welfare state model that would completely replace all other publicly financed social support and provide a 21st century solution to the aforementioned changes, particularly in Germany, but as a model for the rest of the world.
- Torry, Malcolm, “Some Lessons from the Recent UK Debate about Universal Basic Income”, CESifo Forum 19 (3), 2018, 10–14 | Details| PDF Download
The focus: Enhancing UBI data distribution and ensuring that discussions maintain a clear definition of the difference between UBI and other related economic policies
Torry highlights a number of key events and issues from the UK that have broader relevance for the global community interested in UBI. The first discusses the important use of microsimulation to predict the impact of economic policies on households of varying incomes (for example, to estimate the loss of disposable income to low-income families if means-tested benefits remain or are removed). The second relates a story in which a public organization cherry-picked UBI data, to which Torry simply says that high-quality research ought to be better distributed. The third and fourth call the reader’s attention to the importance of using specific definitions of UBI schemes and not allowing the term to be misused.
- De Wispelaere, Jurgen, Antti Halmetoja and Ville-Veikko Pulkka, “The Rise (and Fall) of the Basic Income Experiment in Finland”, CESifo Forum 19 (3), 2018, 15–19 | Details| PDF Download
The focus: Improving the international understanding of Finland’s basic income experiment, its origins, and its limitations
The Finnish basic income experiment began as a one-line commitment in the national Government Programme in 2015. Kela, the Finnish Social Insurance Institution, proposed several experiment design options, and a two-year control trial began in January 2017. Kela will evaluate the results and present them to Parliament in 2019.
Basic income stakeholders have become increasingly critical of the trial parameters, raising concerns about the limits of the sample and the pilot’s restricted scope and goals. The authors argue that proponents of UBI initially overstated the extent of the Finnish government’s commitment and capabilities, heralding the commitment as a “watershed” moment for European basic income, when in fact the Finnish experiment and others have been limited from the outset by policy inertia, existing budgetary and taxation systems, and other institutional limitations. The pilot program is designed to assess basic income as a means of activating the labour market, a politically safe goal, and was never likely to result in policy changes of the kind UBI advocates desire to see.
- Colombino, Ugo and Nizamul Islam, “Basic Income and Flat Tax: The Italian Scenario”, CESifo Forum 19 (3), 2018, 20–29 | Details| PDF Download
The focus: Evaluating proposed basic income-related policy packages in Italy and comparing their political origins
Like other European countries, Italy has seen several basic income proposals that have yet to be implemented. Several current potential models are rooted in different political ideologies and thus provide an interesting comparison. The first, “Reddito di Inclusione,” (RdI) is a basic income scheme that targets the most impoverished segment of the population in practice but is intended to be universal. The second, “Reddito di Cittadinanza” (RdC) is means-tested and only covers the population “below the relative poverty threshold” (20). Another model, proposed by Istituo Bruno Leoni (a think tank), involves both basic income and a flat tax.
The authors provide a basic overview of the differences between UBI, means-tested guaranteed income, and negative income tax. They then simulate and evaluate the various government-proposed combinations of policies, concluding that while it is possible to design a fiscally neutral policy package, current government proposals have not yet done so.
- Widerquist, Karl, “The Devil’s in the Caveats: A Brief Discussion of the Difficulties of Basic Income Experiments”, CESifo Forum 19 (3), 2018, 30–35 | Details| PDF Download
The focus: Making UBI research accessible and understandable, particularly with regard to its limitations
Widerquist’s basic thesis is that, contrary to popular representations of policy research, all UBI experiments contain a significant list of caveats. He argues that science journalism has not done an adequate job of communicating the limitations of UBI studies, or indeed any social sciences research, to the public. Furthermore, specialist researchers’ lists of caveats are inadequate for communicating a study’s limitations. Widerquist has an upcoming book that will address both best practices in UBI research given its inherent difficulties and best practices in communication the results of said research to the public and policymakers. In this article, he identifies four broad strategies: (1) iteratively designing studies with public feedback, so that research directly addresses the questions relevant to local stakeholders; (2) highlighting UBI’s impact in publications, rather than its side-effects (even though the latter might be more interesting to researchers); (3) attempting to define a “bottom line” or generalizable conclusion from research; and (4) addressing and discussing ethical controversies.
