by Kate McFarland | Oct 27, 2016 | News
As previously announced on Basic Income News (and elsewhere), the governments of Finland and the Netherlands are both preparing to experimentally test a basic income, with trials beginning as early as January 2017.
On November 8, Kela, the Social Insurance Institute of Finland, will be holding a workshop on both countries’ upcoming experiments, fittingly titled “Experimenting with Basic Income: Finland and the Netherlands”. The workshop is open to the public and will be streamed live.
The goals of the event, which brings together leading researchers on both projects, are to “explore both similarities and differences between the proposed schemes, to examine the role of basic income experiments in each country, and to analyse the political and policy processes associated with piloting basic income in advanced welfare states”.
Kela researcher Olli Kangas will introduce the event, and Jurgen De Wispelaere, of the University of Tampere, will deliver opening and closing lectures that compare and contextualize the two experiments (“Putting Basic Income Experiments in Context” and “Comparing Basic Income Experiments: Lessons and Challenges”).
Additionally, three panels will be held concerning details of the respective experiments:
1. “Experimenting with Basic Income in the Netherlands: General Considerations” featuring panelists Sjir Hoeijmakers (independent scholar) and Loek Groot (University of Utrecht), moderated by Paula Laine (Sitra).
2. “Experimental design and implementation: Utrecht, Wageningen and Tilburg” featuring panelists Timo Verlaat (University of Utrecht), Ernst-Jan de Bruijn (University of Wageningen), and Ruud Muffels (University of Tilburg), moderated by Laine.
3. “The Finnish Basic Income Experiments” featuring panelists Johanna Perkiö (University of Tampere), Olli Kangas, and Kathrin Komp (University of Helsinki), moderated by Pertti Koistinen (University of Tampere).
“Experimenting with Basic Income” takes place as part of the research program Tackling Inequalities in Time of Austerity (TITA), funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. (See TITA’s research plan for more information about its activities.)
Join in-person or on-line:
To attend, register by November 4 here: https://www.lyyti.fi/reg/workshop20161108.
The event will be streamed lived and recorded. Information will be available at this link: https://www.kela.fi/experimenting-with-basic-income-finland-and-netherlands.
Reviewed by Robert Gordon.
Photo: “Helsinki y la catedral” CC BY-NC 2.0 Mariano Mantel.
by Kate McFarland | Oct 26, 2016 | News
The government of India is beginning to seriously consider a universal basic income, as recent remarks by Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian reveal.
Arvind Subramanian CC BY-SA 2.0 PopTech
As previously reported in Basic Income News, Arvind Subramanian, the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India, has revealed that the pros and cons of universal basic income will be studied as part of the next Economic Survey–an annual report on developments in India’s economy which is prepared by the Ministry of Finance and presented to Parliament.
Since this time, Subramanian has reaffirmed his commitment to investigating UBI. In addition, he had divulged further details of the proposed UBI program that might be considered by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
First, in an interview with Rediff (published on September 29), Subramanian reaffirmed that universal basic income will be a theme of the Economic Survey. Asked what a UBI would entail, he responded, “We are still working on it. These are issues we have to think about. This is an idea that has a lot of promise, but also challenges.”
A few days later, while addressing at audience at prayer meeting at Gandhi Peace Foundation in New Delhi on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Subramanian elaborated upon some of the challenges associated with the implementation a UBI. As described in a report in The Indian Express (dated October 3), he laid out several objections that Gandhi might have taken to UBI, before responding with considerations in favor of the policy proposal.
At the same event, Subramanian dropped hints about the type of policy that the national government might be considering, mentioned “a proposed new scheme through which the Narendra Modi government is considering giving unconditional cash transfer of about Rs 10,000-15,000 on an annual basis to each and every citizen in the country” [1].
It is not certain exactly what programs and subsidies the unconditional cash transfer would replace–but it is clear that they would be numerous. The Indian Express quotes Subramanian as saying: “[T]oday the government spends a lot of money on schemes to help the poor. Today there are at least 1000 schemes that the Central government runs for the poor… It is not clear that the money actually reaches the poor. So the question is whether the UBI is a more effective way of reaching the poor that the current schemes that government employs.”
