by BIEN | Mar 3, 2018 | News
Michael Tubbs. Credit to: Wikipedia.
Forbes published its “30 Under 30 in Law & Policy” and notes that these winners come from across the political spectrum. They have been associated with President Trump, the Democratic Party, and emerge from law schools and professional organizations.
Hundreds of online nominations came in for the listing. The nominations were judged by the CEO of Heritage Action for America Mike Needham, Harvard Law’s Laurence Tribe, FiscalNote’s Co-Founder Timothy Hwang, and the Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs at 3M.
Winners of this year’s 30 under 30 were people such as the co-founder of the National Trans Bar Association Alexander Chen, the co-founder of Upsolve Rohan Pavuluri, a top policy advisor for Medicare and Medicaid Services Jeet Guram, and numerous others.
One individual, Michael Tubbs, who is 27-years-old, is the mayor of Stockton, California was dubbed as “ambitious” in “an attempt to experiment with social policy.” In order to reduce the violent crime rate, Tubbs wants to replicate, at the time of the listing, the program from the Bay Area. The initiative “pays monthly stipends to young men determined to be likely to engage in gun violence to stay out of trouble, as well as provide mentoring, internships and travel opportunities.” Tubbs and the Stockton municipality had already been highlighted for the efforts concerning demonstrating basic income, which were intended to start effectively at the beginning of 2018.
Basic Income News has been reporting on the Bay Area initiatives in several news articles. You can find more information elsewhere (note 1).
More information at:
Avik Roy, “Meet The 30 Under 30 Activists, Washington Insiders And Legal Entrepreneurs Shaping U.S. Law And Policy Now”, Forbes, November 14th 2017
Sara Bizarro, “UNITED STATES: Stockton, California plans a Basic Income Demonstration”, Basic Income News, November 21st 2017
Note 1 – reference#1, reference#2, reference#3, reference#4, reference#5, and reference#6.
by Jurgen De Wispelaere | Feb 16, 2018 | News
ESPAnet is the leading comparative social policy conference in Europe. Jurgen De Wispelaere (Bath University) and Heikki Hiilamo (Helsinki University) are coordinating a stream on “The Political Economy of Basic Income: Opportunities, Constraints, Trajectories” for its upcoming conference on transformations of European welfare systems in Vilnius (Lithuania), on the 30th of August – 1st September 2018. The submission of papers ends on the 19th of March 2018.
The idea of granting each (adult) citizen an unconditional basic income, independent of means test or work requirement, has made major strides in recent policy debates across Europe. Several countries in Europe and North-America are experimenting with or planning basic income-inspired trials, while in other jurisdictions basic income is considered at the highest level of policy-making.
Mainstream policy actors embracing a proposal that until very recent was considered to be part of a radically utopian fringe raises a number of policy questions, which we expect the proposed abstracts to cover. What explains the current interest in the basic income proposal? Are we experiencing a genuine window of opportunity firmly embedding basic income into the policy process in mature welfare states, or are we instead witnessing a fad that is likely to fade when feasibility constraints are taken into account? What are the key policy determinants for understanding the feasibility and stability of basic income against the background of established institutions and policy configurations, as well as recent developments in European welfare states? Which social, economic and political factors affect the building of robust basic income constituencies and a stable political coalition across stakeholder groups and political actors? What challenges need to be overcome and which trajectories are most suited to pilot and/or institute a basic income? How must basic income models be adapted to accommodate political and institutional constraints? Does systematic variation in how different welfare regimes respond to political challenges explain the variation in basic income models under consideration?
This stream aims to advance the policy debate around basic income by critically examining these and related questions in the context of European welfare states. Our aim is to put the policy research into basic income on a firm theoretical and empirical footing, by selecting contributions that employ insights from recent welfare state and political economy research to examine aspects of basic income design and implementation. We are particularly interested in contributions that investigate novel aspects of and/or adopt novel methodologies in examining the political economy of basic income. We will also give priority to contributions that embrace a distinctively comparative focus to draw out the diversity of opportunities, constraints and trajectories in the basic income debate across European welfare states.
by Andre Coelho | Feb 12, 2018 | News, Research
Ville-Veikko Pulkka
Although an experiment on basic income is being performed in Finland at the moment (being expected to end by January 2019), this does not say much about what Finns think about it, or about basic income in general. According to recent research developed by Ville-Veikko Pulkka, a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, not only does survey methodology deeply affect people’s responses, but current beliefs and views of society by Finnish citizens are also such that “there is no need for a paradigm shift”.
Ville-Veikko and his colleague Professor Heikki Hiilamo ran another survey in late 2017, arguing that other surveys on basic income in Finland such as Center party’s think tank e2 in 2015, Finnish Social Insurance Institution (Kela) in 2015, and Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA in 2017 skewed results due to different ways of defining and framing basic income, with support ranging from 39 up to 79%. These researchers view their survey as “a more realistic view on basic income’s support in Finland”, having it based on the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) definition. They also explicitly referred the basic income net level of 560 €/month, which is around as much as many basic social benefits in Finland.
