by Kate McFarland | Aug 29, 2017 | Research
Ville-Veikko Pulkka, a public policy researcher and doctoral candidate at the University of Helsinki, has published his paper “A free lunch with robots – can a basic income stabilise the digital economy?” in European Review of Labour and Research.
Pulkka was previously employed as part of the research team at Kela, the Finnish Social Insurance Institution, responsible for the design and preparation of the nation’s two-year experiment replacing conditional unemployment benefits with an unconditional basic income.
The Finnish experiment has been the topic of most of his previous published work and presentations related to basic income (including presentations at conferences in Switzerland, Poland, Finland, and Ireland).
Pulkka’s research at the University of Helsinki, including his doctoral dissertation, centers on the implications of the digital economy for labor and public policy.
“A free lunch with robots,” his latest publication on basic income, moves away from focus on the Finnish experiment to explore the latter topic in more general terms:
The discussion on the possible implications of the digital economy for labour continues unabated. An essential dimension of the discussion is the widely shared view that a basic income could guarantee sufficient purchasing power for unemployed, underemployed and precarious workers should technological unemployment and labour market insecurity increase. A budget-neutral basic income has serious limitations as an economic stabilisation grant, but if financing proposals are revised, these limitations can be tackled. Even though guaranteeing sufficient purchasing power for unemployed, underemployed and precarious workers does not necessarily require an unconditional universal benefit, it seems clear that traditional activation based on strict means-testing and obligations will not be a strategy flexible enough to guarantee sufficient consumer demand in fluctuating labour markets. An economically sustainable solution might be to reduce means-testing gradually and to study carefully the effects.
The full article is available behind a paywall here.
Reviewed by Russell Ingram.
Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 Helen Taylor
by Florie Barnhoorn | Aug 28, 2017 | News
As the social assistance experiments in several Dutch municipalities will begin this fall, Studium Generale of Utrecht University has organized an event dedicated to ‘Free Money‘.
Studium Generale is a university’s public platform for knowledge sharing and reflection by organizing lectures, seminars and other activities aimed at students and the general public. Entrance is always free and accessible without reservation.
In the Netherlands, municipalities are responsible for the provision of tailor-made benefits to anyone who has insufficient means to support him or herself, and for achieving the purpose of the Participation Act, that is, making recipients independent from social assistance. Several municipalities are conducting two-year experiments, in the context of which they have the option of implementing social assistance regulations in an alternative way.
Each experiment will include at least three treatment groups, who are subjected to various regimes, and a control group. The restrictiveness of obligations between the groups will vary, from a group which has fewer obligations imposed on it to a group which is even more intensively supervised. In addition, participants in a third treatment group may retain a limited amount of their income from work on top of their payments. See the links at the bottom of this article for more details.
Researchers of Utrecht University, one of the four universities that will supervise the experiments scientifically, have been critical about the design of the pilots because of its limited scope and complicated nature.
The experiments, as they are proposed now, raise a number of questions, such as: why don’t we all give a basic income? Is it too expensive, or are there any other objections?
Rutger Bregman (The Correspondent) and Professor Ingrid Robeyns (political philosopher and economist at Utrecht University) will address these issues during the “Free Money” event on October 25, 2017.
Rutger Bregman has written several books on ‘Free Money’ — for instance, Utopia for Realists — and was one of the speakers at TED2017 in Vancouver last April.
Ingrid Robeyns holds the chair in Ethics of Institutions. In her teaching she focuses on normative and applied ethics and (normative) political philosophy. She has been teaching about justice theories and economic ethics at the masters level in recent years. In her own research, Robeyns addresses a number of normative issues related to demography, gender, family, and institutional economy. Robeyns writes for the English-language group blog Crooked Timber and occasionally on her own site Buiten Categorie. She will also be one of the speakers during BIEN’s 17th Congress next September in Portugal.
The event will take place on October 25, 2017. The language is Dutch. Those interested are invited to join the discussion on Facebook event. For more details, see here.
Previous information on social assistance experiments in The Netherlands:
Florie Barnhoorn, “The Netherlands: Amsterdam on collision course over social assistance experiments” (August 5, 2017).
Florie Barnhoorn, “The Netherlands: All that’s left is the action. Where do we stand with the experiments?” (June 2, 2017).
Kate McFarland, “The Netherlands: Social Assistance Experiments Under Review” (May 9, 2017).
Florie Barnhoorn, “The Netherlands: Design of BI Experiments Proposed” (October 26, 2016).
Credit Picture Flickr.com CC Ealasaid.