Although India has played a significant role in the basic income movement in recent years–Madhya Pradesh was the setting for two successful pilot studies conducted between 2011 and 2013–the recently expressed interest from Subramanian and the Modi government is a turning point. It should be noted that the government’s interest in UBI was not a response to the pilot studies conducted by Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and UNICEF, but arose independently. Indeed, neither Subramanian nor any other government official has referred to these these pilots or the book they spawned (Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India) in their public comments on basic income–as sociologist Sarath Davala, founder of the India Network for Basic Income (INBI), reports in comments to Basic Income News.
Before Subramanian shifted attention to UBI, the government had discussed direct benefit transfer (DBT) programs, intended to reduce efficiencies in the distribution of aid by transferring cash subsidies directly to the bank accounts of beneficiaries. To the Indian government, UBI, like DBT, is attractive primarily as a pragmatic means to reduce bureaucracy and administrative costs. For similar reasons, some states of India are already experimenting with replacing India’s largest welfare program, the food security program–widely regarded as inefficient and ineffective–with a cash transfer. Correspondingly, recent political discourse on UBI has remained focused on welfare delivery and efficiency rather than (for example) individual rights or social justice.
INBI, BIEN’s Indian affiliate, has expressed support for the inclusion of UBI in the Economic Survey and offered to assist the government in this project (such as by providing data and qualitative assessments from the earlier pilot studies); however, at the time of this writing, it has received no response. Additionally, INBI is planning a national conference in Delhi to take place in late March 2017, at which it will present its position on UBI to the national government.
According to Davala, Subramanian’s recent remarks are significant because they imply that the UBI is becoming mainstream and “no longer a crazy idea”. Speaking as part of INBI, he says “our job is made easier” by the attention and legitimacy that Subramanian and others are bringing to UBI.
At the same time, however, Davala expresses surprise at the “radio silence” from traditional opponents in the face of the announcement of the inclusion UBI in the Economic Survey. In India, many on the Left oppose UBI, which they see as the government “washing its hands” of its responsibility to directly assist those in need (e.g., through transfers in-kind). Opponents from the Right, meanwhile, tend to worry that the policy wastes money on the “undeserving” poor and disincentivizes work. Davala notes, however, that both types of critics have largely remained silent despite the recent upsurge in interest in UBI.
Davala himself sees two major sources of complication that pose challenges to the implementation of a basic income in India. First is the question of universality. In a country of 1.3 billion people, a fully universal basic income is likely to strike many as prohibitively costly, and a more feasible approach might be what Davala describes as “targeted universality”: the distribution of unconditional cash transfers to everyone within a certain sub-population (e.g. a universal income for all children or all seniors, for all individuals within a certain geographical region, or all members of a certain caste or tribe). While Davala agrees that universality is the ideal goal, he believes that it is likely to be most realistic to approach it incrementally, with such targeted universality adopted as an interim strategy. On this point, though, he notes that even complete universality will now seem less “crazy” since India’s Chief Economic Adviser is seriously discussing is it.
The second challenge concerns question of replacement: what existing programs will the UBI replace? Here, Davala is less encouraged–and more concerned–by Subramanian’s recent comments, since it’s unclear which of the “1000 or more schemes” he would propose to replace, and a basic income that replaces too much might leave many of the most vulnerable individuals worse off. According to Davala, INBI’s position is that “the state should combine Unconditional BI with public provisioning of certain basic needs such as education, health, infrastructure, transportation, etc”. He goes on, “A large number welfare schemes that have a well established record of failure should be removed. The crux of the Indian debate will revolve around this. And rightfully so.”
[1] 10,000-15,000 Indian Rupees (Rs) is equivalent to about 134-200 EUR or 150-225 USD. (For comparison: in a 2013 survey, the median per capita income in India was equivalent to about 616 USD.)
References
Indivjal Dhasmana, Sanjeeb Mukherjee and Arup Roychoudhury (September 29, 2016) “With inflation slowing, there is space for monetary easing: Arvind Subramanian” Rediff.com.
Avinash Nair (October 3, 2016) “Implementation of Universal Basic Income has many challenges: Arvind Subramanian” The Indian Express.
Sarath Davala, INBI (personal communication)
Reviewed by Sarath Davala
Cover photo: “India- Gujjars the nomadic tribe” CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 sandeepachetan.com
by Florie Barnhoorn | Oct 26, 2016 | News
The Dutch State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment has sent a document to Members of Parliament proposing a basic income experiment. However, the proposed design has met criticism from many scientists, activists, and others instrumental in the original development of the experiment.
