by Kate McFarland | Aug 9, 2018 | News
Photo: “Fight for $15” Minimum Wage Protest, CC BY-SA 2.0 The All-Nite Images
A recently released survey shows support for an income-tax-funded basic income from people of color and the working class, but opposition from college-educated white Americans.
The left-wing think tank Data for Progress included a question about universal basic income (UBI) in Polling the Left Agenda, an opinion survey recently conducted to gain insight into the political viability of potential “big-ticket” progressive proposals.
The think tank hopes to remedy a lack of data concerning voter support for such policies, policies that politicians might be inclined to dismiss as too radical to gain sufficient support from the electorate:
“Because the policies that are exciting progressive voters have not yet caught the attention of most pollsters, debates over how ready the broader electorate is for a more progressive Democratic platform have been reduced to mere speculation. We set out to change that … We chose policies that haven’t been polled often, but could be central to the 2020 Presidential election.”
Policies considered in the poll included not only UBI but also a federal job guarantee, a stakeholder grant or “baby bond”, reparations for black Americans, and a 90 percent marginal income tax on millionaires, among other proposals.
In collaboration with YouGov Blue (a division of market research organization YouGov that serves clients from the political left), Data for Progress interviewed 1515 eligible US voters between July 13 and 16, 2018. Respondents were randomly selected and represented the full US political spectrum, not only progressives (e.g. about 44 percent of respondents who voted in the 2016 Presidential election backed Republican nominee Donald Trump).
Querying Support for UBI
Although the survey did not explicitly use the term, UBI was the intended target of one of the survey’s ten policy questions:
Would you support or oppose giving every American a monthly check from the government of $1,000, which would be paid for by raising taxes on individuals earning more than $150,000 a year?
Overall, 37 percent of respondents supported the policy (23 percent strongly and 14 percent “somewhat”), while 43 percent opposed it (31 percent strongly), and the rest remained neutral or undecided. However, as discussed below, net support for the policy was observed within some demographic groups, such as Blacks, Hispanics, women, eligible voters under 45 years of age, and those without any college education.
It bears note that the questionnaire did not query respondents about UBI per se but about a specific type of UBI: one of a certain specified amount (US$1000 per month) and funding mechanism (a higher personal income tax for individuals making more than US$150,000 per year).
Because of this, we must be cautious in making comparisons between the Data for Progress poll and other recent surveys of Americans’ opinions on UBI, such as those conducted in 2017 by Ipsos, Morning Consult, or Gallup, or the poll commissioned by the Economic Security Project in 2016. None of the latter polls included reference to a specific amount or funding mechanism in initial questions about UBI (although some proposed specific sources of funds in follow-up questions). At the same time, included other extraneous qualifications (e.g. Gallup’s poll asked specifically about a UBI introduced “as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because of advances in artificial intelligence”). Thus, although ostensibly all surveys about Americans’ attitudes UBI, these studies cannot be said all to have measured the exact same thing.
Of particular significance is the fact that the Data for Progress questionnaire asked specifically about a UBI funded by a personal income tax. Data from earlier surveys already indicate that support for UBI decreases when respondents are told that the program would be accompanied by higher taxes.
A 2017 survey of British adults, for example, found that 49 percent of respondents would support “a regular income paid in cash to every individual adult in the UK, regardless of their working status and income from other sources”, but support dropped to 30 percent if the policy would entail an increase in taxes. Similarly, as Jurgen De Wispelaere has pointed out, a government-sponsored working group in Finland “found that Finnish support for basic income decreased quite radically once questions about the amount of basic income are paired with corresponding questions about the taxes needed to fund it”. And a 2016 Canadian poll found 67 percent of respondents in favor of a guaranteed income of C$30,000 per year, but only 34 percent said they themselves would be willing to pay more in taxes to support a government-sponsored guaranteed income.
Past American surveys have shown similar results. In the aforementioned Gallup poll, 48 percent of individuals surveyed supported “a universal basic income program as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because of advances in artificial intelligence”. However, out of those who expressed support for the program, only a minority (46 percent) replied affirmatively to a follow-up question asking whether they would be willing to pay higher taxes to fund it. Moreover, the Economic Security Project study revealed a drop in support for a “base income” from 45 to 39 percent, and an increase in opposition from 35 to 50 percent, after respondents were informed that the program “would be paid for by tax revenues”. Notably in the latter case, the survey respondents were not told specifically that they themselves would have to pay higher taxes.
