Current Basic Income Experiments (and those so called): An Overview

Current Basic Income Experiments (and those so called): An Overview

Note: Please see this article for a more current update (Oct 15)

The (Second) Year of the Pilot

Status of Basic Income (and Related) Experiments in May 2017

Last Updated: May 15, 2017

 

BIEN cofounder Guy Standing, a basic income pilot veteran and now frequent consultant, dubbed 2016 “the year of the pilot in response to the burgeoning interest in experimentation with basic income in various countries throughout the world. In 2017, some of these pilot studies were launched, some have been delayed, and other plans have remained dormant. Some have turned out to resemble a full-fledged basic income to a lesser degree than first anticipated.

This page summarizes the current state of this year’s existing, planned, and previously announced basic income pilot experiments (as of May 2017).

 

A. UPDATES ON SEVEN STUDIES

Following are summaries of the present status (as of mid-May 2017) of seven pilot studies of basic income–or, better put, seven alleged or reported pilot studies of basic income–that have received international publicity within the past year, including projects in Finland, Kenya, the Netherlands, Ontario, Scotland, Uganda, and the United States.

First, though, an important caveat: although each project listed below has been described as a “basic income pilot” or “basic income experiment” in media reports, few manifest every characteristic of a basic income, defined by BIEN as “a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.”

Granted, any social policy experiment is by its nature limited in certain ways, making it something of a vacuous criticism to say that a basic income experiment fails to test a “genuine” basic income. While a basic income is lifelong, experiments are necessarily bounded in duration. While a basic income is universal, experiments typically require that a portion of the population not receive the benefit in order to provide a control or reference group. (Even saturation studies, in which every member of a community is eligible for the program, remain limited in that the basic income does not extend to other communities in the same general geopolitical region.)

That said, some of the most highly-publicized experiments and pilot programs diverge from a basic income in ways that are significant even after accounting for inherent constraints due to the nature of experimentation. For example, the target population might not be universal. (As described below, this is the case in the experiment currently running in Finland, as well as those planned in Ontario and several Dutch municipalities and, likely, the experiment under development by Y Combinator.) Additionally, the benefits disbursed to the treatment groups in some of the experiments–such as, most notably, those planned in Ontario and the Netherlands–diverge from some of the key attributes of a basic income, such as by being household-based or reduced with earned income. (As mentioned below, the treatment conditions in the Dutch experiments will even retain a degree of job-conditionality.)

I touch upon additional caveats at the end of this article.

1. Finland’s “Perustulokokeilu” (Basic Income Experiment)

Status: Launched on January 1, 2017.

“Rainbow over the Baltic” CC BY-NC 2.0 Mariano Mantel

The national government of Finland has enacted a two-year experiment to investigate the effects of a basic income on labor market participation, designed and directed by Kela (Finland’s Social Insurance Institution). The experimental group consists of 2,000 persons, who were randomly selected from a pool of individuals between the ages of 25 and 58 who were receiving unemployment benefits from Kela in November 2016 (about 175,000 individuals nationwide). Participation in the basic income program was mandatory for those selected.

The 2,000 participants are receiving unconditional payments of €560 (about 590 USD) per month. Unlike Finland’s current programs of unemployment assistance, the pilot program imposes no requirement that recipients demonstrate that they are seeking employment or accept jobs offered to them, and those who do obtain work will continue to receive the full €560. (Thus, while the sample is clearly not representative of all Finns, the individual cash transfers do match the definition of basic income, although not a fully livable one.)

The experiment was officially launched on January 1, 2017–with the first payouts distributed on January 9–and will continue through December 31, 2018.

The research group at Kela will compare outcomes in the experimental group to a control group, consisting of all persons in the original target population who were not selected to participate. As mentioned above, the analysis will focus on labor market participation, including differences in employment rates between the treatment and control groups. Research director Olli Kangas has stated in recent lectures that Kela will also monitor expenditure on medication, health care usage, and income variation.

To avoid observer effects, Kela is conducting no interviews or questionnaires during the course of the experiment, and will publish no results prior to its conclusion at the end of 2018 (despite recent rumors driven by exaggerated claims stemming from a single anecdote voluntarily produced by one experimental participant).

Kangas has recommended expansion of the experiment in future years (e.g. to test different models and broaden the target population); at the time of this writing, however, the government has not acted upon this recommendation.

Official website: https://www.kela.fi/web/en/basic-income-experiment-2017-2018.

2. GiveDirectly’s Kenyan Basic Income Experiment

Status: Pilot launched in one village in October 2016; full experiment (200 villages) intended to launch in fall 2017.

GiveDirectly, a US-based charitable organization, has initiated a project in which it will eventually provide unconditional cash transfers to the residents of 200 villages in rural Kenya (about 26,000 people in total).

An initial pilot study commenced in one village in October 2016, in which all 95 residents now receive monthly unconditional cash payments of about 23 USD (€21) per month, amounting to roughly half of the average income in rural Kenya. Payments will continue in this village for 12 years. At the time of this writing, only this initial “test village” is receiving a basic income. GiveDirectly’s current objective is to launch its full experiment in September 2017.

Rural Kenya, CC BY-NC 2.0 ViktorDobai

In the full study, 300 villages will be randomly assigned to one of four groups: three treatment groups, in which all residents receive some form of unconditional cash transfer, and a control group of villages in which no cash transfers are given to any residents.

In the first treatment group, which will include 40 villages, residents will receive cash payments of about 23 USD every month for 12 years (as in the initial test village). In the second, containing 80 villages, residents will receive monthly cash payments of the same amount, but only for two years. In the third, also containing 80 villages, residents will receive a lump-sum payment equal in amount to the two-year basic income. (Note that, ignoring their time-boundedness, the schemes implemented in the first two treatment groups do meet BIEN’s definition of ‘basic income’.)

As GiveDirectly explains on its website, “Comparing the first and second groups of villages will shed light on how important the guarantee of future transfers is for outcomes today (e.g. taking a risk like starting a business). The comparison between the second and third groups will let us understand how breaking up a given amount of money affects its impact.”

The organization also indicates that it will investigate outcomes including “economic status (income, assets, standard of living), time use (work, education, leisure, community involvement), risk-taking (migrating, starting businesses), gender relations (especially female empowerment), [and] aspirations and outlook on life.”

GiveDirectly is making much of its data public as it collects it (e.g. responses to the first survey of participants in its initial pilot); this practice, however, pertains only to the pilot village, which is not itself to be included in the full experiment. The organization expects to publish its first experimental results after one or two years.

Official website: www.givedirectly.org/basic-income.

3. Ontario’s Guaranteed Minimum Income (“Basic Income”) Pilot

Status: Pilot studies scheduled to commence in two regions in spring 2017, and in a third region in autumn 2017.

Lindsay, Ontario, CC BY 2.0 RichardBH

The government of the Canadian province of Ontario is preparing a three-year pilot study of a guaranteed minimum income (commonly called in a ‘basic income’ in Canada), which will take place in three locations: the Hamilton, Brantford, and Brant County region (launching in late spring 2017); Thunder Bay and surrounding area (launching in late spring 2017); and the city of Lindsay (launching in autumn 2017).

A total of 4,000 potential participants will be randomly selected from a pool of low-income adults between the ages of 18 and 64 years who have lived in one of the three test locations for at least one year. Participation is voluntary, and those who do agree to participate in the experiment may exit at any time during the study.

Study participants will receive a minimum annual income of 16,989 CAD (€11,340) for single individuals and 24,027 CAD (€16,038) per year for couples. That is, individuals and couples with no external income would receive this amount of money. For participants who to earn additional income, the amount of the benefit will be reduced by the amount of 50% of earned income (entailing that, for example, single individuals will stop receiving any payment if their income rises above 48,054 CAD per year). Individuals with disabilities will receive an additional amount of up to 500 CAD (€334) per month.

The benefit is not contingent on work or looking for work. However, because the amount of the benefit depends on income and household composition, and because eligibility for the study is limited to low-income individuals, the program to be tested in Ontario is not a basic income in BIEN’s sense. (As mentioned above, the term ‘basic income’ is often used in Canada to refer to guaranteed minimum income programs, in contrast to the definition adopted by BIEN and common in Europe. The Ontario government is not being sloppy or dishonest in titling the program ‘Basic Income Pilot’; mere dialectical differences explain the ambiguity.)

According to the Government of Ontario website, the experiment will measure outcomes in a variety of areas, including food security, stress and anxiety, mental health, health and healthcare usage, housing stability, education and training, and employment and labor market participation. A third-party research group will evaluate data collected during the pilot.

Results of the pilot will be reported to the public in 2020.

Official site for more information: www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-basic-income-pilot.