Jetta Klijnsma CC Roel Wijnants
On the last Friday of September 2016, the Dutch government decided to allow basic income experiments on a limited scale and under strict conditions. Mrs. Jetta Klijnsma, State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment, has sent a document Ontwerpbesluit Experimenten Participatiewet (Design for Experiments in the context of the Participation Act) to the Members of Parliament in which she outlines the rules, conditions and goals of the forthcoming basic income experiments. Mrs. Klijnsma, (PvdA, Partij van de Arbeid / Labour Party) is optimistic. As soon as both Chambers of Parliament accept the proposed framework, she can give permission to start with the experiments–hopefully, January 1st 2017.
However, many of the pioneers involved in the experiments (including scientists, activists, city counsel members, local councilors, and civil servants) are less excited. In order to overcome political arguments–mainly coming from the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy), a right-wing party that hates the idea of a basic income–the original study design has been changed in such a way that these stakeholders worry about the consequences for the pilots.
Proposed Design of the Dutch Basic Income Pilot
Before we return to their concerns, let’s look at the design of the experiment in more detail.
The research questions as they are now formulated are:
• Does the intervention in the research groups lead to acceptance of paid labor?
• Which intervention causes the most complete independence of social assistance benefit?
A maximum of 25 municipalities, or 4% of the total number of Dutch welfare claimants, will be allowed to participate in the experiments. According to Statline (Electronic Databank of Statistics Netherlands), there were 546.090 persons with a social assistance benefit in December 2015; thus, around 21.843 persons will be involved in the experiments. Only municipalities which have implemented the Participation Act in fullness will be selected for one of the pilots. The duration of the experiments is set at two years. Stakeholders criticize this as of ‘too limited duration’.
Each basic income experiment will consist of six groups. Larger municipalities will use all six groups, for smaller municipalities three groups are enough.
Welfare claimants are randomly assigned to one of these five groups:
1. A group who is exempt from formal obligations to find employment. Subjects in this group will not receive formal sanctions in case they fail to actively look for paid work [1]. However, after six and twelve months, the municipality will check whether sufficient efforts have voluntarily been made by the participant to find paid labor. When too few activities have been undertaken, the trial period will be terminated;
2. A group that will be subjected to additional obligations and duties during the experimental period in order to reintegrate them into the labor market, entailing at least a doubling of contacts with civil servants responsible for carrying out the Participation Act;
3. A group who is allowed to keep 50 percent of their earnings in addition to the welfare payments with a maximum of 199 EUR per month for single persons and 142 EUR for married couples (which is less than the legal minimum wage);
4. A combination of the above groups, whereby the first two groups always should be combined in an experiment;
5. A control group.
In addition to these five randomly-assigned groups, the experiments will use a reference group consisting of social assistance recipients living in the same municipality, but not participating in the experiment (e.g. benefit claimants in a neighboring municipality not involved in the trial).
Welfare claimants sign an agreement which states that their participation is strictly voluntary. However, it is forbidden to stop during the course of the experiment. They will receive their normal benefit allowances during the project (Sjir Hoeijmakers, email communication).
Criticism from Stakeholders
Meetings of activists in Groningen CC Zeptonn
Stakeholders are critical about the design of the basic income experiments. In a letter addressed to Members of Parliament, scientists of the four collaborating universities (Tilburg, Utrecht, Groningen and Wageningen) contend that reliable scientific research cannot be tested within the proposed framework.
For example, Professor Dr. Ruud Muffels from Tilburg University criticizes the introduction of a group with more government control. “The effects of sanctions have been extensively studied. I wonder what kind of information you want to find. It will also complicate the interpretation of the results of the pilot. If freedom has consequences – the participant can be banned from the experiment after one year when he or she is not ‘active enough’ in seeking a paid job – this line of inquiry cannot be tested. It might also create an ethically difficult dilemma, because we are looking for volunteers for the research, and we have to clarify the implications of their participation.”
As a consequence of these concerns, researchers like Dr. Muffels fear that the proposed framework will deter benefit claimants from participation in the experiments, due to the use of a group that will experience much more control.
The researchers call upon the MPs to pay attention to their concerns when the framework is discussed with the State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment in the Parliamentary Committee for Social Affairs and Employment.