- Clauss, Michael and Stefan Remhof, “A Euro Area Finance Ministry – Recipe for Improved Governance?”, CESifo Forum 19 (3), 2018, 36–43 | Details| PDF Download
The authors discuss the possibility and potential function of a euro-area finance ministry. Such an organization could either martial Europe’s national fiscal policies to align them throughout the region, or it could be one more “layer” of fiscal authority in each European nation. This paper does not explicitly address UBI.
- Nam, Chang Woon and Peter Steinhoff, “The ‘Make in India’ Initiative”, CESifo Forum 19 (3), 2018, 44–45 | Details| PDF Download
The authors discuss a 2014 federal initiative to promote industrial manufacturing in India. This paper does not explicitly address UBI.
More information at:
“CESifo Forum 03/2018 (Autumn): Unconditional Basic Income”, 01-48, ifo Institute, Munich, 2018
by Tyler Prochazka | Nov 5, 2018 | News
If there is one presidential candidate who is the complete opposite of Donald Trump, it is Andrew Yang.
Yang is the son of two immigrant parents from Taiwan, graduating from Columbia University with his Juris Doctorate and Brown University with a degree in economics. In 2011, Yang started the non-profit Venture for America to help college graduates connect with startups throughout the United States.
Now Yang has thrown his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination for president. What makes Yang stand out is his candidacy largely revolves around one issue: Universal Basic Income (UBI).
In fact, Yang has the opportunity to make UBI a serious issue in a US presidential campaign for the first time since George McGovern proposed a basic income style program as the Democratic nominee against Richard Nixon in 1972.
Nixon attacked the cost of McGovern’s basic income policy. Under scrutiny, McGovern abandoned the idea and still ultimately lost to Nixon. Basic income’s latest chapter in American political history is now being written, but it is up to Yang to prove he is politically savvy enough to write a different ending.
Yang’s campaign will try to win over skeptical voters with a mini basic income trial for one resident of both Iowa and New Hampshire. Yang said they are currently choosing the recipient from New Hampshire.
“The purpose is to have a demonstration of the fact that people’s lives improve and people do positive things with a thousand dollars a month,” Yang said.
When average voters hear about UBI for the first time, they treat the idea with skepticism, Yang said.
“We are programmed for scarcity particularly where money is concerned, and so most people have trouble conceiving of the fact that we can provide a basic income to all adults in America,” Yang said.
So far, Yang said he has not seen mainstream Democrats moving toward basic income. Instead, some Democrats are embracing the idea of a jobs guarantee program. Yang said a jobs guarantee would be a “bad idea,” because past government employment programs have low success in transitioning employees to the private sector.
His opposition to the jobs guarantee does not mean Yang will refuse to compromise. He said a Negative Income Tax (NIT) would be an “outstanding step in the right direction.”
NIT would provide a minimum guaranteed income but the government would phase out the stipend based on one’s market income. UBI would achieve a phase-out indirectly, since some recipients will be net receivers, and others will pay back more in taxes than they receive from a basic income. A negative income tax “would be a massive game changer for millions of Americans here and now,” Yang said.
Those familiar with Yang probably already know his views about basic income. In my interview with him, I wanted to know more about how he would formulate policies as president.
On the other issues in his campaign, Yang said he supports gun control, renewable energy, a carbon tax, and abortion rights. Gun control especially has taken a big stand among the candidates.
Before becoming president, though, Yang will have to fight a crowded field in the Democratic primary. With big hitters such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Yang may get lost in the field.
Bernie Sanders, who has flirted with basic income, holds similar views to Yang. For his part, Yang said he is “aligned” with Sanders on most policy issues, and he said some have called him the “younger Asian Bernie Sanders.”
However, Yang said how Sanders view of the modern economic system is “a little out of date.”
“(Sanders) believes that if we coerce companies into treating workers better then that will solve the problem. I believe that the relationship between corporate success and workers has fundamentally changed forever, where 94 percent of the new jobs created from 2005 to 2015 were temporary gig contract jobs which did not have healthcare benefits,” Yang said.
