by Karl Widerquist | Jun 8, 2013 | Research
Submissions are invited for a special issue of the Journal of Evolution and Technology on the topic of the impending global decline of employment due to automation, disintermediation and other effects of emerging technologies, and the need for reform and expansion of state income support such as a universal basic income guarantee (BIG). Papers questioning the premises of technological unemployment or the desirability of a BIG are also welcome.
Guest editor: James J. Hughes, Ph.D., Public Policy Studies, Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut james.hughes@trincoll.edu
Expected publication: Winter/Spring 2014
Submission deadline: Oct 1, 2013
Notification of acceptance/rejection: Jan 1, 2014
Final revision deadline: Feb 1, 2014
Publication: Winter/Spring 2014
Click for more information: https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/jetcfptuBIG.
Or contact the guest editor: James J. Hughes <james.hughes@trincoll.edu>
by Yannick Vanderborght | Nov 13, 2012 | News
This event is presented as a two-hour meeting with brief lectures, movie clips, and open discussion about basic income as an alternative to today’s “activation industry”, and its “discrimination of the sick and the unemployed”. The event was organized by the Malmö branches of SALO (Sveriges anställningslösas landsorganisation), and the basic income group (Basinkomstgruppen) of Malmo. For more information (in Swedish) about this and future BI events in Sweden, see:
https://www.facebook.com/events/389060534496761/?fref=ts
Website of BI network in Sweden: https://basinkomst.nu/
Website of SALO: https://www.anstallningslos.se/
by Yannick Vanderborght | Jun 13, 2012 | News
In a column for the Canadian daily newspaper National Post (June 10, 2012), long-time basic income advocate and Conservative Senator from Ontario Hugh Segal writes:
“(…) It is reasonable to have an employment insurance system, funded by contributions from Canadian workers, that provides a financial bridge to those who have lost their jobs and cannot immediately find a replacement. When mildly tightening the eligibility to those who really cannot find work is controversial, however, this shows that EI stands for Extra Income, not Employment Insurance. That the income may be vital to communities, regions and lifestyles tied to seasonal jobs is not in question. But such a system is no longer insurance. It is a basic income floor unrelated to whether or when work was available.
(…) Except for Newfoundland and Labrador, all provinces pay welfare rates well beneath the poverty line, helping to feed the costly pathologies of poverty that fill our hospitals, our homeless shelters, our prisons and the tragedies of family violence and substance abuse. A frank discussion about income security, poverty and the kind of income floor that could obviate other programs that are unbalanced, expensive to operate, wasteful and disconnected from reality, is long overdue.”
Full opinion piece is at:
by Yannick Vanderborght | Nov 14, 2010 | Research
FITZROY, Felix & JIN, Jim (2010), ‘Efficient Redistribution: Comparing Basic Income with Unemployment Benefits’, Discussion Paper No. 5236, October 2010, Bonn (DE): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), iza@iza.org, paper available at https://ftp.iza.org/dp5236.pdf
The authors compare two systems of income redistribution: unemployment benefits (UB) and basic income (BI). First, for a simple utility function, with both intensive and extensive margins, the unemployed are likely better off with pure BI than pure UB, regardless of labour supply elasticity and wage distribution. Then the authors allow a general utility function and ignore intensive margins. For given unemployment, lowering UB and raising BI always benefits the unemployed, raises utilitarian welfare and benefits a poor majority. Reducing unemployment and UB simultaneously can benefit a majority of the employed as well as all unemployed, again for any wage distribution. In other words, the authors show that the majority of the working population gains from switching from unemployment benefits to a universal basic income, with given unemployment and essentially any wage distribution, although the tax rate will increase.
by Peter Knight | Jun 29, 2024 | News
“MGI was founded in June 2020 with 11 members. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), which was announced in 2017 and implemented in 2019, had proven Mayor Michael Tubbs’s assumption that low-income residents would use the money on basic necessities, and independent research showed that full-time employment increased, mental and physical health improved, and more people were able to save enough money to afford life’s unforeseen emergencies. Mayor Melvin Carter of Saint Paul, MGI’s Co-Chair, joined Mayor Tubbs and nine other mayors to create MGI and begin advocating for guaranteed income pilots in their cities.
In just four years, we’ve grown to 160 mayors, with members in almost every state. Building off of that momentum, we launched Counties for a Guaranteed Income (CGI) in February 2023 and we’ve doubled the number of county elected officials who are part of the movement since then. All together, we’ve supported 60+ pilots, delivering $300 million in direct, unconditional relief to everyday Americans.”
To read the full MGI/CGI June Newsletter, click here.
