by Toru Yamamori | Jul 26, 2017 | News
NHK, Japan’s largest broadcasting organization, is going to air a short program on UBI. The program will be broadcasted around 7.20 am during their morning news program called ‘Ohayo Nippon (Good morning Japan)’.
The program is based on a director’s recent visit to Finland and his interview of professor Toru Yamamori, a member of BIEN.
TV Asahi, another national TV network, also had a short program on UBI on 13th July. In a program that focused on economic policies alternative to the current governmental economic policy called ‘Abenomics’, Toru Tamakawa, an anchor of the program, visited two economics professors. Professor Eisaku Ide proposed a Swedish style social and economic policy, while professor Toru Yamamori introduced an idea of UBI.
Reviewed by Kate McFarland
by Hilde Latour | Jul 17, 2017 | News
Investopedia published an article in May this year, “The Long, Weird History of Basic Income – And Why It’s Back”
In this article, written by David Floyd, the history of support of UBI is described from the period of hunter-gatherer societies and how the networks in those societies took care of people who could not provide themselves with a basic standard of living. The article then describes how agriculture and urbanization made an end to such networks and how problems were not handled well by the institutions that took the place of the original networks, referring to Charles Eastman who described this problem in 1915.
Thomas Paine was one of the famous people who noticed the creation of poverty, caused by cultivation, which did not exist before. He was the first to propose a UBI (Paine called it a “groundrent”) in the late 18th century, as a compensation for the dispossession of the majority of inhabitants of their natural inheritance. Cole first used the term Basic Income in 1953.
From Paine, via Henry George, Huey Long, G.D.H. Cole, Martin Luther King, Mc Govern and Nixon, the current boost of support for UBI in the 21st century is explained as a reaction to poverty and inequality, predominantly used as an argument by proponents on the left political spectrum, and inefficiency of the welfare state, used as an argument on the right wing.
In addition to the political perspective, a distinction between “reformers” and “futurists”, which cross-cuts left and right, is described in further depth.
The group of “reformers” is described as a group of basic income supporters who is mostly concerned with addressing problems in society as it is now, mostly caused by the broken welfare system, such as:
- “Employment traps” (where people are kept form leaving their job out of fear and bad employers are supported as a result of that)
- “Unemployment traps” (“earn a dollar from work, lose a dollar in benefits”)
- “Welfare cliffs” (where the effect tax on additional income even exceeds 100%)
- Stigma associated with public benefits
- Bureaucratic inefficiency
The group of “futurists” is described as supporters who see technological unemployment as a main threat in the future and offer basic income as a solution or who see a basic income as a cornerstone of an eventual utopia.
The two main criticisms of a universal basic income are its cost and the expectation that it would reduce or eliminate incentives to work.
This discussion is described with calculations of “The Economist” and views of Bill Gates, Karl Widerquist, Guy Standing, Philippe van Parijs and others. Brief attention is given to Alaska’s “Permanent Fund Dividend” and the outcome of experiments, such as Manitoba and India. Furthermore, the definition of ‘work’ is discussed, the effects of UBI on poverty and even the experiments in Finland, Oakland and Ontario get attention.
Floyd summarizes his article with a question: “Could doing away with poverty, sweeping away patronizing bureaucracy, neutralizing the threat of mass unemployment and increasing the value society places on worthwhile, but unprofitable, pursuits really be as simple as handing everyone cash?” He then uses Confusius’ quote to guide us towards the answer:
“The way out is through the door.”
Info and links
Full article at investopedia.com
Photo: Money! by Hans Splinter, CC-BY-SA 2.0
Special thanks to Dave Clegg for reviewing this article
by BIEN | Jul 15, 2017 | News
Credit to: AT Kearney.
Courtney McCaffrey and others from AT Kearney published an article on the debate around Universal Basic Income (UBI) in markets throughout the world. Politicians, in both Europe and North America, are winning on campaign trails with talk about returning control to the common people from the economic system in the globe.
But one of the big worker displacers is automation and new technologies. Oxford University reported 47% of US jobs will be taken over by automation in the next two decades. A UBI is being offered as an economic buffer for such workplace and technology transitions.
Such a UBI would be universal and unconditional in the application. Past UBI experiments such as Mincome in Canada, projects in Seattle and Denver (USA), and Namibia produced real, positive results empowering those politicians. McCaffrey and her collegues also mention recent major endorsements for UBI, for instance from such luminaries as Elon Musk, Tim O’Reilly, and Marc Andreessen.
Two books are recommended: 1) Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman, and 2) Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy by Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght. Other notable cases reported on were Finland, India, and Ontario.
The article discusses pros and cons of UBI, in a general sense. It was noted that citizens with a UBI will spend more time on family and school. The sources of funding for the UBI could be revenues from natural resources and/or more taxes. Some views of critics are following their own political lines, but the major concern revolves around people’s availability to work when they get a UBI covering their basic needs.
Finally, the article summarizes views agains UBI on the political Right and Left. On the Right, the main argument is cost. On the political Left, detractors view UBI as “regressive” because it could dismantle current welfare systems, and that it may not capture different living costs in different areas.
More information at:
McCaffrey, C.R., Toland, T. & Peterson, E.R., “The Best Things in Life Are Free?“, AT Kearney, March 2017
by Kate McFarland | Jul 11, 2017 | News
The end of June saw the proliferation of rumors that a basic income experiment would be launched in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. While such rumors were inaccurate, a political coalition in the state has called to further research basic income.