It is not uncommon to hear American basic income advocates speak of a US$1000 basic income funded in part by an increase in personal income taxes. However, there are other reasons why details are not immaterial. For one important example, note that UBI proponents also frequently cite the popularity of Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), an unconditional cash payment to all state residents, to argue that the policy could garner mainstream appeal in the US. The PFD, however, is a vastly different program from the description specified in the Data for Progress poll: Alaska’s PFD is distributed annually rather than monthly, closer to US$1000 per year than per month (its amount varies but stood at US$1100 in 2017 and US$1022 in 2016), and funded not from personal income taxes — Alaska is, in fact, one of a handful of US states with no state income tax — but from investment earnings on revenue from oil and other state-owned resources.
I will make one final note on questionnaire wording before turning to examine some results of “Polling the Left Agenda” in more detail: it is also important be mindful of what details are not explicitly noted in the survey question on UBI, such as the fact that the payment is not conditional on work or other requirements. The previously cited Economic Security Project survey found that support also declined when respondents were directly told that receipt of a UBI “is not tied to work or having a job” or that the money “could be used for anything”. Although the unconditionality of the grant is implicit in the description of “giving every American a monthly check”, individuals’ reactions and responses can vary depending one what is made salient and explicit when questioned.
Additional Survey Results
Race and Education Level
The UBI proposal received the strongest support from people of color and non-college educated Americans (or “working class” as Data for Progress labels the latter group).
As Data for Progress summarized what it referred to as the “key finding” of its study, UBI “is most popular among working class people of color, followed by college educated people of color” and “net support among working class whites” while being “rejected by college-educated whites”.
Black respondents supported the proposal by a margin of 49 percent to 19 percent (with 33 percent expressing strong support), while Hispanic respondents supported it by a much narrowed margin of 36 percent to 34 percent. In contrast, 47 percent of white respondents opposed the policy (with 35 percent strongly opposing it), while 36 percent supported it.
Across education levels, the policy proposal received net support only among those with no college education (40 percent in support to 29 percent opposed). Overall, over 40 percent of college graduates strongly opposed the policy.
Cross-tabulated data tables from Data for Progress.
These demographic trends remain consistent with the results of the 2017 National Tracking Poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico, which queried over 1400 eligible US voters on their support or opposition to “a proposal in which the government would provide all Americans a regular, unconditional sum of money, sometimes referred to as universal basic income” (see the discussion by Patrick Hoare in a Basic Income News article on the survey).
Political Alignment
The UBI proposal also received majority support from respondents who voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, with 35 percent of Clinton voters strongly supporting the policy. (We might here note that, while Clinton herself is sometimes classified as a UBI supporter due to a jettisoned proposal described in her memoir, she opposed UBI during her campaign, and her rejected proposal was for a resource dividend inspired by Alaska’s PFD, not financed by a higher personal income taxes.)
In contrast, less than 17 percent of Trump voters in the survey supported the idea of an income-tax-funded UBI. Indeed, among those who voted for the Republican candidate, 64 percent strongly opposed the policy.
Once again, this result aligns with last year’s National Tracking Poll, which found that 56 percent of Clinton voters supported a UBI, with 28 percent opposed to the proposal. In contrast, only 32 percent of respondents who voted for Trump expressed support for the idea of UBI, while 52 percent expressed opposition. Similarly, the Gallup poll found that only 28 percent of Republican respondents supported UBI as a policy to address technological unemployment, in contrast to 65 percent of Democrats.
Some UBI supporters, being keen to depict the policy as broadly trans-partisan (“not left or right but forward”), might balk at portraying the idea as specifically “progressive” or as a potential part of “the left agenda”. If these recent surveys are a valid measure, however, there is evidence that UBI is indeed an idea that strikes a much greater resonance with America’s left.
Other Demographic Categories
The poll also suggests that an income-tax-funded UBI is more popular among women, younger Americans, and lower-income individuals, and less popular among men, older Americans, and higher-income individuals.
Women displayed a slight margin of net support for the proposal (39 percent to 37 percent), although 10 percent remained unsure, while male respondents rejected the idea 50 percent to 35 percent (with 4 percent remaining unsure).
Additionally, while the policy proposal garnered net support from young voters (in both the “under 30” and “30-44” age groups), it received net opposition from those 45 and older, and nearly half of respondents over 65 strongly opposed it.
Again, these general demographic trends tend to reflect previous survey research, such as the 2017 Gallup poll, which found greater supporter for UBI among female respondents and declining support through each of its four age categories. The National Tracking Poll also revealed stronger opposition from older age groups (especially among those over 65). In the latter survey, however, men were seen to be slightly more favorable to a general UBI proposal than were women.