Thanks to Kate McFarland for reviewing this article.
by Patrick Hoare | Aug 23, 2017 | News
Lodewijk Asscher and Jetta Klijnsma (composition). Credit to: Wikipedia.
Lodewijk Asscher and Jetta Klijnsma, the Minister and the Secretary, respectively, for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment in the Netherlands, have dismissed the idea that a Basic Income could form part of a solution to deal with the increasing levels of unemployment amongst older people in the country.
Answering questions on the Radar Extra documentary ‘Chance of Work: 3 percent’, which investigated the high rates of unemployment amongst the over 55s and their difficulty in returning to the world of work, the ministers accepted that the unemployment rate was too high, but rejected the notion that an older unemployed person had only a 3 percent chance of returning to work. They claimed instead that “the chance of finding work is significantly greater… and will increase further with an improving economy and additional government measures”, adding further that, according to a paper published by the UWV (Employee Insurance Agency) in May 2017, 35 percent of those receiving unemployment benefit over the age of 55 return to work within a year.
When it was suggested by the interviewers that a Basic Income might allow the older unemployed to contribute to society in a different way, the ministers stated that “unconditional basic income is not a realistic or economically viable option”, reasoning that “regardless of the cost, as basic income increases so labour supply decreases, supplementing a low wage economy”. They also explained that Basic Income did not fit with the party’s political ambitions, which are built around a focus on “increasing employment” and a “commitment to participation”, the result of which, they believe, will offer people “a social network, self-confidence and opportunities for development”.
The extent to which these comments will be concerning for Basic Income proponents is unclear, however, given the heavy losses the Labour Party suffered in the March 2017 elections, which saw support plummet from 38 to just 9 seats, seventh place in the final standings. Though a government has yet to form, the prospect of the Labour Party participating in a coalition, therefore, seems remote. In addition, Jetta Klijnsma, the likely outgoing Secretary for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, has recently authorized for 5 municipalities to carry out Basic Income experiments. The Radar Extra petition to experiment with Basic Income in over 55s has also already been signed by over 70,000 people.
A full transcript of the Radar Extra interview with the two ministers can be found here.
More information at:
In Dutch:
Menno de Vries, “WW’ers vaker aan het werk [Unemployed more often at work]”, May 2017
“Petitie basisinkomen 55-plussers [Basic Income petition for people older than 55 years old]”, Radar, 2017
In English:
“VVD wins 33 seats but coalition partner Labour is hammered”, DutchNews.nl, 16th March 2017
Kate McFarland, “THE NETHERLANDS: Government authorizes social assistance experiments in first five municipalities”, Basic Income News, 11th July 2017
Pedro Alves, “Netherlands: Basic Income petition in the Netherlands for people over 55 years old was signed more than 50000 times”, Basic Income News, 6th July 2017
by Michael Keith | Aug 20, 2017 | News
In a recent live interview, televised online and hosted by KCET’s Town Hall, Chris Hughes and Natalie Foster answered questions from viewers about Universal Basic Income. Chris Hughes is the co-founder of Facebook, and Natalie Foster is an expert on technology and work at the Aspen Institute.
When asked who would be eligible for UBI, Natalie Foster explained that everyone qualifies, and that a UBI should be truly universal. She described a program designed to help everyone, with no one left out.
Chris Hughes fielded questions concerning the funding of UBI, and stressed that starting with low monthly incomes would make the program more affordable and easier to implement.
Chris Hughes and Natalie Foster are both co-directors of The Economic Security Project, a two-year program that raised $10 million dollars in funding, which supports exploration and experimentation related to basic income.
by Claire Bott | Aug 19, 2017 | News
The Futurism blog, which describes itself as reporting on “the breakthrough technologies and scientific discoveries that will shape humanity’s future”, has published a post on basic income as a response to increasing automation of the workplace.
Although universal basic income (UBI) is neither a technology nor a scientific discovery, Futurism’s FAQ page lists UBI as one of the topics that it is “particularly interested in.”
The article sets out the nature of basic income, explores arguments for and against it, lists a number of recent and upcoming experiments, and provides quotes from a number of supporters of UBI throughout history. It is written by Luke Kingma, Futurism’s Head of Creative and a former copywriter for companies such as Hasbro, Toyota and Warner Brothers.
Futurism has appeared in a list of top futurist blogs on Quora, a popular question-and-answer site. It states that it has approximately 200,000 subscribers to its regular newsletter.
More information at:
Luke Kingma, “Universal Basic Income: The Answer to Automation?,” Futurism, 22th April 2016