“The plain truth is that companies can now grow and succeed without hiring lots of people or treating them well,” he said. “So we need to build a new social contract that does not assume that work is going to look the same way it has over the last number of decades.
One of the criticisms of Sanders during the 2016 presidential campaign was his lack of clarity on foreign policy. Yang said he has a “number” of advisors who are helping to form his platform for foreign affairs.
On Yang’s diplomatic principles, he said that he would be “restrained” in his foreign policy.
“America has gotten itself into trouble by imagining it’s capable of doing things it may not be capable of and we need to be much more restrained and not succumb to grandiose visions for other societies,” Yang said.
Previously, Yang has stated he supports “status quo” policies toward China and Taiwan, which recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legal representative of China, and acknowledges the PRC’s position that Taiwan is part of China.
Yang points out the “extraordinary” relationships between the US and Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. He said America should avoid the dynamic that China and America are inevitably going to be in opposition, and that our relationship with China is also critical since they are America’s largest trading partner.
On the trade war with China, Yang said the current environment with constant changes in tariffs has made it “impossible” for businesses to plan and operate. While he acknowledges trade imbalances with China, he said a trade war is not “constructive.”
And then there is the elephant in the room, how exactly does Yang plan to take on the master of media Donald Trump?
“The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes numbers,” Yang said. “There is a natural dynamic in American politics where the pendulum will swing in the other direction. From Donald Trump the pendulum is going to swing in my direction.”
by Andrew Sanchez | Sep 19, 2018 | News
Sam Altman. Picture credit to: San Francisco Chronicle.
Y Combinator (YC) Research will begin its basic income study in 2019 after regulatory hurdles slowed a pilot program in Oakland, California.
The proposed study, entitled “Making Ends Meet,” will provide monthly cash transfers of $1,000 to 1,000 participants for three or five years. Another 2,000 people will serve as a control group and receive monthly transfers of $50 for the duration of the study. As reported by Wired , the experiment will take place across two states with the exact locations to be decided in the upcoming months.
As outlined in their project proposal , YC Research’s basic income study will assess the effects of unconditional cash transfers on a variety of factors including time use, objective and subjective well-being, and financial health. The study will be administered by staff at Y Combinator Research in collaboration with the University of Michigan Survey Research Center.
Y Combinator Research is the non-profit research arm of start-up accelerator, Y Combinator. In 2016, Y Combinator president Sam Altman posted a “Request for Research” in which he forecast the need for a universal basic income (UBI) in an increasingly automated future: “I am fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going to see some version of this at a national scale.”
In September 2016, YC Research initiated a pilot study in Oakland to evaluate experimental design in preparation for the full-scale study. Although the pilot was intended to enroll approximately 100 participants, it ultimately included fewer than ten people as bureaucratic obstacles slowed the study’s implementation. The researchers encountered difficulties in trying to ensure that participants would still receive means-tested support payments as their nominal incomes were increased through receipt of cash transfers.
Elizabeth Rhodes
YC Research’s study will go ahead even as other UBI trials have been cancelled in recent months. In Ontario (Canada), a new administration led by premier Doug Ford, prematurely cancelled a basic income trial earlier this year , and in Finland, a highly-publicized trial has been refused future funding.
Despite the cancellation and discontinuation of government-led trials in Canada and Finland, other studies in the United States are still on course. The Economic Security Project, led by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, has plans for a basic income trial in Stockton, California and Greg Duncan, at the University of California, is organizing a long-term study of cash transfers to low-income mothers, under the name “Baby’s First Years.”
These trials will not be the first studies of UBI in the United States. Beginning in the 1960s, four Negative Income Tax (NIT) trials were conducted in the U.S. as new forms of welfare provision, attracted attention across the political spectrum. Although the trials represented a milestone in experimental social science at the time, their results were subject to differing interpretations by the media, politicians, and participating researchers. Some results, such as a reported increase in divorce rate – a result which was not replicated and has subsequently been disputed – were used to discredit basic income as a legitimate alternative to traditional welfare programs.