Divosa (Association of Executives in the Social Domain) also has doubts about the value of the experiments. According to Divosa’s vice-president Jellemiek Zock, “It is more difficult to measure the effects of the pilots, because they are more limited than in the original design. Besides, activities like taking a part-time job, starting a business, caring for children or other family members are excluded from the experiments. Nevertheless, given the situation in the present government – a coalition of VVD and PvdA – I think this is the most we can get at this moment. But we will proceed.”
Another stakeholder in the experiment says, “We wanted a simple pilot based on trust rather than repression. We wanted to give benefit claimants more freedom, more choice, more purchasing power. Now we have a complicated set of rules. What remains is a puzzle, which makes it difficult to shape the experiments and understand the results. However, we are glad to start.”
For her own part, the State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment is content with the outcome: the proposed framework is still miles away from a really unconditional basic income.
[1] Under Dutch social laws, a benefit claimant is normally sanctioned when he or she is not actively looking for paid work. These sanctions are described in the Participation Act and executed by civil servants employed by a municipality.
Cover Photo CC OuiShare
Thanks to Kate McFarland for reviewing a draft of this article.
by Nick Yeretsian | Oct 25, 2016 | News
by Guest Contributor | Oct 24, 2016 | Opinion
The article is meant to challenge Canadians and others to consider what precisely a basic income is and what goals it can accomplish. For BIEN’s official definition of basic income, click here.
By: Reza Hajivandi
Both as a concept and policy, basic income (BI) has been around for some time, losing and re-gaining traction at different points in history. However, the vague manner in which the term is sometimes used, and the lack of effort in providing any clear demarcations, has led to its obscurity.
To give the term clarity, first the question must be asked: What is basic income? Asking the question is not intended to provide a concrete and singular definition, nor is it a good idea to do so. The purpose is clarity, which could be achieved by first, asking the question; What is basic income? And second, journeying through the process of finding answers. The journey therefore takes priority here, by helping to provide clarity.
How can we approach the question in a way that provides answers and clarity? One possibility could be researching academic articles or the worldwide web to see how basic income is defined. However, as aforementioned, if the purpose is clarity, then skipping past the ‘journey process’ and jumping straight to the finish line will not be helpful. A more in-depth approach involves asking the ‘why’ question: Why Basic Income in the first place? By asking this question we will be forcing ourselves to embark on a journey of discovery, through which we may encounter difficult questions and decisions.
Why basic income?
Immediately we can respond by suggesting that the goal is to advocate for a policy that will effectively tackle obstacles such as precarity and poverty, which are preventing people from living with freedom and dignity. Such a response, however, immediately yields a new question: Do we not already have existing social security policies with the same purpose? And don’t some of those policies already possess elements that closely resemble the idea of basic income?
First, we have a social assistance program that is offered by each province. This is known as Ontario Works (OW) in Ontario, and British Columbia Employment and Assistance (BCEA) in British Columbia. Yet these services are quite distinct from basic income in that they are neither universal nor guaranteed, but targeted, means-tested, and subject to heavy claw backs and other conditions. The rates that are provided are also insufficient in the face of rising and already staggering living costs (rent, food, and other basic needs). It is for all these reasons that social assistance tends to perpetuate existing poverty, rather than helping people escape it. In addition, targeted assistance programs are known to be shouldered by government taxes that primarily target the middle class. This squeezes both the government and a shrinking middle class for scant funding. It also leads to class divisions by creating the popular perception that the lazy poor/refugee/immigrant etc on welfare are responsible for societal and economic problems, while wealthier segments stay off the tax and social radar and continue with their unfair and extensive accumulation of wealth.
Coming closer to the idea of basic income are other existing social security measures such as Old Age Security (OAS) and Canada Child Benefit (CCB). OAS is guaranteed to recipients aged 65 years or older almost regardless of income and other conditions. This might move us a little closer to what we want: A basic income that is the opposite of existing income security programs like OW and BCEA and more like guaranteed income ones like OAS.
This is perhaps where basic income takes its own character. It has to be universal, because if it isn’t, then it’s going to closely resemble what we already have in place, and prone to falling victim to the same problems that have historically plagued the social security system. Therefore, unless we are after a simple re-branding or name change, basic income has to be radically different from (and perhaps the opposite) of existing social assistance. Even the term ‘basic income’ seems to orient itself towards something that’s universal and guaranteed, because that’s what income is, anyway – a form of earning that is guaranteed. And if something is universal it needs to be guaranteed and come with almost no conditions, otherwise it cannot really be called universal. Not to play with semantics, a responsible BI program must therefore be universal, and tax the rich in ways that sufficiently redistribute the wealth in society [1]. By doing so it will be able to effectively reduce poverty, and strengthen class solidarity and people’s position against austerity and neoliberalism.
