by Andre Coelho | Jun 7, 2019 | News, Research
Apart from experimental designs testing basic income-like policies, in small scales, theoretical evidence keeps mounting, showing that basic income is not a pipe dream, but a practical reality within our reach. Published earlier this year, a new report issued by the Compass think tank demonstrates just that. It proposes two models for change in the British social security system, one that installs a partial basic income for a cost of 28 billion £/year (approximately the benefits cut per year since 2010), and another that would rise the unconditional transfer of the first model through the operation of a “citizens’ wealth fund”.
As a summary, it can be read in the report’s conclusions:
The to models presented satisfy the feasibility tests set out earlier. Both models:
- Are progressive: they raise the incomes of low-income households at the expense of those on the highest incomes, cut poverty and reduce inequality; the greatest benefits go to the poorest;
- Provide a basic income for all, while reducing the level of sanctions; Britain would finally have a secure income floor set to rise over time;
- Become more progressive and more powerful anti-poverty instruments as basic income payments rise;
- Help to correct the gender imbalance of the present system;
- Ensure that there are almost no losers among the poorest households
- Apply a new 15% rate of income tax, an additional 3% on each rate of income tax, and an extension of national insurance payments.
It is still worthy to say that the 28 million £/year figure cited above can be collected in a variety of ways, for instance reversing the freezing of diesel and petrol excise duties since 2010 (9 billion £/year), reversing cuts in corporate tax rates from 18 to 28% (26-28 billion £/year), reduce the number and value of tax reliefs (ex.: eliminating the “entrepreneur’s relief”, saving 2,7 billion £/year), phasing out financial support to home owners and private landlords (which mainly benefit property developers) (8 billion £/year), among other possibilities. All these imply reversing tax cuts and attributed benefits to the relatively wealthier members of British society, which makes them quite progressive measures.
More information at:
Stewart Lansley and Howard Reed, “Basic Income for All: From Desirability to Feasibility”, Compass, January 2019
by Andre Coelho | May 29, 2019 | News
Night view from Coorg valley, India
It seems the promise of a solid financial ground for all poor citizens in India was not enough to win the Congress Party a leading position on the Indian parliament in New Delhi. The country just counted its votes on the past 23rd of May, and the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was reappointed to power by a landslide, winning more seats than all the other parties combined (56% of all votes). The Congress Party, the second most voted party, got less than one fifth of the BJP won constituencies. Although there has been some contention on the voting procedure, BJP election seems indisputable.
The BJP party had also spoken about a cash transfer, unconditional in principle, to poor farmers, but that was clearly on an electoral spell, and only because the Congress Party had already gone public with its plan to roll out a basic income-type of policy if elected. In any case, the amount proposed by the BJP was many times lower than the former, and limited to poor farmers, so that shouldn’t have been the motive for the Congress defeat on these elections.
Congress Party had announced and defended the implementation of a basic income in India on the basis of reducing poverty. However, statistics show that poverty has been dropping sharply in India through the last decade. The Indian government stated that 22% of its population lived under the official poverty line in 2012. In 2015, that number had been reduced to 12,4%, according to World Bank Data. Also, as of 2019, only about 3% of the Indian population now lives in extreme poverty, according to the World Poverty Clock. This means that, as far as escaping poverty is concerned, things have been doing fine in India lately, and that helps to explain this election’s result: the BJP is not perfect, but has been making sure the trend in reducing poverty is maintained. And that collects a lot of votes.
In Sikkim, the small northern Indian state in which the ruling party (Sikkim Democratic Front – SDF) was seriously considering rolling out a basic income for its 600 thousand people, once re-elected, things gone the other way around. The ruling party was defeated – by a small margin – by a contender (Sikkim Krantikari Morcha), and with it goes the would-be policy of guaranteed income for all. Maybe the decision on choosing a leader, at this moment in time, was less related with basic income (Sikkim is one of the wealthiest states in India, enjoying low inequality and relatively high living standards on average), but with other issues. One of these could be the fact that SDF had been in power for 25 years, and so might have worn the seat too much, which easily happens in a democracy.
Some analysts consider this election to be a huge failure for the Congress Party. That is certainly an understandable connection and the result surely worried Congress leaders. However, trying to promote plurality, secularity, and now the “radical” redistributive policy of basic income, cannot be wrong in itself. It shows, rather, the mark of progressive politics. It’s just that the contemporary average Indian voter seems to be more interested in maintaining what he/she has gained in the last few years – which has, nonetheless, amounted to, on average, a great uplift in living conditions – and in securing a national identity (an easier Us vs Them mentality), then aligning with an all-encompassing pacifying agenda that doesn’t interest markets, GDP or (a power-driven) foreign policy.
In any case, and if examples like Finland have any relevance, this is not the end of basic income in India. Just a momentary stop on the roadside.