4. Municipal Social Assistance Experiments in the Netherlands

Status (July 2017): Six municipalities approved to proceed with two-year experiments, which will begin in Sep-Oct 2017; applications from Utrecht and Amsterdam currently under review.

In 2016, research teams in several municipalities in the Netherlands developed plans to experiment with unconditional cash transfers to replace the nation’s workfare-oriented program of social assistance. However, their plans encountered resistance from the national government, which imposes constraints upon–and, in effect, prohibits–experimentation with unconditional benefits. (For example, the Dutch Participation Act would require that experimental participants be surveyed after six and twelve months to verify that they have made sufficient efforts to find work, and dropped from the study if they have not–effectively removing the “unconditionality” of the benefit.)

A pilot proposed in Utrecht, which had gained the lion’s share of attention in the English-language news media, has been delayed after the government failed to authorize the experiment as designed by the Utrecht University research team.  

Groningen, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Emmanuel Fromm

On July 3, 2017, the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs authorized experiments in the first five municipalities: Groningen, Wageningen, Tilburg, Deventer, and Ten Boer (read more). Groningen and Ten Boer will be working in collaboration.  

A similarly structured experiment in Nijmegen, which is to involve 400 participants, was also approved later in the month.

In contrast the previously rejected design of an experiment for in Utrecht, the designs of the latter experiments were deemed to be in compliance with the requirements of the Participant Act. For example, each includes a treatment group in which participants are subject to workforce-reintegration requirements that are more intensive than current welfare programs.

In each of the experiments, which will run for two years, participants will be randomly selected from a pool of current social assistance beneficiaries (with participation voluntary for those selected), and assigned either to a control group or to one of several treatment groups.

Each experiment has at least three treatment groups, testing the following types of interventions: (1) removing reintegration requirements (e.g. job applications and training programs) on welfare benefits; (2) providing a more intensive form of reintegration service; (3) permitting participants to earn additional income on top of their welfare benefits. Subjects assigned to the third treatment groups will be permitted to retain 50% of additional earned income, up to a maximum of €199 per month, for the duration of the two-year experiment. In contrast, under current policy, welfare recipients are permitted to keep only 25% of additional income, and only for up to six months.

The Groningen / Ten Boer experiment includes a fourth treatment group, in which participants are permitted to choose to join any one of the three preceding groups.

It is not fully accurate to refer to the Dutch municipal experiments as tests of basic income. None includes an experimental condition in which the amount of the benefit is fully independent of either income or household composition (the existing benefits are household-based, which is not to be altered in any of the proposed experiments). Further, none of the proposed experiments includes a treatment that combines a reduction in the withdrawal rate of benefits with a removal of work-related conditions. And, as mentioned above, even those subjects who receive the “unconditional” payments will be subject to removal from the study after six or twelve months if they fail to seek work.

Researchers plan to examine outcomes such as employment (including part-time and temporary employment), education, and health and well being.

5. Eight’s Unconditional Cash Transfer Project in Uganda

Status: Launched on January 1, 2017.

In January 2017, Eight, a charitable organization based in Belgium, began disbursing unconditional cash payments in the Ugandan village of Busibi. All residents of the village, including 56 adults and 88 children, receive monthly cash payments, distributed via mobile phones. Each adult receives 18.25 USD (about €16.70) per month, approximately 30% of the average income of lower-income families in Uganda, and each child receives half of this amount, or 9.13 USD per month. The payments will continue through the end of 2018.

Used by permission of Steven Janssens

Eight is working with anthropologists at Belgium’s University of Ghent to examine outcomes along four main dimensions: girls’ educational achievement, access to health care, entrepreneurship and economic development, and participation in democratic institutions. Researchers will compare data collected during and after the pilot to data that were gathered before its launch. However, no additional village is being studied as a control, limiting the project’s usefulness as an experiment.

That said, Eight’s project has objectives beyond research. It is also the basis of a documentary, the first segments of which have already been release, and cofounder Steven Janssens has emphasized its larger purpose to inform future basic income projects: “From our experiences with this pilot we will learn and adjust where necessary, because in the long term we want to scale-up to more villages as our organization grows.”

Official site for more information: eight.world.

6. Y Combinator’s US-Based Unconditional Cash Transfer Study

Status: Design phase; no known launch date.

Sam Altman, CC BY 2.0 TechCrunch

In early 2016, Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur Sam Altman decided to pursue a privately-funded basic income experiment, motivated in part by the goal of moving away from a focus on employment effects and examining potential benefits of a basic income more holistically. To this end, he founded a research group at his company Y Combinator to design and implement the project.

In a February 2017 talk at Stanford, research director Elizabeth Rhodes explained that Y Combinator’s pilot is still in the design phase. As currently planned, it will use a stratified sample of 2,000 to 3,000 individuals from two states, between the ages of 21 and 35, with household incomes below the median in their area. At least 1,000 of these study participants will be randomly assigned to the treatment group, in which they will receive 1000 USD (about €915) per month for three years (with a subset receiving the payments for an additional two years). The payments will be given unconditionally and irrespective of income. The remainder of the sample will provide a control group.

The research group is also still in the process of developing metrics to evaluate the experimental results. However, Rhodes has indicated that experimenters are interested in a holistic evaluation of individual-level outcomes such as labor market participation, training and education, time spent with children, physical and psychological health and well-being, risk-taking, financial health, and help given to friends and family. Outcomes related to the children of participants (e.g. grades and test scores) might also be examined.  

Y Combinator’s “pre-pilot” in Oakland, announced in May 2016 to media acclaim, is not itself an experiment; its purpose is merely to help the research team fine-tune its methods and procedures (selection of subjects, disbursement of payments, collection and recording of data, etc.).

7. Scottish Municipal Experiments

Status: Feasibility studies in progress.

Glasgow Bridge, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Colin Campbell

In Glasgow, Scotland, the City Council has partnered with the think tank Royal Society of Arts (RSA) to investigate designs for a basic income pilot. The planning process, while moving forward, is at an early stage in development, with the Council and RSA currently working on a study of the financial, administrative, and constitutional feasibility of the pilot. Workshops on these topics will be held in June and July 2017, and a report is planned for September.  

The Councils of Fife and North Ayrshire have also committed to investigate the possibility of conducting basic income experiments.


B. OMISSIONS AND FURTHER CAVEATS

Avid followers of basic income news (including Basic Income News) might have noticed that some previously announced pilots and experiments have been omitted from the above list.

Oversight, of course, is a possible cause: if a current or planned basic income experiment is missing from this page, please submit it to our Submit a News Lead form.  

In some cases, though, apparently omissions may be intentional. Sometimes “basic income experiments” are announced in the media (1) prematurely, (2) when the experiment is not actually testing a basic income, or (3) when the project is not an experiment:

 

1. Not all previously announced pilot studies have come to fruition. For example, contrary to claims promulgated in news media and social media in recent months, neither the Office of Financial Empowerment of San Francisco, California nor the provincial government of Prince Edward Island, Canada is pursuing a pilot study of basic income at this time (primarily due, in both cases, to failures in attempts to secure funding for the experiments).

India has also occasionally been cited as a location about to launch a new basic income pilot study–or even about to implement a full-blown basic income policy (see the response in Basic Income News to rumors that circulated at the start of the 2017). To be sure, the national government of India has shown considerable interest in universal basic income, devoting an entire chapter to the topic in the 2017 Economic Survey, an annual document prepared by the Ministry of Finance. India is also notable in the basic income community for the success of previous basic income pilot studies. At the time of this writing, however, no firm plans for additional pilot studies (let alone a full-blown policy) have been announced, and any popular media reports of new pilot studies in India remain speculative and premature.

In general, one should be wary when the popular media announce the impending launch of a basic income experiment. Such announcements often frame the prospective studies as far more certain–and farther along in the planning process–than they actual are. Researchers and governmental officials might indicate interest in running an experiment prior to attempting to obtain funds or examining the legality or feasibility of the project, and sometimes such expressions of interest capture the ears of the media. Of course, such tentative interest does not entail that an experiment will ever actually manifest.

 

2. I have raised the second issue–the fact that many so-called “basic income pilots” or “basic income experiments” diverge substantially from tests of a genuine basic income–at the start of this article, and we have already seen examples above (including the Dutch social assistance experiments and the Ontario pilot).

Due to their relative lack of attention in popular media, I have not included reference to other social assistance experiments that have, on occasion, been inaccurately called “basic income experiments” — including those in Barcelona and the Italian town of Livorno. About the latter, a six-month social assistance experiment, BIEN-Italia’s Sandro Gobetti has clarified in Basic Income News, “Among the requirements [for participation in the experiment] was residency in the municipality for at least five years, unemployment status, registration at the employment center and a family income not exceeding €6530 gross per year. In exchange for €500 monthly, the municipality invited successful applicants to perform socially useful work.”

