by Kate McFarland | Aug 10, 2017 | News
Launched in February 2017, the Basic Income Lab (BIL) at Stanford University’s McCoy Family Center for Ethics and Society aspires to provide information and advice to researchers, policy makers, and other individuals and groups engaged in the design and implementation of basic income experiments or policies.
Already this year, BIL has held a panel discussion on basic income experiments, in which Joe Huston described the large-scale experiment to be conducted in Kenya by the New York based non-profit GiveDirectly, Elizabeth Rhodes discussed the plans to Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator to run a basic income experiment in the United States, and Guy Standing reviewed the results of a pilot study in eight villages of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It also hosted a presentation by Philippe Van Parijs of his new comprehensive book on basic income, Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy (with Yannick Vanderborght). Now, BIL is preparing for both public and private events to be held throughout the upcoming academic year.
In September, BIL will co-host the Cities and Universal Basic Income Workshop, working aside the Economic Security Project (ESP), the McCoy Family Center, and the National League of Cities, which recommended investigation of city-level basic income programs in its 2016 report The Future of Work in Cities. This private event aims to inform city leaders and other researchers about the latest developments regarding current and planned basic income experiments, and to investigate the possibility of implementing municipal-level basic income policies. Additionally, BIL has scheduled two co-sponsored public lectures on the relationship of basic income to issues of gender and race: in October, Almaz Zelleke (NYU Shanghai) will visit Stanford to speak about how basic income can impact gender justice; then, in January, Dorian T. Warren (Roosevelt Institute, ESP) will speak about basic income in relation to racial justice.
Juliana Bidadanure in audience at BIL panel
BIL is led by Faculty Director Juliana Bidadanure, a philosophy professor who last year designed and taught a graduate seminar on basic income. Describing the mission of the lab, she states, “There is an increasing need for in-depth academic research on various policy designs for UBI and how to evaluate its implementation – assessing the visions that underpin unconditional cash, the political and economic feasibility of various proposals, as well as its strengths and weaknesses as a measure to alleviate poverty and inequality.”
In addition to her work with BIL, Bidadanure is preparing to teach an undergraduate course on basic income during Stanford’s winter term.
To stay abreast of BIL’s activities, subscribe to its mailing list and follow BIL on Facebook.
Reviewed by Dawn Howard and Juliana Bidadanure
Photos from the Basic Income Lab’s “Experiments in Unconditional Basic Income” panel; credit: Christine Baker (at EthicsSoc).
by Kate McFarland | Aug 8, 2017 | News
The 2017 North America Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress was held June 16-18 in New York. Some papers are now available online.
Event Recap
The annual NABIG Congress is jointly organized by BIEN’s North American affiliates, the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) and Basic Income Canada Network (BICN).
In 2017, the 16th NABIG Congress was held at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work in New York, New York, from June 16 through 18.
The event was the largest NABIG Congress in its history, drawing over 100 attendees and featuring over 50 speakers. Keynote speakers including Frances Fox Piven (Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center), Andy Stern (former President of SEIU), Juliana Bidadanure (Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University), Joe Huston (Give Directly), and Chris Hughes (Facebook co-founder). Plenary sessions were also held on Welfare Rights and the basic income movement in Canada, including the guaranteed minimum income pilot soon to be launched in Ontario.
Parallel sessions covered a diverse range of context. As USBIG Chair Michael Howard describes in his summary of the congress (see the July 2017 USBIG NewsFlash), “Quite a few sessions focused on movement building, from local to global levels, including two sessions on grassroots organizing, and sessions on cultural and conversational contexts, communication, and messaging. Other topics discussed included child benefits, women, inequality and economic rents, basic income experiments from New Jersey to Africa, costs and financial aspects of basic income schemes (including blockchains), growth and degrowth, and philosophical and religious arguments for basic income.”
The 2017 NABIG Congress also featured two musical performances. Singer-songwriter Brandy Moore revisited her song “Just Because I’m Alive,” which she originally performed at the 2016 NABIG Congress in Winnipeg. Additionally, John Mize closed the conference by performing his new song “B.I.G.” with his son.
A full schedule of the event can be viewed here.
For additional perspectives on the congress from participants, see “(IDEA/Child Find)+ Basic Income = Equity” by Chioma Oruh (June 20, 2017) and “Recap: North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG)” by Ryan M Harrison (June 20, 2017).
