by Lewis Small | Jul 1, 2020 | News
There is a translation of this article into French
The newly formed Government of the 33rd Dáil has committed to trialling Basic Income (BI) in Ireland over the next five years. The announcement was made in the Programme for Government (PfG) agreed between Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. The document details a long list of actions that the next government aims to implement, with this commitment on BI being included under ‘Anti-poverty and Social Inclusion Measures’ on p.86:
[We will] request the Low Pay Commission to examine Universal Basic Income, informed by a review of previous international pilots, and resulting in a universal basic income pilot in the lifetime of the Government.
If the plans go ahead Ireland will join a growing list of countries that have begun making concrete plans to implement a form of Basic Income, but questions have been raised over the substance of the commitments made, and how they will play out in practice.
Anne Ryan, Joint Co-ordinator at Basic Income Ireland – the national body for the promotion of a BI in Ireland – commented:
We would like to see this as part of a commitment to introduce a full permanent basic income for all within the next five years. Trials and pilots have already been carried out in Europe and worldwide and all have shown positive effects. Replicating them in Ireland may not be the best use of time and money when we already know that basic income is one key element of the infrastructure for building a caring society, smart economy, inclusiveness and equality.
Further concerns have been raised over the decision to appoint the Low Pay Comission to lead on the commitments, and the risk that political in-fighting poses for the focus and relevance of any agreed trial.
Responding to a draft version of the PfG, Social Justice Ireland commented:
The PfG contains a plan to have the Low Pay Commission (LPC) examine Universal Basic Income. Issues relating to the role of government in providing a minimum floor below which the living standards of its citizens should not slip go far beyond the remit of the LPC. The Commission on Welfare and Taxation would be a far more appropriate home.(p.3)
Any decision to shift the examination of BI to a different body would require consensus among the three parties, and whilst Fianna Fáil and the Green Party have previously outlined support for BI, Fine Gael has consistently rejected the idea.
Dr Seán Healy, CEO of Social Justice Ireland – who has promoted BI in Ireland for 35 years – added:
Care must be taken to ensure this initiative is not defeated because of the opposition of a single political party when a majority of the Government are prepared to give it a fair trial. In 2002, the Irish Government published a Green Paper on Basic Income which was relatively positive – it is imperative that we do not have a repetition of the failure to give the proposal fair consideration.
How the PfG commitment pans out will therefore depend very much on both the character of the review and the design of the trial. The focus must be on ensuring that these proceed in a positive spirit, led by people who have a genuine interest in making BI a reality.
by Thiago Santos Rocha | Jun 18, 2020 | News
When, at the end of February 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was registered in Brazil, unemployment, job insecurity and poverty were already very well established in the Brazilian social structure. In January 2020, the rate of unemployment among the Brazilian population was 11.2%. According to data from 2018, 25.3% of the residents in Brazil lived in poverty and only 43.4% had some income from work. This was the scenario found and aggravated by the pandemic.
After a strong social mobilization, Law 13.982 was published on April 2, 2020, creating the Emergency Workers’ Aid (EWA), an exceptional social protection measure to face the health emergency. (The EWA is sometimes called an Emergency Basic Income, but it ought not to be as it does not fulfil the definition of a Basic Income).
Although the text of the law tries to induce the idea that the benefit is intended exclusively for workers who have lost their source of income during the pandemic, in the end this is not an eligibility requirement, since the EWA reaches even those who have long been in a situation of economic vulnerability.
In sum, the EWA is a payment of R$ 600.00 (US$ 115.00) per month to the person over eighteen years old, who does not have an active formal job, is not the holder of another social security or welfare benefit (except for the Bolsa Família), has monthly per capita family income of up to half a minimum wage (R$ 522.50; US$ 100.00) or total monthly family income of up to three minimum wages (R$ 3,135.00; US$ 608.00) and has not earned income above the income tax exemption range in the 2018 fiscal year. No more than two people from each family may receive the benefit. The law also recognizes the condition of special vulnerability of the woman provider of a single-parent family, granting her the value equivalent to two quotas of the aid (R$ 1,200.00; US$ 230.00).
