by Hannah Trippier | Aug 17, 2018 | News
The RSA, a UK-based charity that aims to unleash human potential for enterprise and creativity, released a report discussing how basic income can be studied in the UK. The report is a toolkit for basic income study designs, highlighting fundamental features of a basic income study, potential outcomes and outlining four potential study designs. The report builds on previous research by the RSA, such as the Creative Citizen, Creative State report, and is released after the findings from the Welfare Conditionality Report found that welfare conditionality does little to increase people’s motivation to work.
The report suggests a minimum sample size of 1000 people or more to achieve statistical significance. Studies should have a duration of 2 years or more in order to assess the medium-term effects of basic income, such as changes in behaviour, community culture, poverty and inequality. Mixed methods are suggested for data collection, including the collection of demographic data and use of qualitative interviews. It also highlights the importance of identifying a group of key stakeholders, including community leaders and people working in non-governmental organisations and the public sector, to assist with the study design and the analysis of the results. This would ensure that relevant outcomes are identified and the collected data is properly understood and translated into relevant policy.
Interestingly, the report also includes a list of potentially relevant outcomes divided into direct, shorter term and indirect, medium term outcomes. The choice of outcomes is to be aligned with the policy objectives of the study and can be informed by stakeholder engagement. The authors include relevant references to studies where these outcomes have been looked at before and can provide a blueprint for measurement. Direct incomes include those related to health, lifestyle and the community; personal development; labour and work; personal finances; and poverty, feelings of security and prejudice. Indirect outcomes include community; economic impacts; and costs/savings for the government.
The report also outlines four potential experiments, which are based on past, current and future basic income studies, including summaries of the costs for each experiment. Of the four studies, only scenario 1 and 3 investigate basic income as defined by BIEN as the sole intervention.
- Scenario 1 is a mid-scale saturation site where all the people in a given area, such as a council ward, receive basic income payments compared to a similar population who do not receive basic income payments. Case study example: Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada;
- Scenario 2 is a targeted cohort study looking at a specific targeted population who may experience difficulties entering or sustaining work such as young adults, older adults, unemployed people and people receiving welfare or people with a low income. Case study example: Kela, Finland;
- Scenario 3 is a microsite which looks at a very small population, such as a council estate or distinct residential neighbourhood. The intervention is basic income payments with additional payments where basic income falls short of currently received welfare payments (such as in cases where people are in receipt of welfare for children) in order to ensure no one is worse off. Case study example: Homeless pilot, City of London, UK;
- Scenario 4 is a study of combined basic income and additional interventions (such as rent support, rent controls, temporary job placement) compared to a control group with no interventions, or to a group who receive the additional intervention only. Case study example: Barcelona, Spain.
More information at:
Charlie Young, “Realizing basic income experiments in the UK”, RSA Action and Research Centre, August 2018
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 Guest Contributor | Jul 20, 2018 | Opinion
Written by: Michael Laitman
There is no controversy about the benefits of breast milk, but its politicization is giving us food for thought. The New York Times claimed that the US government unsuccessfully threatened to retaliate against nations backing breastfeeding to favor the $70 billion-dollar infant formula industry, an accusation fervently denied by the current administration. Beyond the sensational headlines, the key factor is that such an important health-related topic for mothers and children has been put back on the table. It is also time to open the discussion about practical measures to encourage breastfeeding to benefit society.
Breast milk is rich in nutrients and includes antibodies to fight off viruses and bacteria protecting the baby from infections and allergies. While those who can’t breastfeed can use baby formula from a site like tastyganics.com, it may not provide that same level of protection. In fact, breastfeeding can save a baby’s life. It boosts the immune system, reduces infant mortality, and helps for a quicker recovery from common childhood illnesses. A Harvard study in 2016 estimated that 3,340 premature deaths a year among both mothers and babies could be prevented in the US alone given adequate breastfeeding. It also lowers a mother’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and osteoporosis.
It also reduces stress for both mother and baby, which helps to relieve common ailments such as colic. Whilst many believe that something like Infacol is the best cure for colic, gripe water, which has been used for generations, has been found to be just as effective. Gripe water, which is a simple syrup that can be made at home, has slowly been replaced by medication such as Infacol, and whilst, yes, they can be used together, there’s really no need to use Infacol when a natural alternative exists. This is a similar situation to breastfeeding, with formula slowly replacing natural milk over the years. The formula industry now has such a hold on new mothers that it’s hard for many of us to remember a time when breastfeeding was considered normal.
Besides the physical benefits and what laboratory experiments show, breastfeeding is one of the best ways of bonding with a baby. It releases oxytocin, which is the hormone responsible for other loving behaviors that make us feel good about a person.
Extended breastfeeding for the first two years of life allows for the child’s proper development, and women express more maternal sensitivity well past the infant and toddler years, according to a study by the American Psychological Association. Beyond such findings, there is also a natural inner connection between the mother and the child that allows for positive biological and internal development, which starts inside the womb.
The Need to Support Stay-at-Home Mothers
Considering the vital role mothers play in each individual’s development from the earliest of ages, it stands to reason that stay-at-home mothers should be given all the support possible to raise the next generation. They need to be entitled to receive financial assistance that will let them perform their remarkable duties without worrying about how to make ends meet, giving them a sense of freedom and control of their lives.