Content Available Online
Several papers and presentations from the conference are now available in the USBIG discussion paper archives, including (as of July 2017) the following:
– Barbara Boraks: “Consensus or Discord- It’s Our Choice: A Values Based Framework For a Basic Income Model”
– Karen Glass: “Ontario Basic Income Pilot”
– Rachel Presser: “Why UBI Should Make the Earned Income Tax Credit Obsolete”
– Steven Pressman: “A LITTLE BIG: The Case for Child Allowances”
– Steven Pressman: “Ecology vs. the Economy: Lessons from Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century”
– Sheila Regehr: “Dignity or Degradation: What should be the value base for building a benefit system?”
– Cameron Weber: “The Actually-Existing Welfare State in the USA and One Possible Transformation to a Basic Income”
– Karl Widerquist: “The Cost of Basic Income: Back of the Envelope Calculations”
Additional papers may be uploaded later.
Photo: Mingling after Plenary (credit: Basic Income Guarantee Minnesota)
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
by Kate McFarland | Aug 5, 2017 | News
The center-right Estonian Free Party (Estonian: “Eesti Vabaerakond”) has established a working group to assess the potential for basic income in Estonia.
The goal of the Free Party’s working group is to determine what type of basic income policy–if any–would benefit Estonia. It aims to report its conclusions at the beginning of 2018. A report by Estonian Public Broadcasting cites the chair of the working group, Vahur Kollom, as saying that the group will consist of “visionaries, demographers, sociologists and taxation specialists.”
In a post on Eesti Vabaerakond’s website, party chairman Artur Talvik stressed that basic income is not just an idea of the left, noting its connection to the work of Milton Friedman, who believed that a closely related policy (the negative income tax) could unburden the distribution of benefits from state oversight and control. He also mentioned the policy’s potential to enable individuals to commit more time to charity and volunteer work. Talvik believes, however, that it is crucial to Estonians to be familiar with the conclusions of existing pilot studies and other research before deciding to endorse or reject basic income.
Founded in 2014, the Free Party received 8.7 percent of the vote in the 2015 election, gaining it eight seats in the national parliament (the Riigikogu). The party currently ranks fifth in terms of representation.
More interest from the Greens…
The Estonian Free Party is the first party currently represented in the Riigikogu to pursue research into a basic income. It is not, however, the first Estonian political party to express sympathy for the idea: the Estonian Greens have promoted basic income for nearly a decade, and they are currently scoping the possibility for an experiment.
If successful in the municipal elections in October, the party hopes to launch a trial in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital city, in which 1000 randomly selected individuals will receive 400 euros each month for four years. (Adjusting for comparative price levels, 400 euros is approximately equivalent to 640 euros in Finland, where a study is currently underway of the effects of basic income of 560 euros per month on its unemployed population.) In contrast to most existing experiments on basic income and related policies, such as Finland’s, the Estonian Greens wish to sample participants from all income groups, not only low-income or unemployed individuals.
Individual members of the Estonian Reform Party, Estonian Centrist Party, and Social Democratic Party–the three largest parties in the Riigikogu–have also expressed interest in the idea of basic income; however, none of these parties have taken formal action to research the policy, about which their key members have remained rather skeptical.
…and a Parliamentary Petition
In November 2016, basic income activist Jaanus Nurmoja created a petition to request that the Estonian government conduct feasibility and impact studies of the policy. The petition emphasizes that it does not demand the implementation of a basic income, merely its testing, which it poses as an indisposable precursor to the adoption of any specific policy. If the digital petition gathers over 1000 signatures from Estonian citizens, it will be sent to the Riigikogu.
At the time of this writing, the petition has acquired 558 signatures, just over half of the needed quantity. However, Nurmoja sees the recent announcement by the Estonian Free Party as an encouraging sign that support for basic income research is gaining traction within the nation’s government: “Their decision is a very positive surprise. I never expected such a strong and long step forward from any political party today. The Free Party seems to be relying on the views expressed by the petition. I think their initiative is aimed to accelerate the process and ensure that the question about the basic income studies will reach the parliament anyway.”
References and Further Reading
“Vabaerakond analüüsib kodanikupalga plusse ja Eestis kehtestamise võimalikkust,” Eesti Vabaerakond website.
“Free Party to analyze feasibility of implementing basic income,” Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR), July 27, 2017.
Martin Aidnik, “The Estonian economy needs social imagination,” OpenDemocracy, March 20, 2016.
Photo: Tallinn, Estonia, CC BY-SA 2.0 TausP.
by Tyler Prochazka | Aug 2, 2017 | News
Students from across Taiwan have assembled for the first UBI Taiwan Summer Fellowship. The group is studying and researching Universal Basic Income (UBI) this summer, with the goal of producing a national basic income proposal by September.