On May 14, Law 13,998/2020 made some changes to the EWA, among which is its extension to mothers under 18 years of age. Amendments that extended access to the benefit, mainly by withdrawing the requirement of proof of income in 2018, were vetoed by the President of the Republic after being approved by the National Congress.
As for its coverage, at the beginning of the implementation of the EWA the government estimated that it would reach 54 million people. However, after 2 months 107 million applications had been submitted, of which 59 million were approved and 42.2 million were considered ineligible.
It should be noted that implementation is facing serious problems on the part of the Government. This has motivated the Brazilian Basic Income Network, along with 161 other organizations that support the measure, to prepare a report about the 20 main obstacles to the implementation of the EWA , among which is the delay in analyzing the applications submitted and the denial of applications without providing a valid justification.
It should be noted that the law provides that the benefit may be extended by the President of the Republic while the public health emergency caused by the COVID-19 lasts. However, the Government gives signs that, if it extends the EWA, it intends to do so with a monthly amount equivalent to one third of what is currently paid.
This whole context has raised to another level the public discussion about the importance of a right to income security and the respective public policy to ensure it, which transcends the conjunctural situation caused by the pandemic and leads several segments of society to seriously consider permanent policies, such as the Citizen’s Basic Income, approved by the Law 10.835/2004 with all the characteristics of a Universal Basic Income, but never fully implemented.
A local experiment
Maricá, a coastal town in the state of Rio de Janeiro, is experimenting with a local currency income-tested benefit for its own population. Articles about the experiment are available in both Portuguese and English. The articles use both ‘Universal Basic Income’ and ‘basic income guarantee’ terminology. Because the payments are only being paid to poorer households, and are therefore not a Basic Income, the use of this terminology is confusing. However, this is an important experiment, and it will be interesting to hear about its effects.
by Guest Contributor | Jun 4, 2020 | Opinion
We stand at a crossroads. Our great depression threatens to create a larger and more permanent underclass in the United States, as Congress loots the economic system for over $5 trillion in bailouts for the wealthy. Brave protestors and disaffected rioters have taken to the streets to speak truth to American white supremacy, even in the midst of a pandemic that threatens the lives of Black and working-class Americans the most.
George Floyd’s murder inspires unimaginable pain. We lost a soul, a neighbor, a friend, and for many—a brother—to the hands of injustice. Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, and Kalief Browder. Countless people have been stolen from their families. From every city in America. Because they were black.
To say that Black Americans live in a state of terror at the hands of unjust policing, vigilantes, and the criminal justice system is an understatement. To many, it is a militarized occupation of the cities built by their labor, in this century, and the labor of their ancestors dating back almost four hundred years.
If you name a disease in American society, whether it be heart attacks or COVID-19, poverty, or evictions, Black Americans are disproportionately brutalized. The underlying disease is white supremacy, in all its heinous and hidden forms. It hides in white systems. And it hides in white people’s hearts. The United States never achieved freedom for Black Americans. As Fredrick Douglass noted, as wage slavery and disenfranchisement replaced slavery after the Civil War, “Emancipation for the Negro was freedom to hunger, freedom to the winds and rains of heaven, freedom without roofs to cover their heads… it was freedom and famine at the same time.”
Universal basic income, an unconditional payment to all rooted in the belief that everyone has a right to natural resources and the economic fruits of our labor, represents a way to make economic freedom a reality. For Black and brown Americans, it will help counter many of the innumerable barriers to voting: the cost of voting documents, forced relocation, the inability to take off work to vote, intergenerational nihilism, and the economic insecurity that makes it impossible for poor Americans to run for office themselves. Universal Basic Income posits that an individual’s right to life, particularly in a world scourged by a pandemic, should not depend on the profit-driven interest of a corporate employer. Its philosophy contends that the more conditions put on accessing economic relief, the harder it is for people to use and access it — as any person who has received welfare or applied for unemployment benefits will tell you.
In his address to Stanford in 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that riots “are the language of the unheard” for those denied suffrage or recourse through the political system. Less appreciated is what he said immediately after: “Now one of the answers it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people, and for all families of our country.”