Finally, the Data for Progress poll showed that lower incomes tend to be associated with a higher degree of support for UBI; while supporters outnumbered opponents among respondents with family incomes under US$40,000 per year, opponents predominated in higher income categories. This finding also remains consistent with other recent studies.
Reaction from The Nation
So, then, is basic income a viable progressive proposal? Should Democrats back the idea in the 2020 election? Journalist Clio Chang is one commentator who believes that the survey results do indeed suggest an affirmative answer, as she writes in The Nation, the popular American progressive political journal:
“[S]ome sort of cash welfare should be part of the progressive agenda, not in small part because it would help blow up the racist idea that benefits should be tied to work and finally kill Reagan’s welfare-queen myth. As the polling shows, even the most radically progressive proposals are not the political death sentences that critics would have you believe.”
by Patrick Hoare | Oct 5, 2017 | News
A new poll POLITICO/Morning Consult conducted between the 14th and 17th September 2017 surveying 1,994 registered US voters, found that, of those asked whether they would support or oppose ‘a proposal in which the government would provide all Americans a regular, unconditional sum of money, sometimes referred to as universal basic income’, 43% either ‘strongly supported’ or ‘somewhat supported’ the idea.
The subgroup data showed that 23% ‘strongly supported’ the notion, 20% ‘somewhat supported’ it, 14% ‘somewhat opposed’ it, 25% ‘strongly opposed’ it, and 18% ‘didn’t know’ or ‘had no opinion’ on the idea. Males were slightly more in favour than females, with 46% compared to 39% supporting the idea. The breakdown by age showed that younger people were more receptive to the idea of a UBI than older people, with 48% of 18-29 year olds supportive of the idea compared with 32% against, while 52% of 30-44 year olds were supportive of the idea compared with 33% against. Within the 45-54 year old age group, 43% were in favour versus 39% against. Though 55-64 year olds were more opposed to a UBI than were supportive of it, 41% were still in favour of the proposal. Support amongst the over 65s was only at 30%, with 49% of this age group opposing the concept.
Of those who identified as having a ‘liberal ideology’, 32% ‘strongly supported’ and 27% ‘somewhat supported’ the proposal. Only 26% of this group either ‘somewhat opposed’ or ‘strongly opposed’ the idea. Consistent with what might be expected, those who identified as having a ‘moderate ideology’ were marginally more supportive of the proposal than opposed it: 44% against 39%; and those who identified as having a ‘conservative ideology’ were significantly more in opposition of it than they were supportive: 60% against 26%. Slightly surprisingly, given that highly educated adults – particularly those who have attended graduate school – are far more likely than those with less education to take predominantly liberal positions, there was a trend away from support of the proposal the more education the respondents had received. Of those who did not hold qualifications from college or higher, 46% were in general support of a UBI, compared with 38% of those with bachelor’s degrees and 34% of those with postgraduate degrees. A majority of those holding higher-education qualifications: 50% of those with bachelor’s degrees and 53% of those with postgraduate degrees, were in opposition to the proposal.
Those with lower incomes were more supportive of the idea than those with higher incomes. Amongst those with an annual income of $50k or less, 47% were either ‘strongly supportive of’ or ‘somewhat supportive of’ a UBI, compared with 41% of those with an annual income of between $50k and $100k, and only 29% of those with an annual income of more than $100k. Consistent with ethnic wealth distribution in the US, fewer identifying as ethnically white were supportive of the idea than were identifying as Hispanic or African American. Of the latter group, 61% were either ‘strongly supportive of’ or ‘somewhat supportive of’ the idea of a UBI, compared with 51% of those identifying as Hispanic and 39% of those identifying as white. The support, across the different employment sectors – private, government, self-employed, homemaker, student, retired, unemployment, other – was fairly consistent, ranging from 43% to 50% being generally supportive of the concept, with only the retired segment – in line with the results from the breakdown by age demographic – being generally opposed to the idea, where only 33% were ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ supportive.
Geographically – Northeast, Midwest, South, West – there was not a great deal of fluctuation either in support of or in opposition to a UBI, with figures hovering around the overall averages. Urban communities were more receptive than suburban or rural communities, with 52% being generally supportive against 40% and 39% respectively.
