by Kate McFarland | Nov 6, 2016 | News
In an interview with CNBC on Friday, November 4, famed Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk — founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity — stated that a universal basic income will likely become necessary due to automation.
Musk says, “There’s a pretty good chance we’ll end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation. I’m not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen.”
In recent years, UBI has received a surge of attention from Silicon Valley’s tech industries, where it is often viewed favorably as a way to soften the blow of technological unemployment and to facilitate entrepreneurship. Most famously, perhaps, Y Combinator–the start-up incubator headed by UBI-proponent Sam Altman–is preparing a pilot study in Oakland that will lay the groundwork for a larger scale trial of a basic income. O’Reilly Media CEO Tim O’Reilly and (particularly notable in this context) Tesla Motors software engineer Gerald Huff are among the other members of Silicon Valley’s tech elite who have written in support of UBI.
However, Musk has remained silent about the issue prior to Friday’s interview with CNBC.
Musk has been an outspoken champion of other political causes, particularly the introduction of a carbon tax to combat climate change (a policy that itself enjoys popularity among many UBI supporters who see the tax as a way to fund a social dividend).
Reference
Catherine Clifford (November 4, 2016) “Elon Musk: Robots will take your jobs, government will have to pay your wage” CNBC.
Photo CC BY-ND 2.0 OnInnovation
by Kate McFarland | Nov 5, 2016 | News
Tim Dunlop, a Melbourne-based journalist, blogger, and political philosopher, has published a new book, Why the Future is Workless. In the book, Dunlop argues that we are approaching a postwork future in which many jobs are rendered unnecessary.
A discussion of basic income is central to the book. Indeed, the first non-introductory chapter is devoted to the topic, which Dunlop introduces as a prerequisite to analyzing the ways in which societies can respond to changes in the nature of work. As he states in the introduction (which has been reprinted on Medium), “This chapter is a close look at how basic income would work in practice, about the different forms it could take and, most importantly, about how its implementation would change the way workers and employers relate to each other.”
Dunlop has also written an article for The Guardian, drawing from the book, in which he argues that technology will make many jobs unnecessary or obsolete. Turning briefly to address positive solutions, he states, “The approach we should be taking is not to find ways that we can compete with machines – that is a losing battle – but to find ways in which wealth can be distributed other than through wages. This will almost certainly involve something like a universal basic income.” (And, yes, the link to BIEN’s website was in the original.)
Read More:
Tim Dunlop (2016) Why the Future is Workless, Newsouth Books.
Tim Dunlop (September 19, 2016) “Why The Future Is Workless: Introduction,” Medium.
Tim Dunlop (September 25, 2016) “Humans are going to have the edge over robots where work demands creativity,” The Guardian.
John Tomlinson — a leader of BIG-Australia (BIEN’s Australian affiliate) and co-editor of the book Basic Income in Australia and New Zealand (2016) — has written a review in which he compares Why the Future is Workless to Guy Standing’s new book, The Corruption of Capitalism:
John Tomlinson (October 11, 2016) “The Corruption of Capitalism explains Why the Future is Workless,” On Line opinion.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Image: CC BY-NC 2.0 quisnovus
by Kate McFarland | Nov 4, 2016 | News
The latest step to Ontario’s basic income pilot occurred on Thursday, November 3, 2016, when the Ministry of Community and Social Services released a call for public input on the design and objectives of the study and published a new comprehensive report from Project Adviser Hugh Segal.
In February 2016, the provincial government of Ontario, Canada announced a budgetary commitment to finance a pilot study of a basic income guarantee. In June, the government appointed former senator Hugh Segal — who has been promoting basic income in Canada for more than a decade — as the project’s Special Adviser. (For some of Segal’s past writings on basic income, see here.)
Segal has now released a detailed and comprehensive discussion paper in which he lays out his recommendations for the design and administration of the pilot. The government is soliciting input from the public before it makes its final decision.
This release of this proposal for Ontario’s basic income study closely follows the publication of details about the upcoming pilots in Finland and the Netherlands, as well as the charity GiveDirectly’s study in Kenya.
A Negative Income Tax Model
If the provincial government of Ontario decides to adopt Segal’s newly announced proposal, it will test a basic income guarantee (BIG) — wherein cash payments are disbursed automatically and unconditionally to individuals whose income falls below a certain threshold — as a replacement to its Ontario Works program and Ontario Disability Support Program.
Segal recommends that participants in the pilot be guaranteed a monthly income of at least $1320, or 75 percent of the province’s Low Income Measure, with an additional $500 supplement to those with disabilities.
In Segal’s proposal, the BIG is to be structured as a negative income tax (NIT), in which the amount of the subsidy is tapered off for higher earners, in contrast to a “demogrant” model wherein all participants would receive a fixed monthly payment regardless of other earnings. That is, the government would “top up” the earnings of pilot participants whose incomes fall beneath $1320 (or other level chosen for the basic income guarantee). Those who earn more than $1320 per month would receive smaller benefits or, depending on earnings, none at all.