Rooting his philosophy in a politics of hope, King called on us to implement policies that fundamentally transform government. Because millions have taken to the streets, the elite finally listens in fear, making this transformation possible. Universal Basic Income is fundamental for restoring democracy, a social contract that lays the groundwork for peace and justice. We need this compromise more than ever as inequality reaches record levels, authoritarian regimes strip ordinary people of their rights, and the destruction of our planet continues unabated. With more climate and pandemic crises on the horizon, how long will it take elites to realize that this economic system threatens the rise of violent populism?
As authoritarianism reasserts itself in the United States, Brazil, India, China, and Russia with mass surveillance and information warfare, the window for a peaceful resolution is fast departing. Now more than ever, Black and brown Americans and their allies have shown us that our only hope is taking action to demand our rights be protected. And we must be willing to risk our lives to ensure those rights are backed by transformational policies like Universal Basic Income.
Let us use this moment to demand comprehensive racial and economic justice for our nations. We owe George Floyd no less.
Article By James Davis
Picture Creator: Jesse Costa
Picture Copyright: Jesse Costa/WBUR
by Pablo Yanes | May 21, 2020 | News
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, a regional organism of the United Nations Secretariat has declared itself in favour of a new regime of welfare and social protection that includes the gradual, progressive and sustained establishment of universal basic income in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean.
On May 12th, its executive secretary, Alicia Bárcena, presented the 3rd Special Report COVID-19: the social challenge in times of covid-19, which reads:
To address the socioeconomic impact of the crisis, ECLAC proposes that governments guarantee temporary cash transfers to meet basic needs and support household consumption, which will be crucial to achieving a sound, relatively rapid recovery (p. 14)
The Proposal however, is not limited to this emergency programme which would involve at least one cash transfer, equivalent to a poverty line, for 1/3 of the population, but rather:
From a long-term perspective, ECLAC reiterates that these transfers need to be ongoing, should reach beyond those living in poverty and cover broad strata of the population that are highly vulnerable to falling into poverty, such as the low-income non-poor and the lower-middle income strata. This would make it possible to move towards a universal basic income that could be implemented gradually over a period suited to each country’s situation. (p.15)
ECLAC has held the position now for 10 years that the current dominant development style needs to be replaced, as it has brought low economic growth, high social inequality and accelerated environmental destruction. It has been 10 years since ECLAC highlighted that this should be the hour of equality in Latin America and the Caribbean, and as such has been working on developing and deepening far reaching initiatives and proposals aimed towards building a new style of development centred around a core of equality and sustainability.
This is the perspective that corresponds to the proposals for progressive structural change, equality pacts and the initiative for a great environmental push. Through all these years ECLAC has insisted on and reiterated the need for social policies that are universal and with a focus on rights. In this decade there have been different mentions of the importance of guaranteeing income, of the possibilities of basic income as an emancipation mechanism and the possibility of implementing basic income for women as a tool for building their economic autonomy. Now, ECLAC is declaring the need for universal basic income and rates it, beyond the emergency and the short-term, as a strategic objective.
Facing the profound weaknesses in the welfare and social protection regimes that have been laid bare by the pandemic, and the unprecedented growth in the volume of cash transfers that, through different modes, have been implemented by the region’s governments, the interest in basic income has grown exponentially. Its appeal is not only philosophical, but also includes its power and utility for solving practical problems and achieving an immediate, opportune and far-reaching impact.
It has been said many times that the most intense debates are not solved by new arguments, but rather by great outcomes. This seems to be the case for the basic income proposal, a proposal whose debate, analysis and experimentation increased significantly after the great recession of 2008-2009 and which has placed itself, with a previously unknown force up until a few weeks ago, into the public and political spheres of various countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is an idea whose time, it seems, has arrived.
The question regarding what would have been the impact and dynamic of the pandemic if instead of having highly precarious and unprotected societies there had been a practical, operating basic income is ever more present. We would surely be talking about a different story in terms of poverty and inequality and uncertainty. Likewise, the physical distancing and home confinement measures involving people that, facing a sudden loss of income had to continue going out into the street to try and earn a survival income, would have been implemented more successfully and with less suffering.
