MacLean’s, Friday, April 19, 2013
Guaranteed (Basic) Income has been featured in an article in the prominent Canadian newsmagazine Maclean’s. According to the author, “Fresh analysis of an old program shows that a guaranteed annual income kickstarts health.”
It’s online at: https://www2.macleans.ca/2013/04/19/time-to-chuck-welfare/
Steve Russell/Toronto Star
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
Monbiot, George. “Communism, welfare state – what’s the next big idea?”
The Guardian, Monday 1 April 2013
[BIEN – April 2013]
This opinion piece in one of Britain’s leading newspapers, begins, “Most of the world’s people are decent, honest and kind. Most of those who dominate us are inveterate bastards. It decries most recent British policy toward the poor as punitive, “brutal,” and “antisocial.” Looking for new solutions it considers both a land tax and basic income. According to Monboit, basic income “banishes the fear and insecurity now stalking the poorer half of the population. Economic survival becomes a right, not a privilege. … The poor are not forced by desperation into the arms of unscrupulous employers: people will work if conditions are good and pay fair, but will refuse to be treated like mules. It redresses the wild imbalance in bargaining power that the current system exacerbates. It could do more than any other measure to dislodge the emotional legacy of serfdom.”
The article is online at: https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/01/alternative-to-war-on-britains-poor
[BIN-Italia – December 2012]
An Italian organisation called TILT organised a public debate entitled “Basic Income, Labour, Training: Welfare goes haywire” on the 15th of December at Porta Futuro in Rome.
During the morning session, the meeting was attended by Professor Edwin Morley Fletcher (Professor of Public Policies at Università La Sapienza), Tina Bali (from the Secretary of the union CGIL Roma e Lazio), Antonio Martini (Manager of the Ministry of Economic Development), Nicolò Pecorini (President of Multiverso), Roberto Covolo (Project Manager ex Fadda), and Pasquale Adilardi (Zona Bandita).
During the afternoon session, many other speakers took part in the event: Luca Santini (BIN Italia), Salvatore Marra (CGIL CES), Astrind D’eredità (ANA), Emanuele Toscano (CPU), Alessandro Valera (European Alternatives). Francesco Raparelli (Esc Atelier), Roberto Ciccarelli (Quinto Stato), as well as some members of grassroots organisations such as Diversamente Occupate, Iva sei Partita, Rete della conoscenza, and UDU.
Massimiliano Smeriglio, Town Councillor for Labour Policies at Provincia di Roma, and Nicola Zingaretti, Governor of the Province of Rome, took also part in the event.
This opinion piece from the Washington Post favorably discusses basic income in light of Mitt Romney’s erroneous statement, “Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work. You wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.” The author discusses some of the history of BIG, including the “Tax Cut for the Rest of Us” bill, which was authored by two members of the USBIG Network. The author concludes, “All of which is to say that while Mitt Romney mocks the idea of just sending checks to fight poverty, the idea has an impressive intellectual pedigree, including among conservatives. Perhaps we should give just writing checks a shot.”
Matthews, Dylan “Obama doesn’t want to just write welfare recipients checks. But what if we did?” The Washington Post, August 8, 2012
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/08/obama-doesnt-want-to-just-write-welfare-recipients-checks-but-what-if-we-did/
Emma Carmel, Alfio Cerami and Theodoros Papadopoulos (eds), Migration and Welfare in the New Europe: Social protection and the challenges of integration, Policy Press, 2011, xiv + 261 pp, hbk, 1 847 42644 4, £70
The introductory chapter of this timely edited collection outlines the issues to be discussed throughout: policy combinations, institutions and political structures, and the resulting integration and inclusion of migrants. This is followed by a discussion of the role of emotions, beliefs, preferences and opportunities in policy-making.
The first part of the book contains chapters on the differences between different national migrant integration regimes (always the result of different political economics of labour and welfare); on the European Union’s attempt at a coherent migration policy which links utility, security and integration policies; on the contradiction between the right to emigrate and a destination country’s ability to deny entry (meaning that we need a new European migration morality); and on the causes of migration and of different degrees of labour market integration.
The second part contains studies of migration and social protection policies in different EU countries. In Italy, the relative importance of social protection provided to employees in large companies disadvantages migrants, who tend to work in smaller companies. Migrants are also disadvantaged by their weaker position in relation to welfare rights and their security of residence. Germany practises differential inclusion, with guest workers the least included, second-generation German-born people somewhat more included, and ethnic German repatriates the most included. The social security regime, being based largely on contribution records, disadvantages migrants. In Hungary, EU accession has added new elements to an already complex migration pattern.
The chapter on Finland contains the most detailed study of a social security system and its relationship to migration. In Finland’s case residency is a more important criterion than employment status or length of labour market participation. Because immigrants often don’t achieve rights to residency, their access to the main social security provisions remains employment-based and thus precarious, leaving them reliant on a low-level means-tested safety net.
The chapter on the UK, accurately entitled ‘wilful negligence … the absence of social protection in the UK,’ details UK immigrants’ lack of access to the labour market and to social security benefits, and also a detention regime which includes the incarceration of children. The UK has a long history of both permanent and temporary immigration, which has resulted in complex and differentiated labour market patterns. It’s a pity that a detailed case study doesn’t include a section on immigrants’ social security experiences. What does emerge is a picture of insecure recent immigrants and of exploited migrant workers.
The final section of the book integrates into an understanding of migrant experience of a number of disparate cultural and political factors, and here the UK’s multicultural policies fare rather better than our treatment of illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers awaiting determinations of their status. The first chapter in this section asks that welfare right should be viewed in the context of each cultural situation; the second studies the influence of urban, sub-national policy actors; and the third compares Israel’s positive attempts to integrate (certain groups of) immigrants with Europe’s more patchy experience.
The concluding chapter finds social security regulations to be discriminating, and it puts to us the challenge of creating ‘inclusion, integration and social protection’ (p.253) for migrants across Europe. Advocates of a Citizen’s Income approach to benefits reform will recognise this as a challenge which a Citizen’s Income would meet, but only if a Citizen’s Income is to be paid to every current resident, including new arrivals.