 

3. Finally, note that several non-profit organizations have launched projects that involve the distribution of unconditional cash transfers to individuals, but that are not experiments (although, in some cases, they might still be called “pilots”).

For example, Brazil’s ReCivitas raises money to distribute unconditional cash payments of 40 Brazilian Reais (about €12 or 10 USD) per month to residents of the village of Quatinga Velho, Brazil. In January 2016, the organization announced that the monthly payments would be lifelong, and began distributing the payments to an initial group of 14 individuals. However, the ReCivitas Institute is not gathering data to study the effects of basic income. Project leaders have stated that they are already convinced that basic income is effective, and that their goal is to provide a model and inspiration to other similar initiatives. The initiative might be considered a pilot, insofar as it is intended to provide information about how NGOs have effectively implement a basic income scheme; however, it is not an experiment.     

Lottery programs that award selected individuals their own “basic income” for some length of time, such as Germany’s Mein Grundeinkommen, are also not experiments and should not be classified as such.

Most recently, a newly launched film project in the United States, Bootstraps, has begun raising money for what it calls a “basic income pilot program”. This effort also appears not to be an experiment but, instead, a similar lottery-style program, intended to generate anecdotes, publicity, and awareness of the idea of basic income rather than robustly test its effects.


Reviewed by Tyler Prochazka. Some additional proofreading by Karl Widerquist, May 25, 2017

Cover Image: CC BY-ND 2.0 iT@c

The American Dividend: In the Name of Prosperity

Written by: Conrad Shaw

There is an idea out there. It is of the transformational variety. It exists in various forms and goes by many names: universal basic income, basic income guarantee, negative income tax, citizen dividend. All of these monikers highlight important aspects of this concept. “Universal” because it applies to everyone with no conditional requirements. “Basic” and “guarantee” to emphasize that, rather than subsidizing luxury or ease, it’s about guaranteeing the right to simply live in dignity and security. “Negative income tax” to illustrate that tax structures can be understood and utilized not only as a way to extract money from the people, but also as a means of fair predistribution to those being underserved by our system. “Citizen” to encourage taking ownership of one’s community and obligations. “Dividend” to emphasize that it is not a form of charity, but a return on an investment, the rightful entitlement every one of us has to our proper share of this country’s resources and opportunities.

“A basic income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.”

 

-Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN)

This idea, if you haven’t heard of it before, is the simple premise that the government (composed of the people) would deliver a regular, guaranteed, and unconditional amount of income to every person in a society. Some argue that only citizens should receive it, some say legal residents, some suggest only adults, and some insist that every breathing human within the borders deserves the payment. There are valid arguments for all of these viewpoints, and I hope that soon enough we will have the good fortune of debating at great length these strategies on the national scale, because it will mean that the very premise has been accepted into our hearts and consciences as both essential and moral moving forward.

For that to happen, the idea must first inspire the support of the people as a whole, and because the United States is a nation of pride and marketing savvy, nothing sells here without a good, cohesive pitch. As a first order of business, we should settle on a name for our American version of this policy, and I have a suggestion:

The American Dividend

“American” because the only requirement is that you, in fact, are a part of this great country, and we will recognize that with your “Dividend,” your carried interest in the investment you and your family have made and continue to make in this country by merit of your participation in it.

On to the details. Perhaps alarm bells are ringing and red flags are waving for you right now. “That sounds like socialism,” you might point out. I freely admit that it is a socialistic policy, and I argue that an appropriate amount of socialism is essential in a successful and just society – even a capitalist one. We seem, in America, to cling to the naive idea that we can or should only have one or the other, socialism or capitalism. That idea has run its course; we must have both. Neither of these simple, broad ideologies is robust enough to run our complex economy alone, because our economy is not only one of markets, but also of human beings. Markets run by the laws of supply and demand, and are greatly motivated and spurred on by capitalism, the great incentivizer. A purely socialized, redistributive society in which all citizens received the same reward regardless of their contributions could squash the immense growth, motivation, and innovation that capitalism fosters. Human beings, though, survive and thrive by the natural laws of inalienable rights, defined and set out by and for ourselves as entitlements to which we are guaranteed by dint of nothing other than our humanity. Socialistic regulations are required to make sure we adhere to these natural laws. Healthcare, for example, must eventually be socialized and untethered from the need for financial means, because no supply and demand curve can fairly measure the value of health. The demand is infinite, because a sick or dying individual will agree to pay any amount for even a chance at survival. This is where capitalism fails. It eventually localizes far too much power in the hands of the few, the owners of property and corporations, and we find ourselves in a situation closer to extortion than free markets.

My argument even leaves aside our very significant problem with automation. As we continually and irretrievably lose massive chunks of our labor market to machines, these pressures toward economic inequality will exponentially intensify. Properly addressed, however, these same technologies could provide abundance to society rather than greater scarcity and insecurity.

The answer to the question of growing complexity in human and economic markets is not to throw away our hard-won structure as a total failure, but rather to keep tweaking the capitalism/socialism balance to calibrate it to the changing needs of the times. In determining what should be socialized, we can tie it all back into life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Written deep within our American values, these freedoms are the inheritance of all people regardless of circumstance, be it race, culture, gender, age, or financial means. Life requires, at the very least, food, shelter, and health. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness require the ability to choose one’s path without fear of harm or retribution from any authority, and without fear of starvation. Our system has never fully guaranteed these things, and so we have not yet managed to fulfill our constitutional mission statement. The American Dividend can be used to ensure those rights. It can guarantee all people the ability to feed and house themselves as well as the power to say NO to any path in life that doesn’t serve their interests, be it a line of employment or an unhealthy relationship.

If we understand that we have always lived in a blended society of both socialism and capitalism, we can let go of our distrust of these words, our reflexive labeling of them as inherently evil or good, and instead see them simply as tools in the constant balancing act of governance.

Let’s address the two main sticking points the American Dividend will encounter: 1) the fear/resentment of subsidizing laziness by paying hard-earned money for others to sit around and do nothing, and 2) the very prudent concern that it might be simply infeasible to fund a program of such broad scope – essentially the fear that we can’t afford to guarantee these rights to all.

Paying for Sloth?

As to subsidizing laziness, this fear is created and nourished by a skewed perspective in the American capitalist culture that money is the driving motivator for work. We place the dollar on a pedestal far above all others, but money does not deserve this worship. The adage that money is the root of all evil is myopic. Insecurity is the root of evil, and money, or more accurately the lack thereof, is merely our means of expressing and comprehending insecurity. Whereas money is nothing but a tool, poverty is a force. It is the lack of freedom. Because we have been inculcated our entire lives with the idea that money represents value and merit, we have fallen into a misunderstanding of our fellow human beings. We have descended into the weary and preoccupied mind’s fallacy of “othering.” This is to say we have allowed ourselves to perceive the other members of our society as opponents, statistics, enemies, leeches, and threats to our own security. When we are in constant competition mode, we forget the other players for the sake of the game.

When we take the time to truly examine and understand our neighbors, compatriots, brothers, and sisters, however, we see that they are merely reflections of ourselves. We all have hopes and dreams; we all want to be special; we all want to contribute. The current system, which clumsily attempts to reward valuable effort but often disincentivizes hard work and ethics, leads people to despair and apparent laziness, sapping their motivation. In its current form, welfare assistance disappears the moment someone gets a job and increases their income, creating welfare traps. Additionally, other societally valuable endeavors like child-rearing, home healthcare, the arts, furthering education, and entrepreneurialism aren’t deemed worthy of any kind of salary in this economy. They can only be done on faith, at a loss, and at risk of harm to oneself. Throughout human history, a great majority of the movers and shakers of the arts, sciences, and business have had the luxury of pursuing their passions without earning an income from an employer because theyither came from means or they gained access to a benefactor. Wouldn’t it be something new and remarkable if those rich in inspiration and motivation but lacking an inheritance or extreme risk tolerance weren’t forced to spend years of their lives struggling to survive, seeking funding, essentially asking permission from corporations and the owner class in order to pursue the realization of their visions? With guaranteed security and the freedom to choose one’s work and define one’s value, people will contribute their best selves, and we can slowly change our national ethic from one of taking and hoarding to one of contribution. Productivity increases, health improves, and crime decreases in a society that chooses not to allow poverty, thereby permitting its members to be more effective versions of themselves. “Survival job” should not be a term, and a gun to the head is not nearly as effective a motivator in the long term as the ability to pursue meaning in life.

But the Cost!