Ville-Veikko and Professor Hiilamo have found that the partial basic income of 560 €/month currently being tested in Finland is actually the most supported one among several basic income options (partial(1) with more or less than 560 €/month, full(1) with 1000 or 1500 €/month), with 51% of respondents saying it is a “good idea” (20% being undecided and 21% firmly considering it a bad idea). Significantly, of the surveyed income schemes, the most supported one was “participation income” (78% of supporters) which is not a basic income by definition.
This survey also showed that the younger the respondents (around 1000 in total), the more support the basic income proposal (the one cited above) receives – 72% under 24 years of age, down to 42% for people over 65. Occupation also seems to have a strong influence, with students showing 69% of support for basic income and entrepreneurs only 38%. For relatively obvious reasons, the unemployed and part-time employed were also more in support of the idea (68 and 61% respectively).
The new survey by Ville-Veikko and Professor Hiilamo comes at a time when it becomes clear that the Finnish government’s path is not to break from “the activation policies implemented since the 1990s”. This has been shown through the recent implementation of a tighter work activation model, aimed at the unemployed, which brings more conditionality and sanctions into the system. This is, apparently, contrary to the basic income spirit of unconditionality and, on top of that, the government is already considering tightening up unemployment benefits even further.
From the referred survey and recent Finnish government moves toward activation policies, it seems clear that running an experiment on basic income does not equate to leading the way towards the implementation of this policy. According to Ville-Veikko, basic income in Finland is likely to receive more support if only unemployment and work precarity rises significantly in the near future, which is uncertain even given the latest studies on the subject. It also becomes clear that the public remains polarized regarding social policies for the future: on the one hand there is moderate support for basic income, and on the other hand there is clear support for activation measures such as the “participation income”.
Notes:
1 – here, “partial” refers to receiving the stipend and maintaining eligibility for housing allowance and earnings-related benefits, and “full” refers to losing eligibility to those same benefits.
More information at:
Kate McFarland, “FINLAND: First Results from Pilot Study? Not Exactly”, Basic Income News, May 10th 2017
“New model to activate unemployed comes into effect amid rising criticism”, YLE, 26th December 2017
“Finnish government plan for jobless: Apply for work weekly – or lose benefits”, YLE, 10th January 2018
Micah Kaats, “International: McKinsey report identifies basic income as a potential response to automation”, Basic Income News, 16th January 2018
by Guest Contributor | Feb 7, 2018 | Opinion
Looking back to the past, looking forward to the way ahead
The 6th General Assembly (GA) of Basic Income Korea Network (BIKN) was held in Seoul last Saturday. The GA, the highest decision-making body, is held every January, in which we examine the activities of last year and decide what activities we should carry out in the following year.
2017 was a watershed year for BIKN as well as for the politics in Korea. Popular resistance to the abuse of power and corruption of the former president and her coterie led to a snap presidential election in which Mr. Moon from the Democratic Party won. We have the most democratic government in a decade.
Grievances about social and economic inequality and insecurity have flowed under the popular resistance, although it was certainly an expression of the aspiration for democracy. Under these circumstances, interest and support for the basic income idea could be strengthened and become more prolific prolific. One of the more influential candidates presented basic income policy as an electoral promise.
BIKN had two main achievements in the turbulent year of 2017. Above all, the basic income agenda entered into the center of the public sphere. During this period, BIKN has been recognized as a prestigious institution around the discussion of BI. Secondly, we saw the quantitative growth of our organization, including an increase in individual and group membership, as well as the growth of local networks (chapter of BIKN). Now we have around 500 individual members, seven group members and six local networks.
Upon the those self-assessments, BIKN decided the following activities for the next year: we will spread understanding of the basic income concept through online basic income courses; we will make efforts to form basic income coalitions during the local elections this June in order to implement basic income policy; we will participate in the project to design experimental models for basic income which the government will commission this year (see another article); we will change BIKN into a corporation in order to secure institutional status.
We expect this year will be another watershed to realize the basic income idea.
Hyosang Ahn Executive Director of BIKN
by Andre Coelho | Feb 1, 2018 | News
The London School of Economics (LSE) will host a Basic Income day event on Tuesday, 20th of February 2018.
This event will join several experts to discuss political feasibility, funding mechanisms and costing of basic income, in the morning session. On the afternoon, a roundtable will take place, featuring representatives of several basic income pilot projects and experiments worldwide. Among these pilot projects, findings from the Namibia, India and Kenya cases will be discussed, as well as analysis from the US and Canadian experiments in the 1970s. Other initiatives, ongoing or in preparation, will also be referred, such as in the Netherlands and Scotland.
A wide range of academics, researchers, activists and officials (namely from the United Nations Development Programme) will be present, such as Hartley Dean, Anne Miller, Sarath Davala, Evelyn Forget, Olli Kangas and Michael Cooke, to name a few.
Information and registration can be accessed at the event’s webpage.
More information at:
Citizen’s Income Trust Newsletter, January 2018