More information at:
André Coelho, “India: Congress party gets serious about basic income and reaches out to Thomas Piketty for policy design support”, Basic Income News, February 14th 2019
André Coelho, “India: Basic income is being promised to all poor people in India”, Basic Income News, February 1st 2019
André Coelho, “India: The Indian government also promises basic income to farmers”, Basic Income News, February 12th 2019
“India’s BJP tells opposition to ‘accept defeat with grace’”, BBC News, May 22nd 2019
Annalisa Merelli, “Indian elections 2019: What can Democrats learn from Congress failure”, Quartz, May 25th 2019
André Coelho, “India: Sikkim state is on the verge of becoming the first place on Earth implementing a basic income”, Basic Income News, January 11th 2019
by Faun Rice | May 22, 2019 | News
Yoni Assia. Picture credit to: CCN
The recent international basic income conference “Visions for a Brighter Future,” UBI-Nordic 2019 was held in Oslo from April 5–7; at it, Nir Yaacobi and Gilad Barner became the first representatives of a universal basic income (UBI)-related blockchain project to present at a UBI conference. Their not-for-profit research organization, GoodDollar, aims to develop an open-source method for implementing UBI through blockchain. Blockchain technology was popularized by cryptocurrencies, but is, in general terms, a distributed ledger (i.e., a database hosted by numerous servers rather than one central authority) where all transactions are verified publicly, rather than being controlled by a single administrator. Blockchain protocols can allow for the execution of smart contracts, or an encoded agreement that auto-executes once its terms are fulfilled. Due to the nature of the type of encryption that blockchain uses, each encrypted transaction includes information from the one that occurs before it, making transactions, once verified, theoretically impossible to change or erase. Some blockchain projects, like GoodDollar, aim to eventually create Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) that eschew classical governance for a public, distributed, social and financial system based on blockchain.
The idea of GoodDollar was born over ten years ago in a paper called “The Visible Hand,” which outlined a framework for a monetary system where smaller investments are granted the same interest rates as larger ones in order to combat extreme wealth inequality. The organization’s current mission is to “build open-source solutions for efficient allocation of resources according to principles informed by research on UBI and related policy proposals.”
Other UBI-related blockchain and cryptocurrency initiatives reported by Basic Income News have included SwiftDemand, Grantcoin, and a BitNation exploration of the concept of UBI and cryptocurrency.
More information at:
Yoni Assia and Omri Ross, “Good Dollar Experiment: Wealth Distribution Position Paper,” July 11th 2018
Yoni Assia, “Good Dollar – The Visible Hand,” November 28th 2008
Cameron McLeod, “BitNation: Recent Advances in Cryptocurrency See Basic Income Tested,” March 30th 2017
UBI-Nordic, “Basic Income: ‘Visions for a Brighter Future’ UBI-Nordic 2019—Oslo, April 5–7”, Accessed May 13th 2019
by Daniele Fabbri | May 19, 2019 | News
Credit picture: CC(Andrew Newton)
Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz speaks about inequality, automation, and Universal Basic Income (UBI) in a conversation at the New York Stock Exchange.
The economist says that, as many people fear, it is entirely plausible that the problem of inequality will get worse if countermeasures are not undertaken. Although he recognizes that a single program such as UBI may offer some advantages, he is not a big fan of the idea. Instead, he thinks that the main responsibility a society has is to provide everybody with a job (a Job Guarantee).
Stiglitz states that if jobs with decent salaries were available, the need for UBI wouldn’t exist, even though some social programs to protect the needy would be needed. But in his opinion many people find dignity in their job, and so the focus of the attention should be to make the labour market work properly.
A goal that could become more and more difficult to attain as technology advances, with machines threatening an ever-increasing number of professions. As automation proceeds, the risk is that inequalities will increase, as a result of growing unemployment and AI undermining the very basis of the market.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Stiglitz states, makes it possible to alter the functioning of the market economy, making everybody pay a different price, appropriating consumer surplus and adding it to the profit of the wealthiest, thus further polarizing the distribution of wealth.
The solution should be, in the economist view, twofold: on the one hand, the economy has lost its balance because workers lost their bargaining power, and thus it should be reestablished. On the other hand, the core of innovation is government funded research and government funded education, but too little of the proceeds go to the public, and a better system of sharing the benefits need to be designed.
While Stiglitz states he is not a big supporter of UBI, what he proposes in order to reduce inequality is what UBI itself is designed to do: provide workers with bargaining power and redistribute the wealth of society in a more equal manner.
More information at:
Andrew Davis, “Joseph Stiglitz weighs in on Universal Basic Income and the future of work“, CNBC, May 5th 2019
by Andre Coelho | May 3, 2019 | News
A new website was created, and just launched, to provide updated news and information about UBI (Unconditional Basic Income), with the goal of furthering the discussion about how UBI impacts purpose, identity, and dignity. It will convey content from general news and include original material from the editor-in-chief and UBI activist, Scott Santens. The website is called Basic Income Today.
Editorially, Basic Income Today will focus on seven broad themes:
- Workforce Automation: How technology and artificial intelligence (AI) built to accelerate economies can displace human workers and how individuals and economies cope and evolve.
- Social Justice: Centered around the relationship between UBI and those affected by the results of workforce automation, mitigating a new vision for society to re-imagine this social contract for the 21st century.
- Income Inequality: Today, many people must work several jobs they do not enjoy, just to keep a roof over their heads. We discuss the ramifications of wealth distributed so unevenly, and its effects on those not sure that they will be able to meet their families’ basic needs.
- The Basics of UBI: Not familiar with the concept? This type of content is designed to demystify the noise and false information surrounding the idea of UBI, bringing you a clearer, less biased picture.
- Success Stories: Evaluating the results where UBI is instituted and how people, paid and unpaid work, business, and the economy benefits.
- The Social Debate: There is certainly no lack of opinions on this as yet unimplemented policy. A balanced view of the arguments, pro and con, is shown. Also, the journal is open to all reader’s ideas, as an interactive platform.
- Pilots & Experiments: Who’s adopting UBI, where it’s happening, and how it’s progressing.
More information at:
Basic Income Today website
Basic Income Today Twitter account
Basic Income Today Facebook account
