by Karl Widerquist | Oct 3, 2012 | Research
In the article published in Winning Free Press, Mary Agnes Welch argues that an experiment done in Dauphin province of Canada around 40 years ago regarding the experiment of unconditional basic income was a success and should be reapplied. The topic was discussed in a conference hosted by Winnipeg Harvest at University of Manitoba. The experiment provided an unconditional basic income guarantee to every low-income person in Dauphin whether or not they were eligible to receive welfare. The results of the Dauphin experiment showed an improvement in health, a lower high school dropout rate, and people did not stop working just because they were receiving a guaranteed income. The experiment was stopped because the government lost interest in it. Welch further informs that the city of Dauphin is interested in having the experiment again. However, it does not fit the new strategy of the government that follows the policy of moving people back to work.
Welch, M. A. (2012). An End to the Perpetual War Trap: Guaranteed Incomes Debated. Winning Free Press, retrieved from: https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/an-end-to-the-perpetual-welfare-trap-167004295.html.
by Karl Widerquist | Sep 15, 2012 | Research
SG Hard Truth: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going, July 24, 2012
This article argues that negative income tax is a bold alternative that fits Singapore better than other policies. Erik Stern writes, the negative income tax, “lets the labour market determine the wage that matches the skill set. It allows the government to decide what the base wage should be, for each level of employee or type of job, not only the minimum level.” The writer is president of Stern Stewart & Co, a business consultancy
This article was originally posted on Business Times Premium at:
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/premium/editorial-opinion/opinion/growing-need-fairness-and-respect
It was reposted and is currently online at:
https://sghardtruth.com/2012/07/25/growing-need-for-fairness-and-respect-negative-income-tax-is-better-than-welfare-or-workfare-for-the-unemployed/
by Sandro Gobetti | Jul 12, 2012 | News
On Saturday 14th of July 2012 at 5.30 pm a training workshop titled “Our Welfare: guaranteed income in Italy and Europe” will be held in Foligno (Italy) within the summer festival of the political party SEL – Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (Left Ecology Freedom). The event will be hosted by Elisabetta Piccolotti (member of the National Committee of SEL and member of the local government of Foligno) and Ivano Bruschi (Councillor of the town council of Foligno). The event will be also attended by Titti Di Salvo (member of the National Committee of SEL, and spokeswoman for the Forum Environment, Economics, Labour), and Sandro Gobetti (BIN Italia – Basic Income Network Italia). During the event there will be the screening of the video ‘Reinventing the Welfare State: a European perspective’.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 15, 2012 | Research
In her this column, Anne B. Ryan, of BIEN Ireland, argues that the current welfare system is not applicable anymore and it needs to be replaced by new system, Universal Basic Income (UBI). UBI is a regular and unconditional income whether one is employed or not. The current welfare system was designed to benefit small number of people that became temporarily unemployed. We need a new system, argues Ryan, UBI, which can benefit everybody and allow one to live up to the decent living standards. Ryan believes that UBI will give people power over decisions in their work life. People with low income, or socially or environmentally hazardous work can have a power of decision whether to leave or stay in their workplace. UBI would also benefit small business entrepreneurs, young people, and volunteers. UBI can be founded by social resource payment paid by employers and the rest can come from increase in income tax. The article stresses that this system can help in combating inequalities and divisiveness persisting in society due to differences in current levels of security.
Ryan, A. B. (2010). “Column: Our Welfare System is Broken. We Can Fix it… By Paying Everybody.” In The Journal. Retrieved June 7, 2012 from https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-our-welfare-system-is-broken-we-can-fix-it%E2%80%A6-by-paying-everybody/
by Citizens' Income Trust | May 30, 2012 | Opinion
Kevin Farnsworth and Zoë Irving (eds), Social Policy in Challenging Times: Economic crisis and welfare systems, Policy Press, 2011, xi + 335 pp, pbk, 1 847 42827 1, £27.99, hbk, 1 847 42828 8, £70
Whilst in all of the countries studied in this edited collection the welfare state can be regarded as entering a new age of austerity, the picture that emerges is one of diversity: of different kinds of financial crisis in different countries, of different cultural contexts, and of different effects on welfare provision. For instance: ‘Liberal market economies … are least well equipped in both economic buffers and social solidarity to deal with the impact of a crisis in welfare funding because interests are not shared corporately or between social classes’ (p.24).
The first part of the book tackles more general questions. Has the crisis resulted in a shift in the economic paradigm? No: that would require positive action. Has a crisis in financialised capitalism fostered a new economic and social strategy? No: it has resulted in welfare state retrenchment and widening inequality. Are we all in this together? No: there is one strategy for financial institutions, and another for citizens. Is a global social floor a good idea? It’s a better idea than national safety nets. How will relatively young welfare states in the developing world cope with the financial crisis? In Brazil and South Africa, the crisis has led to the expansion of income transfer programmes, and in particular to the inclusion of 16 and 17 year olds (p.104).
The second half of the book studies individual countries. South Korea’s experience of the 1997 crisis suggests that extreme neoliberalism doesn’t work. China’s response to the recent crisis has been to include previously excluded groups in welfare systems. Germany’s small financial sector, and adjustments already made during unification, have meant that the crisis has had a ‘muted’ effect. Ireland’s weak welfare state is suffering retrenchment rather than reform. Iceland’s crisis has seen the neoliberal model questioned. In Scandinavia unemployment has risen, but only slowly. Domestic policy concerns drove the United States’ healthcare reforms, and in neither the United States nor in Canada has the crisis resulted in much welfare state reform. In the UK, the depth of austerity measures is more ideological than necessary.
‘More of the same’ is the picture that emerges: that is, it is long term cultural and ideological factors that determine welfare structures. Whilst the financial crisis might have precipitated minor change, and in some cases it has exacerbated existing trends (especially in the UK and Ireland, and over the extent of punitive measures imposed on the unemployed), it has stimulated little genuine reform. The editors’ concluding chapter extracts a number of ‘solutions’ from the different chapters, but they can’t be said to constitute any kind of package; and their confident conclusion that
What the contributions here demonstrate is not only that emergency events are crucial to both the shaping of social policy, and to the understanding of that process, but also that challenging times are as likely to widen the scope for progressive welfare state-building as they are to diminish it, and that how states respond is a matter of political struggle and political choice (p.278)
isn’t borne out by the evidence.
The strengths of the book are the amount of detailed evidence and the careful analysis in each of the very different chapters; and a particular strength is that the chapter authors don’t draw clear conclusions where there are none to be drawn. A justifiable clear conclusion is Farnsworth’s: that Government policy is bound to increase inequality in the UK. What he might also have said is that reduced withdrawal rates under the new Universal Credit will reduce inequality and will incentivise labour market activity. The lesson to draw is that reduced benefits withdrawal rates and an increase in universal benefits would both reduce inequality and incentivise labour market activity: both outcomes which would enhance the economic outlook and the social fabric.