Eligibility is to extend to all residents of the selected communities between the ages of 18 and 65, regardless of current income. All participants will be guaranteed a minimum income, as per the NIT model summarized above. However, depending on their initial and subsequent earned income, some participants may not receive any payment during the course of the experiment. As Segal’s discussion paper notes, “even though the program is based on a principle of universal access, not all participants will receive symmetric payments or any payment at all.”
Segal offers two reasons for his recommendation that the pilot test a negative income tax rather than a universal demogrant. First, this makes the design unique: no other planned trial of a basic income guarantee will employ the NIT model; thus, outside of Ontario’s pilot, no data on the impact of this specific model will be collected. Second, Segal believes that a demogrant, unlike an NIT, is not realistically affordable in Canada (nor in other developed nations).
Experimental Design
Segal recommends two types of studies:
(1) A randomized control trial, to be conducted in an urban center, in which different treatment groups receive different levels of guaranteed income and/or pay different rates of taxes on additional earned income. Subjects will be randomly sampled from all residents (of at least one year) between the ages of 18 to 65, with participation in the experiment being voluntary. Participants would then be randomly assigned to one of four groups, including a control.
(2) “Saturation sites” in which all members of a community receive the basic income guarantee (and are subject to corresponding changes in the tax schedule). Ideally, according to Segal’s report, “one saturation site would be located in southern Ontario, one in northern Ontario, and one would be chosen and planned in close collaboration with First Nations communities.”
In each case, the study is to last a minimum of three years.
Measured Outcomes
According to the discussion paper, the “core question” that Ontario’s pilot endeavors to answer is, in Segal’s words, “Is there a more humane and efficient way to reduce poverty, a way that better respects the rights of those in poverty to make their own life choices, reduces stigma and growth in bureaucracy, yet produces improved outcomes in terms of work and life prospects?”
In order to answer this question, Segal lays out many variables that he urges researchers to monitor and analyze in the pilot, including the following:
- Administrative costs or savings to the government.
- Health outcomes, as measured by (for example) prescription drug use or number of visits to primary care physicians, emergency departments, and hospitals.
- “Life choices” such as career decisions, education decisions, family decisions, and choices in living arrangements.
- Education outcomes of participants and their children, including completion, attendance, and standardized test scores.
- Work behavior, including employment status, hours worked, number of jobs, and participation in job-search activities. The report mentions participation in the underground economy as another outcome of interest.
- “Food security” status as assessed through the Canadian Community Health Survey and the researchers’ own surveys or interviews.
- Subjects’ “perceptions of their place in society, their capacity to contribute, their social environment’s capacity to protect them” as collected through interviews.
- Interactions between the basic income guarantee and other welfare programs (e.g. the Canada Child Benefit).
- In saturation sites, community-level impacts such as changes in rent and prices of goods and services, crime and incarceration rates, civic participation, and the use of public services.
Thus, the Ontario pilot is likely to examine a much wider and more diverse range of outcomes than the impending basic income pilots in Finland and the Netherlands, which focus more narrowly on assessing the impact of a basic income guarantee on employment.
This difference follows in part from a deliberate decision not merely to reproduce these studies. Segal states Ontario should not duplicate research being conducted elsewhere, for the sake of “maximiz[ing] the diversity of various different data sets generated by such endeavours.”
National Context
Segal recommends that Canada’s federal government “consider partnering with any willing province on any Basic Income pilots now being considered or contemplated.”
As Segal describes in the report (links added), Ontario is not alone in Canada in its interest in pursuing a basic income pilot:
“[T]he federal government introduced an enhanced child benefit in July 2016, with the objective of constructively increasing the income of low and middle-income Canadian families with children. Moreover, the House of Commons Finance Committee recommended in its pre-budget report that the government of Canada move forward with a pilot project on Basic Income.
“In its most recent ministerial mandate letter, the government of Quebec instructed the Minister of Employment and Social Solidarity to modernize income support programs and embrace better ways of reducing poverty, including a Basic Income guarantee. The Quebec Liberal Party Youth Wing, in August 2016, summoned the government to implement a Basic Income guarantee in lieu of the province’s current welfare system. The government of Nova Scotia has initiated a comprehensive social support review looking for better ways to eliminate the welfare wall and to better support the working poor. The mayors of Calgary and Edmonton have welcomed the idea of a Basic Income guarantee and associated pilot projects, as has Alberta’s Minister of Finance. In August 2015, the Government of Saskatchewan Advisory Group on Poverty Reduction also recommended a Basic Income pilot.”
Call for Input
As announced on November 3, 2016, Ontario’s Ministry of Community and Social Services will be conducting consultations to solicit public input on the basic income trial, guided by Segal’s discussion paper. Consultations will run through January 2017.
Those who want to provide input may contribute in one of two ways: attend an in-person meeting (see the schedule here) or share feedback online (until January 31, 2017).
The first stage of the pilot study — selecting the sites, obtaining access to data sources, and selecting and obtaining consent from participants — is slated to commence before the end of March 2017.
More Information
News release from the Ontario government (Ministry of Community and Social Services): “Ontario Seeking Input on Basic Income Pilot”
Discussion paper: “Finding a Better Way: A Basic Income Pilot Project for Ontario” by Hugh Segal.