Now comes paying for it all. Let’s do some simple, back-of-the-napkin, ballpark math for the numerically inclined. To immediately raise every American above the poverty line, we could provide a dividend of $12,000 per year to every adult and $4,000 per year to every child. That’s a bit under $3.25 trillion, which is certainly a huge number, but it’s not a direct expense. Think of it this way: the US GDP is approximately $18 trillion. If a simple across-the-board tax increase was levied on every American to raise that full amount for the dividend, a flat tax plopped down on top of our progressive system, that would mean about an extra 18% in taxes we’d each pay. That may sound like a lot, but since every taxpayer would also be receiving an extra $12,000 in income, then everyone making under $66,000 would come out ahead to some degree. At the $66K breakeven point, an individual would be paying $12K in extra taxes to receive the $12K in dividends. You can plug $66K into this US income percentile calculator and see that this represents over 75% of all Americans who would receive more money under this policy than they would give in taxes to pay for it, thereby directly profiting at the same time as we strive to completely abolish extreme forms of poverty and homelessness. That in itself should make the American Dividend a no-brainer.

However, a uniform tax levy like this is far from the only source of funding at our disposal. We could fund a large part of the American Dividend in many other ways. Taxes on the use of resources can chip in quite a bit. Taxes on carbon, pollution, minerals, timber, land value, and other natural resources acknowledge that we all own the land in equal share and would simply require companies profiting from and often damaging our commonly-owned property to repay the costs we bear by permitting them to do so. This would also discourage abuse of resources and incentivize more ecologically sustainable innovation. Very small taxes on financial trades would both reduce harmful speculation currently performed on a massive scale by large institutions with black box algorithms –  encouraging long-term investment in its place – and it would acknowledge that we all own the financial system in this country and deserve a return from its continued function. Cutting tax exemptions that benefit the wealthy  almost exclusively — scrapping the social security tax cap, raising unearned income tax rates to at least the level that earned income bears, cutting the home mortgage deduction, and a host of other such measures — would fund a significant part of the dividend. These measures are long overdue in any case and would represent a strong step forward against the economic injustice in our current system. Finally, raising the income tax rates on those in the very top brackets would acknowledge the fact that these earners have attained their position not only through intelligence and merit, but also through the good fortune of living within a system that allows for a few to leverage their positions to reap enormous returns — a system of laws, infrastructure, and opportunity that has been built over the course of generations, a system that each of us owns in part and deserves a share of. Factor in these methods, and we could pay for much of the dividend. As an example, if we paid for a third of the dividend this way (an entirely feasible amount according to the economists with whom I’ve spoken), it would bring the necessary tax increase down to around 12% and the break-even point to everyone making under $100K. Plug that into the calculator and see for yourself that more than 88% of the country would directly and immediately profit from the American Dividend under this scenario. Someone out of a job or unable to work would receive the full $12,000. Someone making $50K would come out $6,000 ahead. Someone breaking even at $100K will know that they are part of a stable system that will protect them should their fortunes turn for the worse. So, while it will end extreme poverty as we know it, the American Dividend is clearly not just for the extremely poor. It is for all Americans.

What’s more, we haven’t even factored in the savings yet. When people are secure, healthcare costs fall, crime drops, and entire welfare programs can eventually be phased out. This pushes the break-even point even further upward. This is not yet even accounting for the benefits reaped from fueling innovation and entrepreneurialism. Also, unlike the failed policies of trickle-down economics under which much of the money this country makes lands in wealthy bank accounts and simply sits there, money given to the lower classes is generally spent immediately on necessities and better quality of life, equating to a massive boost in the overall economy as businesses gain new customers across the board. It would be presumptuous to predict the actual magnitude of these windfalls, but I would bet you the American Dividend, in very short order, would begin to pay for much of itself.

Bear in mind this is not a panacea, and we mustn’t perceive or promote it that way. The American Dividend will not immediately usher in a new Utopian Age, and there will still be some that need help, but it has the power to effectively end catastrophic poverty and homelessness. It will grant all Americans a real shot at the American Dream. It will mean a simpler governmental system, a change of social and cultural ethics, and a betterment of individual quality of life across the board. And we have the means to do it. All we need is the political will of the people to stand up and demand it.

Give it to Me Straight

So tell me, if this idea of an American Dividend can: 1) end homelessness and catastrophic poverty, 2) establish and reinforce basic human rights and security across the nation, 3) improve healthcare outcomes and reduce costs, 4) reduce crime, 5) encourage entrepreneurialism, 6) act as an economic stimulus, AND 7) result in an immediate net income gain for the vast majority of the population… tell me how can this idea not sell? How can it not sweep the nation? Tell me it’s not an issue of marketing savvy.

And tell me, now that you’ve seen my arguments about the wider economic implications, what would you do with your Dividend? Take a little time and play out the thought experiment. Now imagine what your brother, mother, sister, father, son, daughter, friend, neighbor, boss, coworker, employee, or passing acquaintance would do with it? What would each be able to contribute? What would your community look like? What would America look like?

It’s time for the American Dividend.

Check out our upcoming film, Bootstraps, at www.bootstrapsfilm.com

 

FINLAND: First Results from Pilot Study? Not Exactly

FINLAND: First Results from Pilot Study? Not Exactly

On Tuesday, May 9, an article published in The Independent alleged that Finland’s Basic Income Experiment has already produced evidence that unconditional payments lower stress and improve mental health for unemployed Finns.

This widely shared article generated rumors that the Finnish government has released the first results of this two-year pilot study, which commenced on January 1, including the above findings. These rumors are inaccurate, and the present post aims to address this misconstrual.

 

Background on Finland’s Basic Income Experiment

Directed by Kela, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Finland’s nationwide pilot study of basic income generated widespread international interest from its announcement in 2015 to its launch at the start of 2017. In its current design, the experiment is restricted to those between ages 25 and 58 who were receiving unemployment assistance at the end of 2016. Nonetheless, it differs from several other contemporary so-called “basic income experiments” in that the experimental group–consisting of 2,000 randomly selected individuals from the above target group–receives cash payments (€560 per month) that are indeed unconditional, individual, and not means tested (compare, for example, to the experiments planned or underway in Ontario, the Netherlands, Barcelona, and Livorno, Italy).

Many basic income supporters and followers are, no doubt, eagerly anticipating the results of this experiment, which will continue through December 31, 2018. Here, though, it is important to keep in mind several caveats–especially as rumors of initial results begin to surface.

 

1. Kela will publish no results prior to the end of the experiment (i.e. December 31, 2018).

In a blog post published in January, in response to the widespread media attention directed at the experiment, research team leader Olli Kangas and three colleagues explain that publishing any results during the course of the experiment runs the risk of influencing participants’ behavior:

A final evaluation of the effects of the basic income can only be made after a sufficiently long period of time has elapsed for the effects to become apparent. The two-year run of the experiment is not very long for changes in behaviour to materialise. The potential of the experiment, short as it is, to provide reliable results should not be undermined by reporting its effects while it is underway.

 

2. Kela will conduct no questionnaires or interviews of participants while the experiment is in progress.

As the same blog states, the researchers will minimize their reliance on questionnaires and interviews to gain information about study participants–again to minimize the effect of observation on behavior–relying instead on data available from administrative registries. If any individual questionnaires or interviews are used, they “will not be conducted without careful consideration, and not before the experiment has ended.”

 

3. Analysis of the experiment will focus on labor market effects.

A major reason for the Finnish government’s interest in basic income has been the policy’s potential to improve employment incentives (in contrast to Finland’s current unemployment benefits, which are reduced by 50% of earned income if a recipient takes a part-time job and which demand much bureaucratic oversight of individuals). Correspondingly, a main objective of the experiment, as stated by Kela, is to determine “whether there are differences in employment rates between those receiving and those not receiving a basic income.”

Some basic income proponents have criticized the Finnish pilot for its lack of attention to other potential beneficial effects of basic income, such as its effects on individual health and well-being; however, Kela has no current plans to examine such effects.

 

“Reduced Stress” Claim 

It is in this context that we must read The Independent’s recent article “Finland’s universal basic income trial for unemployed reduces stress levels, says official.”

As its data, the article quotes Kela official Marjukka Turunen (Head of Legal Affairs Unit) as saying, “There was this one woman who said: ‘I was afraid every time the phone would ring, that unemployment services are calling to offer me a job’,” and, “This experiment really has an indirect impact, also, on the stress levels [of people] and the mental health and so on.”

These quotes originate in a recent interview on WNYC’s podcast The Takeaway, in an episode on automation and the future of work, in which host John Hockenberry interviewed Turunen about Finland’s basic income experiment, having presented basic income as a possible policy response to technological unemployment. After stressing the potential of basic income to promote employment (by avoiding the welfare trap and reducing bureaucracy and paperwork), Turunen related the anecdote above in reply to a question in which Hockenberry turned about the effects of basic income on feelings of confidence and self-respect.