In today’s world, however, this is not the case. The bulk of the burden falls on the mother, who is usually expected to prioritize her career over her family, juggling tasks and becoming increasingly exhausted and unsatisfied. With the massive rise in the cost of living, mothers in most societies struggle to manage a balanced life, considering work as an economic necessity rather than liberation and personal progress and fulfillment. It can be difficult for mothers to get this balance right. Necessities are of different kinds. Home amenities like HVAC, electricity and water requirements are in addition to long-term and current expenditures. They need money for their family, but they also need to look after their kids, so they can’t work. This means that mothers often have no money to do anything, such as home improvements. So many stay-at-home mothers want to improve their homes, but they have no money to do so. They want faux stone panels on the outside of their home, but they are unable to do this. That’s why it’s so important that these mothers get more financial support to make sure they can improve their home or provide more for their family. Mothers get caught in an ever-tightening entanglement of commitments at work and home with very little restitution at any level. In extreme cases, there have been situations where work-stressed mothers abandoned their children while they rushed to work, e.g. a hospital CEO forgetting her child in a hot car where the child died, or a McDonald’s employee leaving her child alone in a public park while she worked her entire 9-hour work day.
Moreover, childcare can be extremely expensive and many women usually work just to cover its costs, challenging the whole purpose of going to the workplace. The so-called advancement of women’s rights to choose is in practice an oxymoron. At the end of the day, women who decide to fulfill a traditional role as stay-at-home mothers do not receive enough recognition, value, and economic support from society, as if raising a new generation were not the most important enterprise of all.
The same way science has been unable to create an artificial uterus that brings an embryo to life, a mother’s role of nurturing and educating the child is irreplaceable. We cannot pretend to be wiser than nature. If we really want to empower and foster women’s self-determination, society should create conditions for a comfortable motherhood.
Why UBI Should Prioritize Mothers
This is precisely where UBI can enter to encourage mothers who wish to raise their children full-time. UBI should benefit women first and foremost, particularly mothers who based on their own personal preference choose to leave the workplace in order to raise their children. Basic income should be provided for mothers without preconditions: not as welfare or charity, but as a remuneration for a crucial job in society.
Prioritizing UBI for mothers would be a win-win situation: it not only would help mothers, it would directly boost support for the entire next generation of society that mothers are now raising. Many personal and social problems, such as depression, anxiety and mental illness later in life, can be traced back to phenomena such as childhood neglect, stress, and traumas. Therefore, UBI would let mothers live with reduced economic stress, freeing them up to focus on caring, bonding with, and raising their children.
Likewise, as I’ve mentioned before, basic income for mothers would allow their participation in pro-social, connection-enriching activities, such as groups for pregnant women, parenting and home economics, among others, to enhance their motherly abilities with a supportive social climate. Naturally, such engagement in society would also positively influence their children.
Instead of treating mothers as second-class citizens, they should be recognized as “society’s CEOs”-the ruling force in creation, the only ones capable of giving birth to and nurturing a whole new generation. Keep in mind that the world is our roof, humanity is our home, and women are the pillar of this structure. Motherhood plays a critical role in giving birth to a new humanity. Therefore, taking a step forward in promoting UBI as critical support for mothers is a decision of utmost importance for a more promising future to all.
Michael Laitman is a Professor of Ontology, a PhD in Philosophy and Kabbalah, an MSc in Medical Bio-Cybernetics, and was the prime disciple of Kabbalist, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (the RABASH). He has written over 40 books, which have been translated into dozens of languages.
by Andre Coelho | Jul 2, 2018 | News
Wayne Lewchulk. Picture credit to: The Halmilton Spectator
“This isn’t your grandparents’ labour market”. Wayne Lewchulk, a professor at the McMaster University and specialist in labour markets, precarious employment and health, says it crystal clear on an interview given on May 24th 2018.
Lewchulk, who has been teaching labour issues for more than 35 years, is completely aware that his stable job as a professor at McMaster is becoming the exception, rather than the norm. This is aligned with the line of reasoning professor and writer Guy Standing also advocates in his latest book on the subject. As a Canadian, and resident in Hamilton, Ontario, he is a co-founder of the Poverty and Economic Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) project, which joints with the McMaster University and more than other 30 universities, community organizations, labour unions, government and media outlets, to advance research and policy debate around labour and particularly precarious employment.
Lewchulk has also helped to organize the latest North America Basic Income Guarantee Congress, this year hosted at McMaster University. He has also been influential at the Ontario Basic Income pilot project, as a member of the evaluation panel. Even though this pilot project is not quite a basic income as far as the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) definition goes, it may still be an important step towards a real implementation in Canada.
Despite a rise in employment in the last decade, in Canada, this has been mostly for part-time, Uber and Mechanical Turk style kind of employment. These forms of employment, Lewchulk explains, are very insecure, limiting workers ability to “form relationships or settle in one spot, let alone buy a house”. That also means lack of labour benefits, which can mean less health-related coverage. More employment with less money will also mean less opportunities for children, since parents cannot afford development activities for them. Moreover, expenses with gaining qualifications and learning throughout life also diminish. Capital and business owners have been, successfully, passing on labour costs to workers themselves, as technology and economic change agitate and deteriorate working conditions worldwide.
Asked about technological disruption, however, Wayne Lewchulk remains optimistic: “I think it’d be fantastic to have machinery doing a lot of the things we do, so we could focus on the things that we let fall by the wayside right now: being good to each other; creating art; spending time with our families”. According to him, basic income can be a powerful instrument to attain this goal, “but we have to figure out how to pay for it”.
More information at:
Sonia Verma, “This isn’t your grandparents’ job market”, McMaster University Brighter World, May 24th 2018
Guy Standing, “The Precariat – The new dangerous class”, Bloomsburry Ed. 2011
Sara Bizarro, “Canada: NABIG Congress 2018 in Hamilton, Ontario”, Basic Income News, June 6th 2018
André Coelho, “CANADA: Quebec is implementing a means-tested benefit, not a basic income”, Basic Income News, January 24th 2018