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
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.
A systematic review has been published that looks at the effects of cash transfers on social determinants of health and health inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Researchers considered both quantitative (both experimental and quasi-experimental) and qualitative studies to be included in the review. To be eligible for inclusion quantitative studies needed: to be conducted in a population of people in sub-Saharan Africa; to investigate the effect of conditional or unconditional cash transfers when compared with other cash transfers, or no cash transfers; report at least one of the prespecified socio-economic outcomes. Qualitative studies that looked at barriers and facilitators to a successful cash transfer intervention were included. Further details of the review methods can be found in the review protocol.
Fifty-three studies were included: 3 randomised controlled trials (RCTs), 22 cluster-RCTs, 8 quasi-experimental studies and 20 qualitative studies. The studies were conducted in 14 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the diversity of populations and outcomes reported, the researchers did not conduct meta-analysis, instead opting for a narrative synthesis following the approach recommended by Popay et al. (2006). For the qualitative studies, thematic synthesis was carried out to combine the data, following the Thomas and Harden (2008) approach.
The review found that cash transfers can be effective in tackling structural determinants of health such as poverty, education, household resilience, child labour, social capital, civic participation, and birth registration. The review further reported an impact on intermediate determinants including material circumstances (e.g. nutrition, savings), psychosocial circumstances (e.g. self-esteem, reduced stress and anxiety), sexual risk behaviours among adolescents and adolescent empowerment. For this analysis the researchers lumped together unconditional and conditional cash transfer interventions when compared to a control group who did not receive any cash transfers.
Little evidence was reported in the review that compared unconditional and conditional cash transfers. Three studies found that conditional cash transfers were more effective than unconditional cash transfers in increasing school attendance (Baird et al 2011, Robertson et al 2012, Akresh et al 2013, 2016). On the other hand, one study in Malawi found significantly reduced psychological distress among adolescent schoolgirls who received unconditional cash transfers compared to conditional cash transfers (Baird et al. 2013).
The letter from the Mayors of Brantford, Hamilton, Kawartha Lakes and Thunder Bay follows the early end of the pilot, wich was announced on July 31st by the new center right government of the Ontario province. It was and abrupt end, just three months after the pilot program was fully subscribed, following its announcement by the previous government in April 2017.
For the pilot, the province had enrolled 6,000 people, 4,000 to actually receive the payments, the others to act as a control group. In order to be selected for the pilot, the requisites were: being between the ages of 18 and 64, and living on a low income, defined as under $34,000 per year for singles and $48,000 for couples. Participants were to receive, under a tax credit model, $16,989 per year for a single person, less 50% of any earned income, or $24,027 per year for a couple, less 50% of any earned income.
The communities of Brantford, Hamilton, Kawartha Lakes and Thunder bay were among those to be chosen as the sites for the pilot test, and Ontario’s pilot was at the center of a diffused international interest for the concept of basic income, with delegations from the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and the Unites states visiting the communities in order to observe and learn from the experience. “We believe the results of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot would have provided crucial information that could enable not just the Ontario Government, but other jurisdictions around the country to determine the efficacy of such a program on a larger scale”, the mayors write.
The end of the project was justified by the minister of Community Social Services (CSS) because it supposedly provided a disincentive to work, ignoring that two thirds of pilot participants are currently working (some with part-time jobs), but nonetheless interested in contributing to the community and to upgrade their professional skills, the letter says.
The fallout from the Ontario government’s cancellation of the pilot is twofold, on the one hand it is detrimental to participants, and on the other one it is a step back in the research for a better, more comprehensive way, to assist citizens.
The pilot was in the first of the three scheduled years of duration, and its findings and level of success could not be determined appropriately, although many participants could already identify positive changes in their lives as a result of it. These reported having used the money to stabilize their housing, improve their health through better dieting and checking for opportunities to specialize themselves, going back to school and enhance their level of skills. The letter continues by saying that many participants reported an amelioration of their well-being and the regaining of confidence, self-esteem and dignity, as they become able to afford housing and improve their intake of healthy food. Futhermore, as a consequence of being able to afford the time for civic activities and volunteering, these people were becoming active members of their community.
The decision to stop the program is harmful the participants, as they made financial decisions having in mind the commitment of the Ontario government to supply them with a stable income over the next years. They were elected among the most vulnerable members of their communities and, once the pilot started, many incurred in expenses which are now irrecoverable. Planning ahead for the following three years period, some moved to safer rental accommodations, finding themselves locked in tenancy agreements they cannot afford, while others paid up-front to go back to school or to enhance their skills, and found themselves indebted.
In the letter, the mayors of the cities of Brantford, Hamilton, Kawartha Lakes and Thunder Bay say that they fear that many of the participant will “inevitably fall into situations of homelessness and significant financial distress” without any fault of their own, and those struggling with mental health will now need additional support.
The mayors thus request that the federal government assumes oversight over the Ontario Basic Income project for the following two years, in order to complete it. They provide three reasons in support for their request. Firstly, the pilot infrastructure has already been built, with many of the up-front costs having been paid, the participants chosen and a project staff in place with given timelines and an evaluation team at work. Secondly, information gathered through the pilot, which is the greatest such test in the world and the first in Canada since Mincome in the seventies (the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment, conducted between 1974 and 1979), would benefit the Federal Government, providing a bonanza of valuable data. And thirdly, one third of the total cost of the project, $50 million, has already been spent. There is no hope of recovering that amount, which considering the negative fallout produced by the premature cancellation of the pilot, is an expense that would end up only creating distress in the communities which were taking part in the experiment.
“Minister, when the program was launched, you said that you would be watching it closely and looked forward to seeing the results – as did we. Federal oversight of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot project would be the best option to revive the critical information that will be generated, protect pilot participants from crisis who entered into the program in good faith and ensure the funds that have already been spent on this program are not wasted.”
The plenary sessions of the BIEN Congress 2018 are now available to view, here (all).
Individually, the recordings can also be watched in the following embedded links.
Philip Alston, “Should We Frame Basic Income as a Human Right?”
Louise Haagh, “The Ethics and Economics of Basic Income Revisited”
Lena Lavinas, “Can Basic Income Resist the Financialization Logic?”
Evelyn Forget, “The Basic Income Path to a Healthier Society”
Roundtable Plenary on basic income experiments with Jamie Cooke, Sarath Davala, Evelyn Forget, Loek Groot and Olli Kangas, moderated by Philippe Van Parijs
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
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.