In comments to Basic Income News, Turunen explained that this situation involved a participant who agreed to participate in a media interview and volunteered this information to the reporter. While some participants themselves offer feedback to Kela, Kela itself is not allowed to divulge this information to the media, nor to provide any personal information about the study participants. However, this does not prevent participants themselves from volunteering to talk about the experiment to media, as in the present situation.

Thus, it is important not to mistake this unsolicited feedback from experiment participants for official and formal results–which are still more than a year and half away. As Turunen comments,

We do not have any results yet, not until the end of next year; these insights are coming from the customers themselves willing to talk about this in the media. And these are only insights, the results must be very carefully analyzed according to the information we only get at the end of next year.

 

More Information:

Kela, Basic Income Experiment 2017–2018. (Official website on the experiment.)

Olli Kangas, et al, “Public attention directed at the individuals participating in the basic income experiment may undermine the reliability of results,” Kela blog, January 16, 2017.

The Shift: Exploring America’s Rapidly Changing Workforce,” The Takeaway (podcast), May 4, 2017. (Marjukka Turunen’s remarks in context.)


Reviewed by Russell Ingram

Photo (Helsinki) CC BY-NC 2.0 Mariano Mantel

A neoliberal Citizen’s Income?

A neoliberal Citizen’s Income?

An article by John Clarke, ‘Progressive Dreams Meet Neoliberal Realities’, poses an important question: Is it true that ‘we can draw a line between the models that are concerned with improving lives and raising living standards and those that are focused on intensifying the capacity for capitalist exploitation’?

First of all for some of the mistakes in the article. The ‘progressive’ camp is well described as offering a range of schemes that would be ‘responsibly redistributive, reduce poverty and inequality and ease up on bureaucratic intrusion’, and that would provide enough money to live on: but it is not true that those who propose schemes that would be ‘responsibly redistributive, reduce poverty and inequality and ease up on bureaucratic intrusion’ ‘pay great attention to explaining how nice their systems would be but give little if any thought to the concrete prospects of implementation’. Research published by the Institute for Social and Economic Research and by the Citizen’s Income Trust shows that schemes that would be ‘responsibly redistributive, reduce poverty and inequality and ease up on bureaucratic intrusion’ can be perfectly implementable.

A second mistake is to suggest that ‘there is a fight to be taken forward for living income, full entitlement and programs that meet the real needs of unemployed, poor and disabled people, as opposed to the present ‘rituals of degradation’ they embody.’ Unfortunately, it is precisely the fitting of benefits to needs that results in the ‘rituals of degradation’.

In the section of the article that matters, ‘Neoliberal version’, Clarke suggests that the motive underlying the schemes proposed by at least some of those governments proposing pilot projects is in fact the same as Charles Murray’s: the dismantling of all other welfare provision. He suggests that Citizen’s Income plans might be described with ‘progressive’ phrases, but their purpose is pernicious. He also suggests that Citizen’s Income proposals can provide cover for additional austerity within the current system; and that Citizen’s Income is being proposed in order to promote a more exploitative employment market.

In the section ‘Progressive Dreams’, Clarke suggests that ‘progressive’ versions of Citizen’s Income would be politically infeasible because they would tip the balance of power away from employers. He claims that it is neoliberal governments that seem to be interested in Citizen’s Income, suggesting that ‘progressive’ versions don’t stand a chance; that pursuing an infeasible Citizen’s Income might divert attention from tackling neoliberal depredations; and that Citizen’s Income would be an inadequate response to the problems facing our society. Clarke suggests that what we need is such public services as ‘free, massively expanded and fully accessible systems of healthcare and public transportation’, social housing, universal childcare, ‘living wages, workplace rights and real compensation for injured workers’.

Clarke’s final paragraph is worth quoting in full:

I am suggesting that our movements need to challenge, rather than come to terms with, the neoliberal order and the capitalist system that has produced it. For all its claims to be a sweeping measure, the notion of progressive BI is a futile attempt to make peace with that system. In reality, even that compromise is not available. The model of BI that governments are working on in their social policy laboratories will not ‘end the tyranny of the labour market’ but render it more dreadful. The agenda of austerity and privatization requires a system of income support that renders people as powerless and desperate as possible in the face of exploitation and that won’t change if it is relabelled as ‘Basic Income’.

The arguments need to be tackled one by one, starting with Charles Murray’s. Those who would like to replace public services such as healthcare with a Citizen’s Income confuse two different kinds of universality. The universality of healthcare must be one of availability, whereas the universality that characterises Citizen’s Income is one of provision. Whether healthcare is provided via the highly efficient NHS, or via an insurance system riddled with market failures, what individuals require is availability when it is needed, however much that costs. One person’s absorption of healthcare resources will be very different from another’s. Some people might spend months in hospital, and others might hardly ever see the inside of one: but they all need healthcare to be there when they need it. No standard amount of money can replace such a universality of availability. No doubt this argument will need to be made constantly. The important thing is that it is the only right argument and that it has to be made.

Some of Clarke’s other statements are genuine wake-up calls, and suggest that only Citizen’s Income schemes that do not impose losses at the point of implementation should be proposed. Similarly, nobody should be suggesting that a Citizen’s Income scheme could substitute for a National Minimum Wage or for a Living Wage. Citizen’s Income and a Living Wage would function very happily alongside each other, and would function far better than a Living Wage with a means-tested benefits system. Every time a Living Wage level is raised, means-tested in-work benefits fall, whereas this would not happen to a Citizen’s Income.

Some of Clarke’s arguments need to be tackled. No financially feasible Citizen’s Income would tip the balance of power very far away from employers and towards employees, if at all. Means-tested benefits function as dynamic subsidies – that is, they rise if wages fall – whereas Citizen’s Income functions as a static subsidy because it doesn’t rise if wages fall. Thus employers might experience more resistance if they attempt to cut wages. Also, because a Citizen’s Income might give to some employees more choice over employment patterns, and thus more ability to negotiate in the employment market, it might look as if the balance were shifting towards employees. However, because the overall effect would be to reduce the inefficiencies in the employment market, employers would find their firms becoming generally more efficient. This really could be a situation in which everyone wins.

No doubt some experiments are being conducted by neoliberal governments. This will not be a problem if researchers test the piloted schemes for household losses, and for changes in inequality and poverty. The best response, though, would be for governments across the political spectrum to research and pilot Citizen’s Income, and not to leave it to governments at only one end of it.

Finally, if universality and unconditionality are good for benefits systems, then they are good for everything else. The UK’s Sure Start childcare provision was designed to be universal, which removed the possibility of stigma. The NHS attracts no stigma, and it is highly efficient. Some services will need to be paid for, at least to some extent: experiments with free public transport can mean overloaded transport systems – but many public services are more efficient if free at the point of use. So far from Citizen’s Income being seen as a replacement for public services, it should be regarded as a default model for them unless proved otherwise.

As for Clarke’s final paragraph: let’s be realistic – the neoliberal age might be with us for some time to come, so what the situation requires is survival mechanisms and a modelling of how it might evolve to the benefit of people and planet. Citizen’s Income is precisely what is required. If Mr. Clarke would like to suggest a better alternative then we would be pleased to hear from him.

Behavioural Effects of a Citizen’s Income on wages, job security and labour supply

Behavioural Effects of a Citizen’s Income on wages, job security and labour supply

Written by: Anne Gray

Abstract.

What would be the effect of a citizen’s income (CI), aka basic income or BI, on wage levels – how would employers respond to its introduction? What would be its effect on the supply of labour, and on the total amount of paid work done in the economy? Would we still need a legally enforced minimum wage? This article explores the behavioural effects of a BI, on workers, jobseekers and employers. It first examines contrasting hypotheses as to the effects on wages and labour supply, then use official data to make a rough estimate of these effects for individuals in different socioeconomic and household circumstances. Analysis indicates that a Minimum Wage will remain essential after the introduction of a modest BI, to prevent the latter substituting for wages and job security, especially in the case of individuals in less advantaged circumstances.

Introduction

Frequently mentioned arguments for a BI include two different groups of incentive effects that can’t all take place at once for the same person or household. The first is the category of effects that increase labour supply to employers; that it would help people out of the ‘poverty trap’ and encourage them to get a job, or to move from part-time to full-time work. The second is the category of effects that would reduce labour supply to the market; that it would encourage shorter working hours and more leisure; that it would encourage some people to take time off work to study or to care for elderly loved ones or to do unpaid volunteer work. Which groups in the labour force would increase their ‘offer’ of work to the market and which would reduce it? Under what circumstances, and in response to what level of BI, would people work more, or work less ?

