by Karl Widerquist | Feb 28, 2014 | Research
SUMMARY: Rob Rainer is the founder and director of The BIG Push campaign of Basic Income Canada Network. Kelly Ernst is the Chair of the Board of Basic Income Canada Network. In this article they argue that what is most needed now in Canada is a basic income guarantee for working-age adults.
Rob Rainer and Kelly Ernst, “How can we not afford a ‘basic annual income’?” the Toronto Star, Feb 27 2014
"Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau votes during the party's biennial convention in Montreal on Feb. 23, 2014. Delegates endorsed the principle of a basic annual income." -Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS via the Toronto Star
by Craig Axford | Feb 28, 2014 | Research
Image by Dave Ron
[Craig Axford]
Canada’s 1970s experiment with a basic income guarantee in a small town in Manitoba is revisited in this article. Though the Mincome pilot program came to an end in 1978 without the impacts of the program receiving much analysis, that changed when Evelyn Forget, professor of health sciences at the University of Manitoba, gained access to the data in 2009.
Vivian Belik, “A Town Without Poverty?”, The Dominion, September 5, 2011
by Karl Widerquist | Feb 18, 2014 | Research
Hugh Segal
Hugh Segal, author of The Right Balance: Canada’s Conservative Tradition (Douglas and McIntyre, 2011), is an Ontario senator and former president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy.
Hugh Segal, “Scrapping Welfare: The case for guaranteeing all Canadians an income above the poverty line,” Literary review of Canada, December 2012.
by Josh Martin | Feb 4, 2014 | Research
[Josh Martin]
Watson voices his take on the guaranteed income by citing a recent study from Laval University that evaluated the labor market effects of multiple economic proposals such as a guarantee of 100% of Statistics Canada’s “Market-basket Measure” of low income. Under this guaranteed income, this study suggests that labor market participation would significantly drop (22% for single men, 19% for single women) and that those in poverty would actually have less income than they do under the current welfare system.
William Watson, “Guaranteed income guarantees poverty,” Financial Post, January 24, 2014.
There are lots of other people who work at not very interesting jobs for not very much money. If the government guaranteed them an income, it’s possible they’d continue to grind away without change. But it’s also possible they’d at least think about cutting back on the drudgery of work and “consuming more leisure,” as we economists say. (Fotolia)
by Karl Widerquist | Feb 4, 2014 | Research
SUMMARY: In this 13-page report, Ottawa-based social policy analyst, basic income expert and The BIG Push campaign executive team member Chandra Pasma summarizes a number of basic income and basic income-like programs and pilots in Canada, the United States and overseas. The report provides evidence of basic income’s promise as a transformational public policy whose time has come. Click on the link at right to access the report in PDF format.
Chandra Pasma, “Basic Income Programs and Pilots,” the BIG Push Campaign, February 3, 2014.