Thanks to Jenna van Draanen for proofreading a draft of this article.
Cover photo: “Terminally Invisible” CC BY-NC 2.0 Kat Northern Lights Man (taken in Toronto, Ontario).
by Florie Barnhoorn | Nov 2, 2016 | News
A citizens’ initiative for the introduction of a basic income in the Netherlands in 2018 recently handed over a petition containing 58,800 signatures calling for a debate in the Parliament. The signatories are advocates of a guaranteed income of approximately 1000 EUR per month for all adults, plus basic health insurance and an extra payment for children under the age of 18 years. The supporters say that a basic income will allow everyone more freedom to decide whether to work, study, start a company or, for example, take care of elderly family members, instead of being stuck in a hated job to provide for their families. The citizens’ initiative has collected 58,800 signatures, significantly more than the 40,000 needed to place a controversial issue on the agenda of the Parliament.
The paper invitation to sign the petition was spread as a ‘Civil Relief Assessment Notice’, similar to an assessment notice directed to all Dutch taxpayers. According to Johan Luijendijk, one of the initiators of the citizens’ initiative and co-organizer of Basicincome2018, an informal digital platform for sharing information on basic income and the exchange of experiences, the threshold of 40,000 signatures was already met in April: “This happened so fast that we adjusted our ambitions to 100,000. But the growth slowed down, so if we continue at this rate, we will not achieve our goal soon.” He believes that the general public is still unfamiliar with the subject and that the relatively small circle of proponents has been reached: “I suppose that many people still have ’cold feet’ to endorse the rather radical idea of a unconditional basic income”, he says. Hence, it was decided to submit the initiative this week.
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Civil Relief Assessment Notice
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After the presentation of the petition to Members of Parliament, the signatures will be counted and validated. The whole process can be completed in about a month, according to RTL. It is also checked whether this is a topic parliament hasn’t dealt with recently. Last September, members of the Second Chamber of Parliament (House of Representatives) discussed with the Minister for Social Affairs and Employment, Lodewijk Asscher (Partij van de Arbeid / PvdA / Labour Party) a memorandum initiated by Norbert Klein, leader of the Vrijzinnige Partij (Cultural Liberal Party) wherein he advocates the introduction of a basic income. However, the MPs have postponed the voting procedure, so there is a chance that Parliament is obliged to consider the current initiative. If a majority is in favor of the proposal, the responsible minister will be asked to change his or her policy towards a basic income.
At present, the basic income movement has to transfer its focus to the upcoming elections for new members of the House of Representatives in March 2017. Political parties are now making their programmes. So far, only a few of them (Party for the Animals with 2 seats in Parliament; Cultural Liberal Party with 1 seat; Pirate Party no seats) have explicitly included a guaranteed income in their programmes for the next four year. Intensive debates will take place with GroenLinks (GreenLeft), PvdA (Labour Party), D66 (Democrats 66), SP (Socialist Party) and the minority of proponents in VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) and CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal) in order to persuade these political parties to adopt an unconditional basic income as an indispensable part of their political ambitions (according to an email communication with Alexander de Roo, the chairman of the Dutch branch of BIEN). “We are also planning to intensify our lobby towards entrepreneurs. We want them to speak openly about the benefits and necessity of the introduction of a universal basic income.”
Thanks to Ali Özgür Abalı for reviewing a draft of this article.
Credit Picture ‘Public debate on basic income‘ CC Zeptonn
Credit Pictures’ Civil Relief Assessment Notice‘ Verlichtingsdienst
by Kate McFarland | Nov 1, 2016 | News
On October 4, The New York Times published a symposium called “Easing the Pain of Automation”, which raised the issue of universal basic income among other strategies for managing the prospect of technological unemployment.
Contributors included Arun Sundararajan (New York University), Dean Baker (Center for Economic Policy Research), Maya Eden (World Bank), Andy Stern (former President of the Service Employees International Union), Jerry Kaplan (author of Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know), and Andrew McAfee (MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy).
Stern, whose short article is titled “A Universal Basic Income Would Insure Against Job Loss”, argues that the United States should institute a universal basic income now as “insurance against the difficult transition to new jobs or future job losses” (the main thesis of his recent book Raising the Floor).
Other contributors also bring up UBI in passing.
Sundararajan, for instance, mentions UBI as a possible part of a package of policies designed to ensure that the benefits of automation are shared (including also, for example “investments in physical and social infrastructure”):
Fashioning and funding a next-generation social contract, perhaps as a new partnership between the government, the individual and the institution, or maybe even as a universal basic income, may be instrumental in preventing modern-day versions of the Luddite rebellions that accompanied the Industrial Revolution.
Meanwhile, McAfee thinks that our present strategy should be to “give the economy every possible chance to create new types of good jobs”. He sees UBI a possible long-range solution–although one not yet in demand:
We might someday have a super automated, labor-light economy that requires large-scale wealth redistribution via something like a universal basic income. But it’s not here yet, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s too much work to do right now.
Read the full symposium:
“Easing the Pain of Automation” (October 4, 2016) The New York Times.
Reviewed by Ali Özgür Abalı
Photo CC BY-SA 2.0 Matthew Hurst