The current trials proposed by YC Research, the Economic Security Project, and Greg Duncan will mark a new chapter in the study of basic income in the United States. Unlike earlier studies and recent efforts in Ontario and Finland, the American studies will be privately funded and thereby insulated from changes in government policy which have hindered state-sponsored projects.
As UBI attracts increased attention in the political sphere, long-term studies like the proposed YC Research project will be necessary to assess competing claims about the effects of cash transfer programs in different social and economic contexts.
More information at:
Nitasha Tiku, “Y Combinator learns basic income is not so basic after all”, Wired, August 27th 2018
Kate McFarland, “Ontario, Canada: New Government declares early end of guaranteed income experiment”, Basic Income News, August 2nd 2018
John Henley, “Finland to end basic income trial after two years”, The Guardian, April 23rd 2018
Kate McFarland, “Stockton, CA, US: New details revealed in planned basic income demonstration”, Basic Income News, 23rd August 2018
Karl Widerquist, “The basic income guaranteed experiments of the 1970s: a quick summary of results”, Basic Income News, December 3rd 2017
by Daniele Fabbri | Sep 11, 2018 | News
Annie Lowrey. Picture credit: ComedyCentral, The Daily Show
AUDIO: Annie Lowrey on Basic Income Podcast
Annie Lowrey, policy reporter for the New York Times and author of the book “Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would end Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World” joined the Basic Income Podcast to discuss her book and its reception.
In her interview with the hosts, Jim Pugh and Owen Poindexter, she says that in her book Universal Basic Income (UBI) is approached from a journalistic point of view, so as to benefit a generalized audience, or people who are not yet experts on the subject and may or may not have heard about it. She didn’t try to address only and directly UBI, but her effort was directed toward the ideas that intersect with UBI, creating a book that is intended to be, in her words:
“like a jungle gym where people could come and think and explore and didn’t feel like they were in a position to be persuaded as or not, so much as they were there to kind of get their minds expanded”.
Regarding the book’s reception, she says that while feeling pleased with the attention it received, there are still a lot of knee-jerk type of reactions, with the words “just give people money”, as eye-catching as they are, often hitting rooted believes and eliciting instinctive negative emotions. She believes, however, that there is still room for dialogue, as the movement for UBI has gained tremendous momentum. According to her, the Overton Window is opening, meaning that the vocabulary surrounding the subject is becoming acceptable, and the policy of UBI can be discussed publicly, and even accepted. A factor which could accelerate this process is, in her opinion, a possible recession of the economy: facing the accelerated effects of the great decoupling (when the increase in GDP and productivity is not matched by the increase in wages and occupation) would give a boost to the talk about UBI.
In the podcast, Lowrey also comments on the great variety of themes which are connected to UBI, and which make it possible to look at it from a myriad of different angles. From the economic standpoint, what she finds particularly interesting is what is counted and not counted in an economy. Categories of unpaid work, for example domestic labour inside the household go unnacounted, and that production could be compensated through the introduction of an UBI.
Noticing how the United States lack a safety net as robust as some other similar level income OECD countries, Lowrey states that the problem of racism certainly had its weight: “I do think that racism explains a lot of the welfare chauvinism that you have in the United States, a lot of the judgment of lower income folks.” She reasons that UBI, not being about requirements, but universal in nature, would also address the problem of discrimination.
Asked how she feels about the UBI movement right now, Lowrey says the United States are both close and far away from the introduction of a UBI. Even with Obama speaking favorably about it, and with news of possible upcoming trials emerging every other day, there are many difficulties left such as the requirement of funding, which is not easy to meet at the state level. Nonetheless, some states could take their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs and turn them into an unconditional cash grant for children, she suggests.
“I would love it if you could get some kind of laboratory of democracy effect where you would have something smaller that could scale up that could really convince people it was a good idea”.
At the federal level, though, she thinks that it is more probable that some policies contaminated by the idea of UBI are put into practice, like a negative income tax or an Earned Income Tax Credit expansion. While she expects something along these lines to be proposed in the 2020 presidential campaign, she would be surprised if it was actually UBI.
More information at:
“Bringing UBI into the Public Discourse”, Basic Income Podcast, July 20th,2018
