Canada: CEO’s for Basic Income

Canada: CEO’s for Basic Income

From left to right: Mike Garnett (Bay Street Labs), Paul Vallée (Pythian), Floyd Marinescu (InfoQ & QCon), Audrey Mascarenhas (Questor) and Chris Ford (Capco). Credit to: Moses Leal

 

A letter, signed by over a hundred Canadian business leaders, was delivered to Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Lisa MacLeod on Thursday the 18th of October 2018. The letter urges these political leaders in this large Canada region to reinstate the basic income pilot experiment, which had been setup by the previous government and held as a promise to be continued by the present one. These business leaders represent about 1,4 billion CAN$ in total revenue, and were presented by Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner at the event.

 

The CEOs constitute yet another group in society raising its voice for the preservation of the social experiment, joining communities, activists and academics. In a world where social inclusion and acceptance are becoming more relevant and urgent topics to address, it is very important that leaders stand up for what they believe in. While it can be understood that diversity in mastermind groups is important for each community’s voice to be heard equally, it is also important to consider the needs of the masses as opposed to the needs of a few. According to these leaders, universal basic income (UBI) can invigorate the economy, eradicate poverty and supply the opportunity for many people to start their own business.

Floyd Marinescu

Floyd Marinescu

In this presentation, an event held at Queen’s Park in Toronto, co-author, signatory and CEO of InfoQ and QCon Floyd Marinescu has said that “We are here today to urge the government to embrace a forward-thinking, business-friendly solution to the great economic challenges of our time”. Although the core philosophy of the letter is related to economic competitiveness, it does so in order to “empower all Ontarians to grow alongside the economy and partake in its prosperity. We see basic income as a way to embrace the future of work: it is not just a welfare solution, it is an economic necessity”, according to Marinescu.

 

Marinescu’s co-author in writing the letter, and CEO of Pythian Paul Vallée also believes that basic income makes perfect business sense, and so fully supports the reinstallment of the basic income experiment in Ontario. He has said “we firmly believe that basic income is essential to supercharge Ontario’s economy in the 21st century” and that the government should “listen to this growing chorus, respect the dignity of Ontario workers, and let the pilot run its course”. Among other signatories there can be found Chris Ford (Managing Partner, Capco Canada) and Audrey Mascarenhas (CEO, Questor).

 

The event has made the news in several posts. The full letter can be read online.

 

More information at:

Kate McFarland, “ONTARIO, CANADA: New Government Declares Early End of Guaranteed Income Experiment“, Basic Income News, August 2nd 2018

Why 100 CEOs are asking Doug Ford to bring back basic income“, CBC radio, October 18th 2018 (podcast)

Laurie Monsebraaten, “100 Canadian CEOs urge Doug Ford to rescue Ontario’s basic income project“, The Star, October 18th 2018

CEOs Bring Case for Basic Income to Queen’s Park“, NetNewsLeadger, October 18th 2018

Annie Lowrey: Basic income ‘unlocks’ societal discussion

Annie Lowrey: Basic income ‘unlocks’ societal discussion

Annie Lowrey is the author of “Give People Money,” the latest book to offer the case for Universal Basic Income in the United States. She recently spoke to the UBI Podcast about her new book.

Lowrey first wrote about basic income in the New York Times for a 2013 article about the Swiss UBI referendum. This was right before the surge of international interest in basic income that persists today.

“Give People Money” gives a straightforward account of basic income for a broad audience, emphasizing the increasingly precarious situation for workers around the world. Lowrey gives a voice to actual recipients of basic income pilots who are quoted in the book as being empowered by the unconditional cash transfers.

In the podcast, Lowrey said what draws her to basic income is how the “universality” of the program unlocks discussion about an array of societal issues.

“It lets you talk about feminism, it lets you talk about the problems with GDP and how we measure welfare, about government paternalism,” she said.

There have been criticisms of Lowrey’s book and others that discuss UBI for the lack of specifics regarding financing.

She said such a demand at this time is a “high-barrier to clear” for financing a full basic income.

“Almost all of our big social programs have started small and gotten bigger,” she said.

Regarding political feasibility, Lowrey said she would be willing to accept “marginal improvements” that may be more feasible in the short-term, such as an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit (which is only provided to those who are working and is targeted for lower income households).

For Lowrey, the evidence for cash transfers is “unbelievably straightforward.”

“We know that giving people cash is an unusually good way to get them out of poverty,” she said. “We know that it doesn’t stop them from working.”

United States: After Delay, Y Combinator Research Presses on with Basic Income Study

United States: After Delay, Y Combinator Research Presses on with Basic Income Study

Sam Altman. Picture credit to: San Francisco Chronicle.