We are in the dark here for a number of reasons. Firstly, most previous experiences of anything like a BI have been in other countries, often in much poorer countries than the UK with much more self-employment – Brazil, India and Namibia to mention examples. The US and Canadian experiments of the 1970s were far from ‘universal’, all being a variant of income maintenance for previous welfare claimants only. All we have to go on to tell us what might be the labour market effects of BI are the responses of claimants and employers to previous benefit systems in the UK or in comparable European contexts, and informed guesses about what claimants and employers would do in response to a new type of benefit which has no very similar precedent in nature or scale.

The risk of BI reducing wage rates and job security

Benefit systems have in some instances been found in practice to lead to lower wage rates (Gray 2014). Among these examples, the oldest was the Speenhamland system of poor relief in the early nineteenth century (Polanyi 1957). More recently, lower wage rates, increased precarity and job splitting – leading to jobs with very short hours in place of the full time work that most jobseekers wanted – was an evidenced effect of the high ‘earnings disregard’ levels present in French, German and Belgian systems of unemployment benefit in the 1980s and early 1990s (Gray 2002, 2004). In the UK, Wilkinson (2001) found a ‘Speenhamland effect’ of Working Families Tax Credit. The same argument was made in relation to tax credits when they were first introduced (Bennett and Hirsch 2001). Since 2014, the UK government itself hinted that employers had taken advantage of tax credit, defending their 2015 plan to reduce tax credit allowances (later reversed, but only partly) by saying that ‘the tax credit system had, for too long, been used to subsidise low pay’ (BBC News, 15.9.15). This view was underlined by the statement that corporation tax was being cut to ‘introduce incentives for business to remove the need for tax credits with pay rises ‘ (George Osborne’s budget speech on 8.7.15).

Thus benefit systems that allow unemployed people to move into temporary employment like that offered by this denver staffing agency, without total loss of benefit, as in the examples above, can lead to reduced wages. With WFTC (and the later Working Tax Credit), when unemployed people got a job they re-applied for in-work benefits to partially replace their out-of-work benefits, whilst with Speenhamland and the continental disregards (Polanyi, op.cit; Gray 2002) they just kept some of the benefit they had whilst they were unemployed. Such systems, to a greater or lesser degree, alleviate the ‘poverty trap’ where almost 100% of benefits are lost on taking a job, as with JSA, discouraging employment. But unfortunately downward pressure on wage rates is an inevitable effect of allowing unemployed people to keep getting state money when they get a job, if that is all we do. If ending the ‘poverty trap’ persuades some unemployed people to take jobs they previously wouldn’t have accepted because the wage was too low, employers will then find it easier than before to recruit the numbers they want at a lower wage – unless a minimum wage law prevents this . In fact right wing writers (e.g. Friedman 1962, Parker 1989) have argued for BI precisely because it helps and encourages people to take low paid jobs. And if pay falls, it falls not just for those who may be desperate for any job, but for all those changing jobs – and possibly even for those in jobs and staying in the same workplace. Many recent press reports show how easy it is for employers to issue new, worse contracts in the current under-regulated, under-unionised environment. Some defenders of BI argue that if the BI was high enough, a minimum wage law would not be needed – and even that some element of ‘wage subsidy’ is beneficial because it would protect small businesses like rural shops. (Or, one might add, this would help socially important sectors currently placed in serious difficulty by the recent rise in the legal minimum wage, in particular social care). But pay would fall not just for small businesses (including small shops and care homes, which some people might want to have lower costs to prevent them from closing). It would fall for supermarket chains and other corporate giants as well. In any case there are alternative, more targeted, ways of helping small businesses or particular sectors – especially those where, as with social care, the public sector is the main customer.

Can we avoid the Speenhamland effect and the poverty trap with a single measure? Probably not , for two reasons, as follows. First of all there is the question of whether a BI would be affordable at a level high enough to enable people to refuse all jobs below whatever we consider to be a reasonable wage level. Secondly any measure which increases labour supply is likely to induce easier recruitment at low wages. BI removes the poverty trap for the unwaged, and many of their job applications are directed at low paid sectors. So BI on its own, even at a high level, is liable to induce wage freezing, or recruitment at lower than previous hourly rates, just as did tax credit and the continental high-disregard systems. This can be avoided by ensuring that employers are obliged by law to pay a minimum wage – as I argued in 2014, such a regulation is an important safeguard against the BI being use to benefit employers rather than employees.

However, also at stake are other aspects of labour standards, and these are at issue even with a very high level of BI. Guy Standing (1999) amongst others has argued that a BI is a good defence against precarity – in these days of widespread temporary jobs, zero hours contracts and part-time unemployment, it makes such conditions more tolerable and less exposed to poverty. But if such jobs become more tolerable, employers will find it easier to recruit to them. In effect, such employers would be using state funds as a subsidy to support their practice of laying off workers for the weeks or days they are not needed, rather than meeting the costs of continuous maintenance of their labour force as they do in long-term employment contracts with specified hours. Again repeating the argument of my 2014 paper, limiting the use of temporary labour, and in particular zero hours contracts, is an important form of regulation to prevent this. What is important here is the similarity between a BI and the high disregards in these French, Belgian and German benefit schemes, which did encourage the offer of temporary and ‘mini-jobs’. They were like a partial BI for the unemployed. To combat these effects of encouraging more precarity, alongside a BI we need regulation of zero hours and limitation of temporary work. This is essential if the BI is not to end up subsidising employers who show no long-term responsibility for training or supporting their workforce and want to turn labour supply on and off like a tap.

Moreover, the problems of precarity are not solved by a BI without other measures. A prospective landlord or mortgage company will be unimpressed by someone who doesn’t know whether next week’s income will be her wage for 40 hours (say £400) plus her £80 BI, or just her £80 BI. It is creditworthiness and a secure long-term income that gets people a home – which is a good reason for minimising insecurity in the jobs market. A stable and secure income is important for individuals’ credit rating and thus their financial wellbeing, according to journalists’ advice on how to obtain a good credit rating.

An ‘on your bike’ economy where individuals have unpredictable changes in jobs and housing may also be inimical to family relationships and children’s education ‘

BI and the freedom to with-hold one’s labour

So far this paper has focussed on one potential effect of BI –the increase in the supply of labour. That is, the unemployed would move more easily into employment because they would face no poverty trap, and precarious jobs would become more acceptable. But it is often said that BI would enable people not to work, that is not to work for so long or all the time because they chose study, caring, or volunteering; or not to work because they wanted to refuse exploitative conditions. At first sight these two expectations seem in contradiction to each other; would BI induce more paid work or less? Firstly, it depends on the level of BI compared to average wages. Secondly, the effects would differ between various population groups.

Let us consider first the effect of BI on the unemployed. Unemployed people fall mainly into two groups – those receiving JSA and those who are ineligible – plus some eligible non-claimants who feel they cannot meet the very strict conditions, or have no fixed address. The ineligible group are mainly people whose 6 months’ entitlement to insurance-based JSA has expired and they cannot claim income-tested JSA because they have an employed partner . Ineligible unemployed also include those aged under 18. The argument that people are deterred from working by the benefits poverty trap applies mainly to this non-claimant group, because for those on JSA, the benefit conditions are the main factor. People on JSA are currently under such strict rules as to what jobs they can refuse that they are often obliged through fear of sanctions to apply for rock bottom pay and conditions regardless of the ‘poverty trap’ (Gray 2004). The financial incentive effect of a BI (that is, removing the poverty trap) would make little difference to them. What would make a big difference is that BI is unconditional : all the job centre rules about applying for so many jobs each week, with sanctions for even minor rule infringements, would not apply.

Current JSA rules have been getting gradually tighter, with sanctions and the imposition of compulsory work-for-benefit placements becoming more common, even since 1996. These aspects of the job centre system, described by labour economists as ‘conditionality’ and by critics also as ‘workfarist (Gray, 2004; Peck and Theodore, 2000) were designed to chase people into bad jobs. According to OECD-reported research, greater conditionality of benefits systems do increase the outflow from unemployment into jobs (OECD, 1994, 2000). That is, greater conditionality leads to an increase in labour supply. Conversely, relaxing the punitive sanctions and workfare regime would enable people to spend longer looking for a good job, or re-training in new skills, with nobody forcing them to take the first offer even if this does not meet their income and job security needs or fully use their skills. That is, less conditionality could be expected to lead to a fall in labour supply; this option to turn down bad jobs would work against the Speenhamland effect explained earlier. If a BI was introduced, it is hard to say which effect would win out – easier recruitment by employers to low paid or casual work because of the cushion of BI, or more difficult recruitment on low wages/temporary contracts because of the end to benefit ‘conditionality’.