The summer fellows met for the first time mid July to be trained in communicating basic income with those that have never been introduced to the idea. The fellows have developed a comprehensive strategy to promote and research UBI in Taiwan.
There are over 30 students from universities across Taiwan participating in either communications or research focused tasks.
“The summer seminar is bringing together both theoretical and practical considerations as a way of creating positive public policy for people,” said Julio Linares, a recent graduate of National Chengchi University (NCCU). Linares, originally from Guatemala, is helping to lead the research team and the seminar.
The fellows are producing a UBI white paper, which is scheduled to be completed by late August, to outline how Taiwan could implement UBI nationally. UBI Taiwan is planning to introduce the policy proposals to Taiwanese policymakers. They are also considering how to create a framework for a basic income pilot program experiment in Taiwan.
Within the fellowship are different teams focused on specific projects, such as social media and news production.
Dongyan Wu, also a NCCU student, is leading the news team for the summer fellowship. Wu said he believes UBI has the potential to transform Taiwan.
“If UBI is successful in Taiwan, everything we do, all our jobs and all the activities, will finally have meaning,” Wu said.
Tyler Prochazka, the fellowship director, started preparing the seminars and recruitment four months ago. Fellows were chosen from nearly 100 applicants based on their skill set and interest in understanding UBI.
Toru Yamamori, Cheng Furui, and Sarath Davala are scheduled to give presentations to the fellows in the coming weeks on various topics related to basic income. Enno Schmidt, the Swiss referendum leader, gave a presentation to the fellows last week.
Ping Xu, the coordinator for UBI Taiwan, said the summer fellowship is part of building up “the kind of future we want to see” in Taiwan.
James Davis, a rising senior from Columbia University in New York, flew to Taiwan for two months to help lead the summer seminar and oversee research for UBI Taiwan. Davis is the director of field research, which is producing the pilot program framework.
“UBI Taiwan’s mission is critical for the future of work in Taiwan. I have really enjoyed getting to know the volunteers, learning about their backgrounds, and sharing their passion for helping others,” Davis said.
by Claire Bott | Aug 1, 2017 | News
A new research report from the Northern Policy Institute (NPI), a Canadian think-tank based in Ontario, has put forward an argument that Canada would benefit from a basic income guarantee.
The report is authored by Professor Evelyn Forget of the University of Manitoba, who also holds the post of Director at the Manitoba Research Data Centre. She details a potential system for implementing basic income, as well as examining ways in which it could improve current social provisions, and looking at some potential pitfalls and issues around putting a basic income programme into place.
Forget begins by giving an overview of an experiment which took place in Canada in the 70s, called the Mincome project, which she has researched extensively. This experiment involved providing a guaranteed income for three years to all inhabitants of a small Manitoban town called Dauphin. Results included a significant decrease in both hospitalizations and mental health complaints.
Forget goes on to argue that a guaranteed basic income (called a Basic Income Guarantee, or B.I.G., in the report) is eminently affordable for Canada, once it is taken into account that existing income support programmes could be scaled back or done away with altogether. The system which she describes is one of a means-tested B.I.G., reduced significantly for those in regular, reasonably-paid work, and provided only to those between 18 and 65 (this differs from BIEN’s own definition of basic income).
While she acknowledges a number of issues in implementing this (for example, would houses or cars be taken into account as assets when considering who should receive the B.I.G. payments?), Forget also draws her readers’ attention to potential benefits; for example, children from low income families may do better in school due to reduced family stress, and therefore have less need for special, governmentally funded support. She further states that such secondary benefits, while desirable, should not be considered the primary test of whether a B.I.G. has been effective. Forget argues that “It is sufficient to show that the depth and breadth of poverty are reduced, because that is the fundamental purpose of a B.I.G.”
The report concludes: “Now is the time to address, head-on, the challenges and trade-offs that are necessary to create a universal B.I.G. that can meet the needs of Canadians in the 21st century. The challenges are real, but so too are the costs of doing nothing.”
This is one of a series of research reports which have been put out by the NPI on basic income in recent months, in the context of a three-year B.I.G. pilot project which is already being actioned in a number of areas in Ontario. The pilot project is based on a paper put together by Hugh Segal, a former Canadian Chief of Staff, and currently Master of Massey College, Toronto. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said of the pilot project, “For months, we have been doing the background work to explore the idea of a basic income.”
Evelyn Forget, “Do We Still Need a Basic Income Guarantee in Canada?”, Northern Policy Institute, May 2017