 

Y Combinator (YC) Research will begin its basic income study in 2019 after regulatory hurdles slowed a pilot program in Oakland, California.

The proposed study, entitled “Making Ends Meet,” will provide monthly cash transfers of $1,000  to 1,000 participants for three or five years. Another 2,000 people will serve as a control group and receive monthly transfers of $50 for the duration of the study. As reported by Wired , the experiment will take place across two states with the exact locations to be decided in the upcoming months.

As outlined in their project proposal , YC Research’s basic income study will assess the effects of unconditional cash transfers on a variety of factors including time use, objective and subjective well-being, and financial health. The study will be administered by staff at Y Combinator Research in collaboration with the University of Michigan Survey Research Center.

Y Combinator Research is the non-profit research arm of start-up accelerator, Y Combinator. In 2016, Y Combinator president Sam Altman posted a “Request for Research”  in which he forecast the need for a universal basic income (UBI) in an increasingly automated future: “I am fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going to see some version of this at a national scale.”

In September 2016, YC Research initiated a pilot study in Oakland to evaluate experimental design in preparation for the full-scale study. Although the pilot was intended to enroll approximately 100 participants, it ultimately included fewer than ten people as bureaucratic obstacles slowed the study’s implementation. The researchers encountered difficulties in trying to ensure that participants would still receive means-tested support payments as their nominal incomes were increased through receipt of cash transfers.

Elizabeth Rhodes

Elizabeth Rhodes

YC Research’s study will go ahead even as other UBI trials have been cancelled in recent months. In Ontario (Canada), a new administration led by premier Doug Ford, prematurely cancelled a basic income trial earlier this year , and in Finland, a highly-publicized trial has been refused future funding.

Despite the cancellation and discontinuation of government-led trials in Canada and Finland, other studies in the United States are still on course. The Economic Security Project, led by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, has plans for a basic income trial in Stockton, California and Greg Duncan, at the University of California, is organizing a long-term study of cash transfers to low-income mothers, under the name “Baby’s First Years.”

These trials will not be the first studies of UBI in the United States. Beginning in the 1960s, four Negative Income Tax (NIT) trials were conducted in the U.S. as new forms of welfare provision, attracted attention across the political spectrum. Although the trials represented a milestone in experimental social science at the time, their results were subject to differing interpretations by the media, politicians, and participating researchers. Some results, such as a reported increase in divorce rate – a result which was not replicated and has subsequently been disputed – were used to discredit basic income as a legitimate alternative to traditional welfare programs.

The current trials proposed by YC Research, the Economic Security Project, and Greg Duncan will mark a new chapter in the study of basic income in the United States. Unlike earlier studies and recent efforts in Ontario and Finland, the American studies will be privately funded and thereby insulated from changes in government policy which have hindered state-sponsored projects.

As UBI attracts increased attention in the political sphere, long-term studies like the proposed YC Research project will be necessary to assess competing claims about the effects of cash transfer programs in different social and economic contexts.

 

More information at:

Nitasha Tiku, “Y Combinator learns basic income is not so basic after all”, Wired, August 27th 2018

Kate McFarland, “Ontario, Canada: New Government declares early end of guaranteed income experiment”, Basic Income News, August 2nd 2018

John Henley, “Finland to end basic income trial after two years”, The Guardian, April 23rd 2018

Kate McFarland, “Stockton, CA, US: New details revealed in planned basic income demonstration”, Basic Income News, 23rd August 2018

Karl Widerquist, “The basic income guaranteed experiments of the 1970s: a quick summary of results”, Basic Income News, December 3rd 2017

Chicago, US: Chicago moves forward with UBI proposal

Chicago, US: Chicago moves forward with UBI proposal

Chicago’s City Hall building green roof. Picture credit to: Urban Matter

 

Earlier this year, the city of Chicago hit the news by introducing a resolution that would summon a taskforce to run and study a basic income trial within the Municipality. That resolution, put forth by Alderman Ameya Pawar, included the summoning of stakeholders, foundations, philanthropists and academics, to develop a basic income trial model providing an unconditional $500 /month to one thousand families in Chicago. This was in addition to the restructuring of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which will in itself be a subject of study.

 

That initiative received opposition from the Chicago Tribune, the most popular newspaper in the city. The paper published an editorial where it argued that the basic income trial was unaffordable and that Chicago officials should instead be finding ways to “raise incomes among working-class and poor residents”. Among the alternatives (to a basic income, experimental or full-fledged), the editorial referred to the deregulation of the private sector, which would “generate employment and boost incomes”.