It is because of the threat of sanctions and workfare that some voices in the trade union movement have recently taken up the historically popular claimants’ movement demand for a BI, a demand first flagged up by Bill Jordan (1989). BI was enthusiastically discussed at a conference on welfare held by UNITE and the PCS in autumn 2014, leading to the publication by UNITE of the ‘National Welfare Charter’ linking BI to the demands to end sanctions and workfare, which was endorsed by a fringe meeting of the TUC in 2015 (see

There was also a UNITE/USDAW motion supporting the principle of BI passed at the TUC itself in 2016.

Over and above the virtue of abolishing benefit sanctions, a BI that was high enough to enable people to refuse low pay or very insecure work would probably reduce the total of hours worked and the number of jobs offered. Some of the worst jobs would not be offered because they would attract few applicants. But if the BI was not high enough to enable people to refuse ‘bad’ jobs, it would have the opposite effect – low pay would be more acceptable and employers would recruit more easily at low wages than if there was no BI. It is impossible to say, a priori, how much would be ‘high enough’ to mark the tipping point or boundary between these two effects, above which labour supply falls. Moreover, the tipping point could vary according to socioeconomic group and region.

Turning to people who are not on out-of-work benefits – that is, people in paid work, mothers and other carers, students and would-be students, the level of the BI would be the key factor in their decisions about whether and how much to work. Just as people clearly find it hard to manage on JSA of £73.10 per week, they would probably not stay completely out of work for long on a BI of £70 or £80 per week unless they had some parental support. However for many students that might be riches, given that the maximum maintenance grant of £65 per week in England has just been abolished for new starters. Some parents might work more if they found £70 or £80 a handy childcare grant, but others might want to spend more time with their children. Some older people might find it was enough to make up any deficit in their pension entitlement and therefore retire sooner than they would otherwise. Some full-time workers might do less overtime, and some people (in particular students or those in poor health) might give up part-time jobs. Some people might feel more confident about starting their own business with even a small BI as a cushion in the early stages, rather as they were once encouraged by the Enterprise Allowance Scheme of the 1980s – but they could be people moving out of unemployment or out of jobs they found boring or ill-paid, so the net effect on labour supply is again unpredictable.

If a BI were high enough (how high we don’t know) it would encourage more people to work part-time, even those used to quite high hourly rates. For there to be any substantial effect of a BI in terms of people withdrawing, at least by working shorter hours, from jobs they already had, a BI would have to offer enough for them to feel that the loss of income was worth the gain in non-work time. For example if a BI of £150 per week was introduced, this would enable someone to give up 10 hours work per week without loss of income if s/he earned £15 per hour after tax, but to give up 15 hours work per week and have the same weekly income as before if s/he only earned £10 net per hour. But if the BI were only £60, the person on £15 per hour would only feel motivated to work 4 hours per week less whilst the person on £10 per hour might work 6 hours less. The higher the BI in relation to the individual’s hourly wage, the greater would be the likely reduction in labour supply from people already in paid work. The ‘value of leisure’ (whether used as leisure, or for some form of unpaid work or study) clearly varies considerably with the individual, depending on their tastes, commitments and current hourly wage rate. As a rule of thumb, one might expect that if – and only if – people have a ‘target weekly income’ they want, irrespective of the amount of effort it takes to obtain it, the ratio of the BI to the hourly wage rate gives us the maximum number of hours by which they would seek to reduce their work time. So for example, if the hourly wage was £10, a BI of £100 would induce people working 45 hours to seek only 35 hours, and a BI of £140 would induce people to seek 31 hours rather than 45. But things might not be as simple as that, firstly because the value of the first extra hour of leisure may be greater than further hours, secondly because employers are not that flexible, and thirdly because the ‘target weekly income’ may vary with the extent of income security, the effort involved in earning, the costs of commuting, work clothes and lunches, and the influence of other family members in response to the introduction of a BI.

Conversely, if we consider new graduates or school leavers, or mothers returning to work, the question might be, ‘what is the minimum extra income I need?’ The higher the BI, the more likely they would be to meet that target with a small number of hours’ work per week. The higher the ratio of the BI to the hourly wage, the more likely are new entrants or re-entrants to the labour market to be satisfied with a small number of hours of work. But independently of the level of the BI, the higher their hourly wage rate the more likely people are to achieve their ‘target’ income with a short working week. So if we want to encourage part-time work to reduce any pressure placed by automation on the ‘supply’ of jobs, a high legal minimum wage would help, whatever the level of BI offered.

Clearly not everyone would react to the introduction of BI in the same way. How it would affect their ‘propensity to work’ would vary with the level of wages individuals can obtain, depending on occupation, skills, experience; their entitlements (or lack of them) under the previous benefit system; caring commitments; the desire to study; their partner’s work, their health/disability; and heir closeness to pensionable age.

Who would work less and who would work more ?

This section attempts to investigate what the effect of a BI might be on the employment behaviour of different groups in the population. Who would respond to a BI by offering more labour to the market – taking a job when they hadn’t before, or seeking longer hours? And who would respond to a BI by reducing their personal labour supply, dropping out of paid work or seeking shorter hours?

The method used here is first to consider which categories of people would gain from a BI introduced in the range of £70 to £90 per week for a working age adult, and which categories would lose through paying higher taxes to finance the BI. Both gainers and losers are categorised by their current employment status. They include full time workers, who can vary their hours only by doing overtime in some instances: and part-time workers or self-employed people, both of whom can in theory at least vary their working hours quite a lot, in the case of the part-timers possibly by changing jobs or taking two jobs. Then there are unemployed jobseekers (divided into those claiming JSA and those who are not claiming); people who are medically unfit for employment or whose job choices are heavily constrained by their health; people whose main activity is caring for relatives; students; and those who are still under pension age but wholly or partly retired. Most of these groups can be identified from the Labour Force Survey; however, the published data for 2016 do not identify all the categories in the table separately, and have been supplemented by published LFS data for earlier dates, and from other sources as detailed in the notes. There may be an unintended overlap, thus some double counting, for some categories. Thus the estimates of numbers are very rough, and may be regarded as guesstimates of the rough order of magnitude of numbers pending the possibility of access to the raw data which one could interrogate to provide better estimates of the numbers in these various categories. Further information about sources, and some caveats, is given in the note to the two tables below.

 

 

Table 1 shows roughly how many people are in each sub-group, and hazards a guess at what the effects might be for different sections of the labour force of a BI in the region of current JSA entitlement or not much higher. For clarity, those whom we can expect would be likely to raise their hours of work in response to a BI are highlighted in yellow and those whom we expect to reduce their hours in grey. This table suggests what might be the direction of change in offer of paid work to the market from each group, considering both the likely effects of the BI itself and the likely effects of higher taxes to pay for it, compared to the current system. The higher tax burden would of course impact on income groups above the ‘breakeven’ level where BI and income tax bill would be equal. Table 2 shows guesstimates for what might be the total effect on labour supply in terms of hours per week. It should be emphasised that this is highly speculative and needs to be informed by more research on labour supply elasticities and the gains/losses produced by a BI system compared to the current benefits system, as well as by interrogation of the Labour Force Survey and other large data sets to obtain better estimates of the numbers in each labour market category. The guesstimates of what proportion of people in each of the categories would respond by working more or less are mere hypotheses and not based on evidence. However, the table may serve to show the very rough orders of magnitude of the changes expected.

In Table 1 there are four quadrants; on the left side are those who are currently not in paid work and on the right side those who are employed or self-employed. In the upper half of the table are the ‘gainers’ from BI (‘G’ groups) and in the lower half the ‘losers’ who would pay more tax than their BI – that is, their income is above the breakeven point. These two variables – in paid work or not, gainers or losers, divide the table into four.

In the upper left quadrant (gainers from BI, not employed) we have those with non-economic reasons for staying out of the labour market, plus those most affected by the ‘poverty trap’ in the current benefits system. Unemployed people, if claiming benefit, would be more likely to enter work quickly because their BI would remove the poverty trap, although as noted earlier the effect of removing benefit conditionality would work in the opposite direction and modify this incentive effect. Unemployed people not claiming benefit would especially gain from a BI taking them out of the poverty trap if any money they earn currently results in a loss of JSA or tax credit for their partner. But the published LFS data do not tell us how many of them are in this kind of household situation. So the table makes a very arbitrary guess that half of the non-claimant unemployed are in this situation.