For proponents of a UBI, the overall results compare favourably against a poll conducted by YouGov US and the Huffington Post on January 7th and 8th in 2014. When asked whether they would ‘favor or oppose expanding Social Security to every American, regardless of age, to guarantee a basic income to every American’, only 18% said they would ‘strongly favor’ the idea with an additional 17% saying they would ‘somewhat favor’, compared with 16% who said they would ‘somewhat oppose’ and 38% who would ‘strongly oppose’ the notion. The increasing popularity of a UBI in the US was also consistent with a poll conducted toward the end of 2016 by 50+1 Strategies and David Binder Research on behalf of the Economic Security Project, which found that, of the 500 people surveyed, 46% of were in favour of the idea, with 35 percent opposed and 19 percent undecided.
More information at:
Morning Consult and Politico, ‘Morning Consult National Tracking Poll #170911’, September 14th-17th, 2017
Pew Research Center, ‘A Wider Ideological Gap Between More and Less Educated Adults: Political polarization update’, PeoplePress.org, April 26th, 2016
Peter Moore, ‘Poll Results: Guaranteed jobs and basic income’, YouGov.com, January 9th, 2014
Patrick Caughill, ‘Survey Reveals Nearly 50% of Americans Favor a Universal Basic Income’, Futurism.com, December 20th, 2016
by Claire Bott | Oct 3, 2017 | News
Nearly 90% of respondents to a New Zealand-based poll stated that, assuming that the economy and nz stock market was strong enough to support all residents, a universal basic income (UBI) was the fairest way to ensure basic support to all who need it, according to the independent news website Scoop.
Scoop, which conducted the poll via its Hivemind system, also released a number of other results, including the following:
Ninety-four percent of respondents believe that “due to changing economic conditions we need a new system that better guarantees the welfare of the least well off and those facing insecure work conditions.”
In addition, 94% believe that “A Universal Basic Income would better facilitate and recognize unpaid work such as care for the elderly, children, disabled people or other volunteer work which benefits society.”
Eighty-eight percent of respondents believe that “We need to streamline the inefficiency and wasteful bureaucracy of our current tax and benefits systems.”
Additionally, eighty-one percent believe that “a Universal Basic Income will be necessary to protect millions of working people from the worst effects of insecure employment caused by new technology.”
Seventy-four percent of study respondents disagreed with the statement that some people “are simply lazy so providing them with a foundational amount of money to cover basic needs like food, shelter, and medical costs would mean they would just stop working or being productive altogether.”
The Hivemind polls are conducted by surveying people who chose to join a debate on the relevant topic, which is described as such on Scoop’s homepage. Scoop is a New Zealand-based site which claims to have more than 500,000 readers per month. It started nearly 20 years ago, and is owned by a not-for-profit charitable trust.
Scoop Media, “Hivemind Report – a Universal Basic Income for Aotearoa New Zealand“, Scoop, September 2017
by Kate McFarland | May 1, 2017 | News
The results of a new survey polling 11,000 individuals shows unprecedentedly high support for basic income across the European Union.
Dalia Research, a Berlin-based market research company, conducted its first survey of Europeans’ attitudes on basic income in March 2016, which yielded the widely publicized result that 64% of Europeans would vote for a basic income referendum if one were immediately held in their country. The company now plans to conduct such a survey annually, and has lately released the results of its second survey, conducted in March 2017.
For its most recent basic income survey, Dalia Research interviewed 11,021 people between the ages of 14 and 65, selected from all 28 EU members states (a slightly larger sample than was used in its 2016 study, which sampled 10,000 from the same age group and geographical regions). The survey was designed to be census representative, meaning that the sample was selected and data weighted to reflect the overall demographic characteristics of the EU as closely as possible, with respect to region, age, gender, education level, and rural/urban status.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.1% at a 95% confidence level (that is, the survey was designed such that, if it were conducted repeatedly, then on 95% of occasions the estimated level of popular support for basic income, for example, would lie within 1.1 percentage points of the actual level support among all Europeans).
Survey respondents were first posed the question “How familiar are you with the concept known as basic income?” This question was asked prior to presenting any definition of the term.
In response, 24% claimed to “understand it fully,” with another 39% claiming to “know something about it.” Another 25% of respondents stated that they “have heard just a little about basic income,” and 13% claimed to “know nothing about it.” Comparing these data to the 2016 survey, the percentage of respondents indicated that they know “something about” the idea increased significantly (up from 35%), while the percentage who had “never heard of it” decreased significantly (down from 17%).