 

Despite this opposition, Chicago leaders, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Ameya Pawar, just announced (through the Economic Security Project (ESP) the formation of the taskforce to which the resolution referred, having been called the Chicago Resilient Families Task Force. This cutting-edge group will explore and coordinate the basic income trial in the city, relying on an EITC modernization, which is how they will provide the monthly benefits to recipients.

 

The referred Task Force, in which the ESP is also investing, will be co-chaired by Tom Balanoff (Service Employees International Union President in Canada) and Celena Roldan (CEO of the American Red Cross of Chicago and Northern Illinois), and will include “civic, religious and community leaders in addition to elected officials and academics”. It will produce a report with specifications on the basic income trial, and put forward policies to reduce poverty and rise middle-class citizens incomes.

 

After Stockton, Chicago is now paving the way for furthering basic income in the United States, amidst a choir of opponents (including the above mentioned Chicago Tribune editorial and others).

 

More information at:

Kate McFarland, “CHICAGO, US: City Considers Resolution to Investigate Basic Income Pilot”, Basic Income News, July 24th 2018

Kate McFarland, “US: Chicago Tribune against basic income for the City”, Basic Income News, August 12th 2018

Peter Kotecki, “Chicago could be the largest US city to launch a basic income pilot — here are the other major experiments around the world”, Business Insider, July 23th 2018

Kate McFarland, “STOCKTON, CA, US: New Details Revealed in Planned Basic Income Demonstration”, Basic Income News, August 23rd 2018

Rowena Itchon,Basic income comes to Stockton”, Pacific Research Institute, February 5th 2018

Canada: An Open Letter to the Ontario Government

Canada: An Open Letter to the Ontario Government

The following is an open letter to the Ontario government from basic income advocate Rob Rainer. The Ontario government recently cancelled their basic income pilot program. Rainer is calling on the government to reconsider the cancellation. 
Dear Premier Ford, Minister MacLeod, and my MPP, Mr. Hillier:
I am a resident of Ontario and a concerned citizen who is among the many who, in recent years, have been advocating for basic income as a vital form of economic and social security, and human dignity – not only for those in or on the cusp of poverty, but for the broad “middle class” within which millions of people are profoundly economically insecure. I respectfully ask that you reconsider the Ontario government’s decision to terminate the Ontario basic income pilot project. Further, I ask that you commit to seeing this project through to its intended completion and evaluation.
The Ontario pilot is a world-leading test of how basic income can transform lives for the better. The eyes of the world have been on Ontario because of it – and remain on Ontario now in the wake of the government’s decision. Sadly, yesterday’s announcement by Minister MacLeod that the government will terminate the project appears to have been made with little regard for not only the evidence in favour of basic income but also the evidence already emerging from the pilot itself – including how in just a short period of time basic income has begun to transform many lives for the better (see also this story). The announcement is especially galling given that, in April, it appeared that your Party was prepared to see the project through if you were to form the next government. As an unidentified Party spokesperson said then, “we look forward to seeing the results.”
And so, several questions for you:
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: On what evidence or information was the decision made to end the pilot? Who was consulted beforehand? Notably, did the government speak directly with any of the 4000 pilot participants spread across Hamilton, Brant County, Lindsay, and Thunder Bay, and/or any of the members of the pilot research team? If it did not take those steps, I recommend they be done ASAP if there is yet possibility to revisit the government’s decision. I believe that were your government to hear directly from pilot participants, in particular, that its views on the pilot might be much more informed.
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: Assuming this decision stands, what will be done to make the transition as painless as possible for the pilot participants – some of whom have already made critical decisions for their lives on the basis of having access over three years to the basic income? Specifically, will the government continue to issue monthly basic income payments for most if not all of the remaining intended duration of the pilot?
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: What are your ideas as to what might be more effective than basic income to providing a solid floor of economic security for Ontarians (with major health and other benefits in return)?
Mr. Hillier: I met with you in February 2017 at your constituency office in Perth. At that time you expressed general support for the idea of basic income and, I recall, at least conditional support for the basic income pilot. You may feel obliged to support the government’s decision here, but I nonetheless ask: Are you comfortable with the decision, or would you be willing to champion that the government reconsider?
It is not a stretch to say that lives may well depend on a turnaround here. I understand from colleagues close to the ground of the pilot that if the government follows through with its intentions, that one or more suicides may well follow – reflective of the economic desperation many people in Ontario suffer. In this light, I encourage you to read at least some of the ~500 short testimonials contained in the attached document, in which people from across Ontario and many other parts of Canada explain the difference basic income could mean for them and/or their loved ones (and note how some of the writers mention suicide in the context of their desperation). For further and very good introductory information about basic income, I also recommend to you Basic Income Canada Network’s Basic Income primer series.
Sincerely,
Rob Rainer
Basic Income Advocate
Tay Valley Township, Lanark County