Due to all this, ECLAC highlights the importance of having a universal basic income, within the broad framework of a welfare state and a strong social protection system. That is, basic income as an additional pillar for a new welfare regime, where most importantly the fragmentation, hierarchization and commodification of health services must be overcome, as the same document states.
Regarding the types of policies to be implemented, ECLAC says:
Before the pandemic, the social situation in the region had been deteriorating since 2014 in terms of poverty and extreme poverty, with a slowdown in the pace of inequality reduction.
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- In view of the major persistent gaps that the pandemic has widened, ECLAC reiterates that it is time to implement universal, redistributive and solidarity-based policies with a rights-based approach, to ensure that no one is left behind.
- From a rights and welfare perspective, emergency responses rooted in social protection must be developed to avoid a serious deterioration in living conditions.
- Social protection responses must link the short-term measures needed to address the most acute manifestations of the crisis to medium- and long-term measures aimed at guaranteeing the exercise of people’s rights, by strengthening the welfare State and providing universal social protection. (p. 18)
If the covid-19 pandemic is, as Ignacio Ramonet says, a comprehensive social fact, the least that can be done is to learn from it and to understand that social precariousness and the fragility of life cannot be part of the new normal, of the new post-pandemic reality. So much suffering for so many people cannot be and must not be, repeated or assumed to be natural.
This article was originally published in Spanish at Sin Permiso. www.sinpermiso.info
Regional Research Coordinator for the subregional headquarter of ECLAC in Mexico. The opinions stated here may not be those of the United Nations System.
by Aleksander Masternak | May 18, 2020 | News
The European Commission has agreed that a new European Citizens’ Initiative about Basic Income can begin in November.
Title of citizens’ initiative: Start Unconditional Basic Incomes (UBI) throughout the EU
Date of request for registration: 15/04/2020
Brussels 15/05/2020
Dear organisers, We are pleased to inform you that the European Commission has adopted today the Decision on the registration of your proposed citizen’s initiative …
On the 15th May 2020, the EU Commission agreed to register a Citizens’ Initiative for an EU-wide Unconditional Basic Income (UBI). If the Citizens’ Initiative manages to collect 1,000,000 signatures from at least seven different EU countries within a year of the start of the campaign the European Commission will be required to consider the initiative and respond.
This initiative was started by an international network of activists and initiatives called Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE). This network was first started in the aftermath of a campaign to garner support for a UBI citizens’ initiative back in 2013-2014 which managed to gather 300,000 signatures from over 25 EU countries.
The new initiative asks “the EU Commission to make a proposal for unconditional basic incomes throughout the EU, which reduce regional disparities in order to strengthen the economic, social and territorial cohesion in the EU.” The proposal states the UBI “shall not replace the welfare state”, “is paid to all, without a means test”, and should be unconditional as a “human and legal right.” Moreover the UBI should be “high enough” and “provide for a decent standard of living, which meets the society’s social and cultural standards in the country concerned.” As such, the “net amount of UBI should be at least above the at-risk-of-poverty level according to EU standards, which corresponds to 60% of the so-called national median net equivalent income.”
The timing of the current initiative coincides with the Covid-19 pandemic. Many commentators suggest that a UBI could help countries weather the crisis and help boost economic recovery in its aftermath. UBIE highlighted that effective confinement measures means the “partial or total loss of […] income” for “millions across Europe” and the “risk of falling through social safety nets and into poverty.” The network launched a petition on their website that calls on EU leaders to implement an emergency UBI on the 21st March that has thus far been signed by over 175,000 Europeans. UBIE emphasised that a UBI can help guarantee that every EU citizen’s material well-being is secured and maximises uptake by avoiding increasing bureaucratic burdens on citizens and national administrations.
(As a result of the outbreak, the EU economy is forecasted to contract by 7.5% in 2020 and unemployment is forecast to rise from 6.7% in 2019 to 9% in 2020. The EU Council has agreed that the EU-wide response should be to set-up a “temporary instrument to help workers keep their jobs during the crisis.” It is called SURE, and provides loans to Member States to help pay for “national short-time work schemes and similar measures.”)
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