Following this preliminary question, survey respondents were presented with a definition of ‘basic income’ to be assumed for the remained of the survey: “A basic income is an income unconditionally paid by the government to every individual regardless of whether they work and irrespective of any other sources of income. It replaces other social security payments and is high enough to cover all basic needs (food, housing etc.).” This is, verbatim, the same definition adopted by Dalia Research for its 2016 survey.
It should be noted that Dalia’s definition differs from BIEN’s and, indeed, is more strict. Unlike the definition used by Dalia, BIEN’s definition does not stipulate that the basic income must be “high enough to cover all basic needs” nor that the basic income must “replace other social security payments.” Thus, any policy that meets the survey’s definition of ‘basic income’ is a policy that BIEN would also count as such; however, the survey does not encompass every policy that BIEN would consider a basic income.
With this definition in place, Dalia Research asked five further questions:
1. “If there would be a referendum on introducing basic income today, how would you vote?”
2. “At what point do you think your country should introduce basic income?”
3. “Which of the arguments FOR basic income do you find convincing?”
4. “Which of the following arguments AGAINST the basic income do you find convincing?”
5. “What could be the most likely effect of basic income on your work choices?”
Support for a Basic Income Referendum
In response to the first question, 68% of respondents said that if a referendum on basic income was introduced now, they would vote for it. In 2016, this number stood at 64%. Thus, taking into account the margin of error, support for basic income appears to have increased slightly across the EU in the past year. Meanwhile, the proportion who said that they would oppose the referendum remained stable, at 24%.
Comparing responses between the six largest European countries, Dalia Research found that support was highest in Italy, where the proportion of respondents willing to vote for a basic income referendum increased by six percentage points since 2016, overtaking the level of support in Spain (which had showed the highest level of support in 2016).
The UK (which saw an increase in support of seven percentage points), Spain, and Germany all stand at around 68-69% support.
When Do Europeans Want Basic Income?
Although 24% of respondents said that they would vote against a basic income referendum held at present, only 8% stated that they think that their country should never introduce a basic income, with an additional 13% not favoring the policy for “anytime in the near future.”
At the same time, 33% supported a basic income “as soon as possible” in their respective countries, with others preferring to wait for successful experiments in their own country (32%) or in other countries (16%).
Arguments For and Against
In the next two questions, respondents were supplied with lists of six reasons that might be given for or against a basic income (respectively) and permitted to select as many as they believed to be “convincing.”
Out of the listed arguments for basic income, the three that were judged convincing by the greatest proportion of survey respondents were: “It reduces anxiety about financing basic needs” (52%), “It creates more equality of opportunity” (42%), and “It encourages financial independence and self-responsibility” (32%).
These were also found to be the three most popular “for” arguments in the 2016 survey, which examined the same list of arguments (both pro and con). However, the proportion of respondents who judged them convincing increased from 40%, 31%, and 23%, respectively. The level of support for the remaining three arguments also increased (from 21%, 21%, and 16%, respectively).
When considering the opposing views, 52% of respondents “found convincing” the argument that a basic income “might encourage people to stop working” [1]. This was also the argument against basic income that appears to have seen the greatest increase in its attraction since the 2016 poll, when 43% of respondents considered it convincing.
The next most persuasive arguments against basic income, out of those tested, were “Foreigners might come to my country and take advantage of the benefit” (39% found convincing, versus 34% in 2016), “Only the people who need it most should get something from the state” (34%, vs 32% in 2016), and “It is impossible to finance” (34%, vs 32% in 2016).
Out of those surveyed, 16% found none of the six given “for” arguments to be convincing (in comparison to 22% in 2016), and 12% found none of the provided “against” arguments to be so (in comparison to 15%).
“What Would You Do…?”
For the final question (“What could be the most likely effect of basic income on your work choices?”), respondents were required to select only one option from a list of responses. Here, 37% of respondents claimed that basic income would not affect their work choices, while 17% claimed that they would spend more time with family. The third most common response was “None of the above.”
One complication to interpreting these data lies in fact that, although selection was exclusive (respondents could choose only one answer), many of the answers describe behaviors that are compatible. To give just one example, a person who choses to “spend more time with family” or “do more volunteering work” would presumably also be likely to “work less” as means of securing this end; however, “work less” was presented a distinct option. It would thus be misleading, for example, to present the results of the question by claiming that “only 11% would stop working or work less,” since other response options are compatible with these choices (and might even presuppose that respondents plan to spend less time in paid work).
Thanks to Anisa Holmes at Dalia Research for providing information and graphics for use in this article, as well as the linked pdf presentation of the results.