Now that we have a clearer idea of what BI could be, we have to be mindful of a piece of the puzzle that is not quite making sense: the government, and in our case, the current provincial and federal governments. We have to ask ourselves why the government is suddenly so interested in providing people with a new form of welfare? Let’s be honest, governments are almost never excited about spending on social security and welfare services. Instead, it tends to be the case that persistent and consistent mobilization from grassroots are necessary to secure even minor social gains. Yet absent is precisely this strong push from below, while instead the government seems to have filled the vacuum by acting as both the ‘activist’ and ‘saint’[2]. This is indeed a strange development. But what’s even odder is its occurrence in an era of neoliberalism and austerity, where the pressure is to cut services and spend less, not more. The goal here is not to undermine the groups that have been courageously fighting the government to pass a good BI policy [3]. But there is no doubt that the government has played a significant leadership role in advocating for BI as well.
Perhaps then it is useful to ask what ‘BI’ means to the government. In some sense, BI can provide the government a convenient way to increase the efficiency of social security by streamlining all or most of its existing services into one. This could save the government money through reducing the resources required to administer social security programs, and even more by keeping assistance at its current (insufficient) rates. Another way a BI program could save the government dollars – one that has community groups and organizations worried – is the implementation of BI with the aim of gradually reducing funding for existing welfare services such as health, housing, and community development. Therefore, BI can be an opportunity for the government to cut back and save resources, and this makes sense in an age of austerity and accumulation by dispossession. But it is likely that if subsidized services such as housing and food banks are scrapped and replaced with BI, social security recipients are going to be worse off than they were before, or, at best, live under the same conditions as today. It is also the case that a uniform rate under a streamlined system could actually serve to increase inequality and poverty by providing the poorer recipients with a lower rate than before [4].
In this conjecture then, BI seems to be a valuable opportunity for two parties (people and government) with nearly distinct and opposing goals. Many see the grossly insufficient social assistance rates and rapidly rising living expenses as their critical juncture to push for a BI. On the other hand, the government sees this critical juncture in other terms: one in which it can continue to make good with neoliberalism by cutting, streamlining, and creating more ‘efficient’ services. To the rest of the population the government may present this as evidence that it’s listening, ‘seeing’, and coming up with the appropriate solutions, even though it is more likely that the solution is for the benefit of the government, than for those who need it most [5]. Perhaps a question that needs to be asked is who is more likely to prevail and close this critical juncture in their own terms? The push from below is certainly strengthening, but to ensure an effective universal BI, more organizing and capacity building may be necessary. The goal then should not be to abandon BI, but to realize the risks involved and work together to build and strengthen the movement.
[1] This can be done through progressive forms of taxation, and with taxes that do not affect low-income and the poor, such as varieties of luxury and large-estate taxes.
[2] Senator Art Eggleton is starting a tour to promote Basic Income across Ontario. Also see:
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sen-art-eggleton/art-eggleton-basic-income_b_9331180.html
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/03/17/wynne-touts-basic-income-pilot-project-to-help-poor.html
https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2012/12/scrapping-welfare/
[3] The Kingston BI Group in Hamilton, and others.
[4] See Commentary: Universal Basic Income May Sound Attractive But, If It Occurred, Would Likelier Increase Poverty Than Reduce It by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
[5] This is not to pit ‘government’ and ‘people’ as two antithetical forces; such a characterization would be both simplistic and inaccurate. Instead, the current conjecture and active promotion of BI from ‘above’ and weak push from ‘below’ serve to indicate that the government has a different purpose in promoting a BI model of social security, one that is at odds with the model imagined by BI advocates.
Founded in Manchester, summer 2016, World Basic Income (WBI) campaigns for the introduction of a universal and unconditional basic income through research, pilot studies, and outreach. It describes itself as a “not-for-profit multi-stakeholder co-operative, which is currently led by four directors.”
WBI is keen to develop partnerships with like-minded organizations, academics, and individuals, to build a strong research and campaign base together. They are also seeking volunteers and online promoters to help build awareness.
See their website for more info: worldbasicincome.org.uk
Photo: Logo by World Basic Income.