In the bottom left quadrant (non-employed ‘losers’ from BI) we have the ‘early retired’ and a few others who are not working by choice – taking a gap year, ‘housewives’ (or ‘househusbands’) without young children, etc. It is assumed that most of these, in particular ‘early retired’ people (those aged 50 to 64, not in paid work, nor disabled nor engaged in care ) are in the ‘loser’ category since they have decided they do not need earnings, so they are probably people of above average means due to wealth, partner’s income or early pension entitlement. Also in the bottom left quadrant, a few early retired people (defined as aged 50-64 and not working or claiming unwaged benefits) might respond to higher tax by thinking their money is no longer enough and they should take a part time job – or keep up some activity in their former profession. In the bottom right quadrant (employed or self-employed, ‘losers’) other workers aged 50 plus, if already partly retired and working part-time, might decide that the extra tax makes it no longer worth working and would retire completely. Also in this quadrant are some other part-time workers who are not carers, nor over 50, nor disabled nor students – it is assumed that they have non-economic reasons for their choice of paid hours and that a BI would probably not affect this choice.

In the top right quadrant of the table (in paid work, whether full or part time, gainers from BI) we have people who are employed (or self-employed) part-time because of caring or for health reasons, plus students. Many students can be expected to drop their part-time jobs if they had a BI, at least in term time, and this is important because there are over 2.3 million students employed part-time – they are a larger category than the unemployed. Then there are mothers who are in paid work part-time; they might be affected by the poverty trap associated with tax credits, and welcome the lower withdrawal rate of a BI, so they might seek longer hours. However research on American and Canadian experiments in offering something like a BI suggests that women with children tend to reduce their hours (or delay return to work) when offered a BI (Prescott et al. 1986, Hum and Simpson 1993). But if they are lone parents on benefit or their partner is not working (and therefore claiming income based JSA in the current system), they might work longer hours because they would no longer penalised by a loss of benefits from the household as their earnings rise. Blundell, Dias, Meghir and Shaw (2012,2015), when modelling the effects of the 1999 introduction of WFTC, found that more generous in-work benefits overall reduce mothers’ work offer to the market. The change from Family Income Supplement to WFTC in 1999 made the in-work benefits regime more generous with a lower ‘taper’ rate and by starting the taper at a higher level of income. This change was rather like what a BI would do since it offered, in effect, a higher ‘disregard’ of earnings and partial alleviation of the poverty trap. Modelling the introduction of WFTC showed a positive effect on lone mothers’ employment rates – but only very small unless they were home owners. For the much larger number of partnered mothers, there was a negative effect on employment rates of 2-3%, and also a negative effect on their hours. On balance it seems likely that the effect of a BI on the employment seeking behaviour of part-time-employed mothers would be a small reduction in the hours they offer to the labour market.

Table 2 attempts to gauge the rough orders of magnitude of these effects, to determine whether it is more likely that a BI would lead to a rise in aggregate labour supply or a fall. This second table takes each of the groups identified in Table 1 and hazards a guess at how large the effect per person in each group would be. Thus, having established hypotheses about the direction of labour supply effect in Table 1, Table 2 offers a guesstimate of how large these effects would be. It suggests that a BI for working age adults in the range of £70 to £90 per week, if all benefits for children and disabled people remain as now, would produce a substantial increase in labour supply, of 3.92 million hours or the equivalent of 98,000 full time workers. Compared to the overall 31.56 million people in paid employment or self-employment, this seems small – but in certain sectors and places where jobs are scarce, it could have a substantial effect on wage levels. As shown at the end of Table 2, there is a particularly large increase in labour supply for unskilled or entry level jobs – altogether possibly almost 12.3 million hours. This is a very powerful argument for keeping a minimum wage law in place.

The overall result is highly sensitive to the size of the effect on the unemployed, which is likely to be the largest of all the effects on separate labour force groups. Alongside the effect on the unemployed, there would be substantial effects on students and mothers. The potential increase in labour supply from the unemployed, if the BI reduced their number by one third, would be perhaps 21 million hours per week. But the contrary fall in labour supply from students might be over 11 million hours per week. This is useful to the job prospects of the unemployed, since they often compete with students for unskilled part-time jobs.

For mothers, the effects are particularly unpredictable and would depend a great deal on what regime is in place to help with childcare costs, as well as on the income tax rate. In the table, if a 5% increase is assumed in the number of working mothers and their average hours were 19 per week (as estimated by Alakeson, 2012), this would lead to an increase in labour supply of 2.09 million hours.

Full time workers who do not currently get WTC but who would gain from BI might reduce their overtime, which in aggregate amounts to a large effect even though paid overtime per person across the labour force is very small anyway in the current state of the economy. The full time workers who don’t gain from BI, but find themselves with a higher tax rate than before or in a higher tax band, might also do less overtime because of the disincentive effect. A guesstimate is a fall of 7.7 million hours per week, if say average overtime per worker was reduced from one hour to half an hour across all these full time workers.

At this level of BI few full timers would feel able to switch to part-time jobs, unless perhaps nearing retirement. But assuming a BI would mean a higher income tax bill for some groups, some early-retired workers might re-enter the labour force for ‘mini-jobs’ (‘unretirement’) and some might postpone their retirement. Others might reduce their hours, whether because they felt the BI enabled them to do so, or because if they were well paid and therefore in a higher tax band to pay for the BI, they felt deterred from continuing full time. These effects are small and comprise increases in hours from some older workers set against reductions from others – the net effect might be less than one million hours per week. (Effects on people over 64 are not considered here; however depending on the level of BI for people currently receiving state pension, there obviously would be some labour market effects in so far as some pensioners do also have jobs)

Conclusion

The interesting points shown by this series of guesstimates are that firstly whilst the effect of a BI on unemployed people’s job seeking and job acceptance is the largest effect, the effects on mothers, students and choice of retirement age are also important. Whereas much discussion of the labour market effects of BI has focussed on the unemployed or ‘prime age’ full time workers, the responses of other groups in the labour force may be of considerable impact on the likely change in overall labour supply. Despite the likely fall in students’ working hours, one would expect a large rise in labour supply will be at the lower end of the pay ladder, making the retention of a minimum wage very important. It must be emphasised that the guesstimates of both size and direction of the labour supply effects mentioned here are highly speculative, and no more than an initial sketch of the several different effects that need to be subjected to proper econometric modelling in order to assess what would really be the effects of introducing a BI.

If we now consider a considerably higher BI – say £150 per week – it is likely that some full time workers with no caring commitments and of ‘prime’ working age would reduce their hours to part-time, if their job conditions permitted that. There would probably be a demand for three or four-day a week jobs. Here the previous analysis about the trade-off between the hourly value of leisure and the wage rate comes into play.

If people did reduce their income from work it would erode the income tax base, which must be taken into account in assessing how large a BI would be affordable. Ensuring that a BI does not induce a fall in the tax revenue used to pay for it is one of several reasons why it would be desirable to fund it partly from non-income tax sources – such as taxes on personal wealth, land value tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax.

References

Alakeson, Vidhya, 2012. The price of motherhood: women and part-time work. Resolution Foundation, London. Downloaded from https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2014/08/The-price-of-motherhood-women-and-part-time-work.pdf%20on%2027.12.16

Bennett, Fran and Hirsch, Donald, 2001. Balancing Support and Opportunity, in Bennett and Hirsch, eds., The Employment Tax Credit and issues for the future of in-work support, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, downloaded from https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/employment-tax-credit-and-issues-future-work-support on 4.12.16.

Blundell, Richard _ Dias, Monica Costa, Meghir, Costas and Shaw, Jonathan, 2012. Education,labour supply and welfare. Institute of Fiscal Studies/University of Sheffield, downloaded from https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.247215!/file/E2_dias.pdf on 4.12.16

Blundell, Richard _ Dias, Monica Costa, Meghir, Costas and Shaw, Jonathan, 2015. Female Labor Supply, Human Capital and Welfare Reform , downloaded from https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/mimeos/Dias_NBERwps_2015.pdf on 22.12.16

Friedman, Milton 1962. Capitalism and Freedom, University of Chicago Press.

Gray, Anne, 2002. European Perspectives on Welfare Reform, European Societies 4,4; 359-80.

Gray, Anne, 2004. Unsocial Europe; Social Protection or Flexploitation. Pluto.

Hum, Derek; Simpson, Wayne (1993). “Economic Response to a Guaranteed Annual Income: Experience from Canada and the United States”.Journal of Labor Economics. 11 (1, part 2).JSTOR 2535174.

Jordan, Bill, 1998. The New Politics of Welfare: Social Justice in a Global Context, Sage.

Parker, Hermione,1989. Instead of the Dole, Routledge.

Peck, J., and Theodore, N. 2000. Work first; workfare and the regulation of contingent labour markets, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 24.1; 119-38.

Polanyi, K, 1957. The Great Transformation, Beacon Press, Boston.

Prescott, David, Swidinsky, Robert, and Wilton, David, 1986. Labour supply estimates for low-income female heads of household using Mincom Data. Canadian Journal of Economics, 86:134-141.

Standing, Guy,1999. Global Labour Flexibility; Seeking Distributive Justice, Macmillan, Basingstoke.