[1] We don’t know exactly how respondents interpreted the word ‘convincing’ or its translation in their language. Given that a sizable majority of respondents claimed to be prepared in favor of a basic income, we might assume, based on the responses above, that many did not interpret it to mean ‘decisive’.
That said, however, we might note that Dalia Research did not perform a “post-assessment” of attitudes to determine if respondents’ views on basic income changed after the presentation of the arguments for and against the policy. Indeed, we should not assume that being alerted to these arguments would not cause respondents to change their assessment of the policy proposal through the course of a survey. (In this vein, we might mention that a survey of likely San Francisco voters conducted in April 2016 found that respondents changed their opinion on basic income after more policy specifics were stated, becoming overall less supportive.)
Cover photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 myri_bonnie
by Kate McFarland | Aug 16, 2016 | News
A new opinion poll by Canada’s Angus Reid Institute finds a majority of respondents in favor of guaranteed minimum income. However, a majority also believe that the policy is unaffordable and would not support an increase in taxes to fund it.
The Angus Reid Institute (ARI) conducted a poll of Canadians’ beliefs and attitudes about guaranteed annual income. The sample consisted of 1516 randomly-selected members of the Angus Reid Forum, a Canada-wide market research community. Individuals can sign up to join the Angus Reid Forum online, after which they are occasionally sent surveys on a wide array of topics.
The questionnaire asked respondents about guaranteed income, defined as follows:
Those who made less than the threshold through employment earnings would be paid the difference by the federal government, while those who made more than the threshold would receive no additional funding. This payment would typically replace most or all other forms of government assistance, such as welfare and employment insurance.
ARI asked respondents about their support for the policy at three different threshold levels (the sample was divided into thirds, each asked about a different value): $10,000, $20,000, and $30,000.
It was found that 57%, 65% and 67% of respondents supported the guaranteed minimum income at the three respective levels (that is, there was higher support for the more generous guaranteed incomes).
Survey respondents were also asked about their agreement or disagreement with the following statements:
- “A guaranteed income program would give Canadians greater economic freedom.” (66% agreed)
- “A guaranteed income program would be too expensive for Canada’s government to afford.” (59% agreed)
- “I would be willing to pay more in taxes in order to support some kind of guaranteed income.” (34% agreed)
- “Guaranteed income programs discourage people from working.” (63% agreed)
In addition to asking about guaranteed minimum income specifically, the poll inquired about some of the factors that have been cited to justify the need for such a policy. In particular, subjects were asked whether they believed that elimination of jobs due to new technologies is a serious concern (63% said they did) and whether they consider Canada’s current programs for low-income assistance to be effective (46% said that these programs were either “very” or “moderately” ineffective, compared to 36% judging them very or moderately effective).
It seems that, in general, members of Canada’s Angus Reid Forum support a guaranteed income, believe that it would enhance economic freedom, and are concerned about technological unemployment and inadequacies in the current Canadian welfare system. However, they show hesitation when it comes to paying for a guaranteed income: most doubt that Canada is currently able to afford it, and most are unwilling to pay more in taxes in order to provide more funds. To learn more about Canada’s taxation – look here.
The ARI has released comprehensive tables showing the breakdown of responses according to province, gender, age, education level, and household income.
It is worth mentioning that the “guaranteed income” described in the ARI questionnaire differs from a “basic income” as usually described. Notably, under a basic income, the same amount of payment is guaranteed to all, with no means test (although, most likely, higher levels of taxation would entail that individuals above a certain “threshold” would be net contributors rather than beneficiaries).
Plausibly, a different definition would affect survey results. The lack of means-testing has often been cited as a reason to predict that a basic income would not disincentivize work (in contrast to means-tested welfare programs). Thus, perhaps, people might be somewhat less inclined to think that a UBI would discourage work. On the other hand, opponents often emphasize the universality of basic income as a reason to believe that the policy would be prohibitively expensive; thus, UBI might seem (even) less affordable than a guaranteed income as described in this survey. Of course, until another poll is actually conducted, this all remains speculative.
Policies such as guaranteed minimum income and universal basic income are presently under serious discussion in Canada, with the provincial government of Ontario planning a pilot project.
REFERENCE
Shachi Kurl, “Basic Income? Basic unaffordable, say most Canadians”, Angus Reid Institute; August 11, 2016.
Andrew Russell, “Canadians support guaranteed income, but don’t want to pay for, think it will make us lazy: poll”, Global News; August 12, 2016.
Photo CC BY 2.0 Just a Prairie Boy.
Article reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan.
This basic income news made possible in part by Kate’s supporters on Patreon.