The June 25th edition of the newspaper Flensburger Tageblatt, the daily newspaper of the city of Flensburg in Schleswig-Holstein, heralded the purported plans of the state government to introduce an experiment of basic income. The paper quoted Robert Habeck, Green Party leader and future minister of environment, as saying that “we want to test a basic income from the government side and propose Schleswig-Holstein as a model region.” It further claimed that a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Free Democratic Party (FDP), and Green Party backed the demand for a test of a basic income.
The article fueled rumors, widely disseminated through basic income social media channels, that Schleswig-Holstein is preparing to launch a basic income experiment.
This announcement, however, was premature. Despite Habeck’s support, a basic income experiment Schleswig-Holstein remains at best a remote future possibility. In fact, the coalition agreement signed in between the CDU, FDP, and Greens does not call for an experiment or pilot study of basic income. Instead, calls only for the establishment of a “laboratory for the future” (“Zukunftslabor”) to research and assess new forms of social protection, a basic income being one.
Arguably, the coalition agreement’s proposed “laboratory for the future” does signal progress toward the investigation of a basic income in Schleswig-Holstein. However, the reality is far more modest than originally rumored.
No German UBI Experiments So Far..
Shortly prior to the first rumors of a basic income pilot in Schleswig-Holstein, the State Legislature of Hawai’i passed a bill that created a working group to study a universal basic income among other possible policies to provide the state’s residents with economic security. This generated a spate of media attention for basic income — but, as usual, not all reports were entirely accurate. Some news reports on the legislation, identified Germany (in addition to Finland and, soon, Canada) as a country that is already “testing” a basic income.
The claim may have originated in an article published in Business Insider and Futurism, which cites an article about the startup Mein Grundeinkommen as its source. This is misleading: Mein Grundeinkommen is a private effort, not a governmental one, and it merely awards year-long “basic incomes” of €1000 per month to individuals chosen by lottery. The startup’s work benefits randomly selected individuals while increasing awareness of basic income — and, in these aims, the project been highly successful. Mein Grundeinkommen has distributed year-long “basic incomes” to 94 individuals (and counting), and each drawing continues to generate media publicity. However, although anecdotes from individuals are sometimes presented as evidence regarding the effects of a basic income, the project should not be confused for an experiment.
Currently, no basic income experiment is being conducted in Germany — and, so far, no developments in Schleswig-Holstein have changed this fact.
More information on the alleged Schleswig-Holstein pilot:
Lea Hampel, “Jamaika-Koalition flirtet mit dem Grundeinkommen,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 27, 2017 (in German).
“North German state weighs up introducing unconditional basic income,” The Local, June 27, 2017.
Ronald Heinrich, “Grundeinkommen in Schleswig-Holstein? – Reality Check,” Huffpost, June 30, 2017 (in German).
Photo (Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein) CC BY-SA 2.0 Rüdiger Stehn
by Andre Coelho | Jun 29, 2017 | News
Picture credit to: CBC Halmilton.
The basic income pilot project is being rolled out in Ontario, Canada. The localities selected for this trial are Thunder Bay and Hamilton, at present, with Lindsay getting started later this fall. Randomly selected individuals, with ages between 18 and 64 years old, are receiving information packages about the basic income project, so they can choose to participate or not.
A basic income trial has been on the forge for some time in Ontario, having been reported in several occasions and with the support of the Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Lindsay mayors. With an overall cost of CAN$ 50 million per year and a running period of three years, the test program is designed to cover 4000 households. The trial’s random selection of participants is not limited to the urban parts of these localities, but also some of their rural territory.
The program is specifically aimed at people with low incomes and has a few conditions for eligibility (Thunder Bay case), such as having lived in the region for more than 12 months and some income-related thresholds, as shown in the following table:
| Individual status |
Earning less than, CAN $ |
| Single |
33978 |
| Couple |
48054 |
| Single, with disability |
45978 |
| Couple, one with disability |
60054 |
| Couple, both with disability |
72054 |
Being a voluntary-based basic income program trial (unlike the Finish one), people receiving the enrollment packages get up to a month to decide whether they wish to participate or not. However, participation will entail further involvement in research and survey, as part of the trial.
There has already been an information roundtable about the basic income pilot project in Hamilton, on the 2nd of June. The pilot project has randomly assigned 1000 selections in Hamilton, which amounts for around 2% of all people in that locality who rely on provincial social assistance programs. Tom Cooper, that information session executive director, has stated that he is “pretty confident that the results will show that people are significantly better off as a result of getting a little better income and having income redistributed.”
More information at:
Benjamin Lascia, “ONTARIO, CANADA: Mayors react to guaranteed minimum income pilot announcement”, Basic Income News, May 25th 2017
Kate McFarland, “ONTARIO, CANADA: Government Announces Details of Minimum Income Pilot”, Basic Income News, April 25th 2017
Kate McFarland, “ONTARIO, CANADA: Government releases summary of consultations on minimum income pilot”, Basic Income News, March 22nd 2017
CBC News, “Basic income project applications being mailed out in Ontario”, CBC News, 20th June 2017
CBC News, “Got questions about the basic income pilot project? Come to the library on Monday”, CBC News, 28th May 2017
