by Kate McFarland | Jan 27, 2017 | News
A cross-party committee of the Scottish Parliament will hold a committee meeting on basic income on March 9, which will be broadcast live on television.
Scotland’s basic income movement has recently enjoyed time in the media spotlight due to the planning of pilot studies in the city of Glasgow and council area of Fife (see, for example, articles in The Guardian by Libby Brooks and Kevin McKenna). While these efforts are being pursued by the respective regional councils, the country’s legislature is also investigating the possibility of a basic income for all of Scotland.
On March 9, 2017, the Social Security Committee of the Scottish Parliament will convene a meeting at which a panel of experts is to present evidence concerning the feasibility of a basic income. The cross-party committee intends to investigate what level of basic income would be sufficient, how the program could be funded, and whether it could be implemented in Scotland given the current devolution of powers in the UK.
Sandra White, MSP from the Scottish National Party (SNP), is the Convener of the Social Security Committee. Explaining the importance of the session on basic income, she says, “We all know the current benefits system is riddled with complexity, and on the face of it the concept of a universal income for everyone is an interesting alternative. However, whilst there is much talk at the moment of the benefits of a citizen’s income, this Committee wants to investigate if the principle can work in practice. Whilst we all want a system that is fairer and looks after those most in need, it’s clear that the implementation of such a concept is far from straightforward.”
The SNP, Scotland’s largest political party, passed a motion endorsing basic income at its conference in March 2016.
The website of the Scottish Parliament notes five experts will address the committee, all of whom have previously written on basic income proposals for Scotland or the UK (see background reading below):
• Donald Hirsch (Professor and Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University)
• Siobhan Mathers (Reform Scotland Advisory Board)
• Annie Miller (Chair of Citizen’s Income Trust, co-founder of BIEN and Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland)
• Anthony Painter (Director of the Action and Research Centre of the Royal Society for Arts)
• Howard Reed (Director of Landman Economics)
The meeting will be broadcast live on www.scottishparliament.tv.
More information: https://www.parliament.scot/newsandmediacentre/103064.aspx
Background Reading
Annie Miller, “Why an independent Scotland would fair better with a Citizen’s Income (CI) or Basic Income (BI) scheme,” Evidence to the Expert Working Group on Welfare, December 13, 2013.
Miller has previously submitted evidence on basic income to the Scottish Government, describing the purported benefits of, philosophical arguments for, and existing empirical research on the idea. (She does not propose any specific basic income scheme here.)
Donald Hirsch, “Could a Citizen’s Income Work?,” Joseph Rowntree Foundation, March 2015.
Hirsch considers major shifts in popular opinion that would be required for the acceptance of a universal basic income. He maintains that UBI is not immediately viable but that reforms in the UK’s Universal Credit system could start to make UBI eventually “more thinkable than it is today.”
Anthony Painter and Chris Thoung, “Creative citizen, creative state: The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income,” RSA, December 2015.
Painter and Thoung present multiple arguments for UBI, and develop a proposal for a scheme for the UK, modifying an earlier proposal put forward by the Citizen’s Income Trust. The RSA won a 2016 “Think Tank of the Year” award in part due to this report.
James Mackenzie, Siobhan Mathers, Geoff Mawdsley, and Alison Payne, “The Basic Income Guarantee,” Reform Scotland, February 2016.
The authors critique the UK’s existing welfare system and propose the replacement of many benefits with a universal basic income. They develop a funding model for UBI at the level proposed by the Scottish Greens (£100 per week per adult and £50 per week per child).
Howard Reed and Stewart Lansley, “Universal Basic Income: An idea whose time has come?” Compass, May 2016.
Reed and Lansley simulate and analyze basic income schemes for the UK: three variants of a “full scheme” that replaces most existing means-tested benefits, and two variants of a “modified scheme” that exists alongside existing means-tested benefits in place. They recommend the latter, possibly as transition to the former, and discuss possible funding sources.
Reviewed by Asha Pond
Photo: Scottish Parliament Building, CC BY-NC 2.0 Hamish Irvine
by USBIG | Jan 23, 2017 | News
Karl Widerquist, co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network and long time Basic Income advocate, will give six talks in five days in the United Kingdom.
Karl Widerquist
He will discuss Basic Income at a graduate student seminar at the University of Edinburgh, in Edinburgh Scotland from 11:00 to 12:00 on January 26. This event is invitation only.
At 16:00 to 18:00 that day, Widerquist will participate in a launch of his new book, Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2017, coauthored by Grant S. McCall of Tulane University). Widerquist will offer an overview of the book, followed by comments from Dr Leila Sinclair Bright (Anthropology, University of Edinburgh), Dr Simon Hope (Philosophy, University of Stirling) and a Q and A. The event is sponsored by the Foundations of Normativity Project at at University of Edinburgh. It will take place at S1 in 7 George Square, Edinburgh and will be followed by a wine reception sponsored by Edinburgh University Press. More information and preregistration is available online at Eventbrite.
On Saturday, January 28, Widerquist will speak twice at the Conference, “Basic Income: Real Social Security,” Kelty Community Centre, Kelty, 10:30 – 14:00. This event will be the launch of the Citizens Basic Income Network Scotland (CBINS) and will investigate the feasibility of a citizen’s income for local politics in Fife. It will be attended by more than 100 people. Other speakers at the event include Ronnie Cowan and Alex Rowley, both members of the Scottish National Parliament; Professor Mike Danson, Heriot-Watt University; Maggie Chapman, of Scottish Green Party; Paul Vaughn, Head of Community and Corporate Development, Fife; and many others. A news report at Common Space, entitled “Fife to open investigation into citizen’s income as MP attends launch event,” has additional information about the upcoming event.
On Monday, January 30, Widerquist will deliver a public lecture entitled, “Basic Income: the centrepiece of a just society,” as part of an event from 13:00 to 15:00 at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). The event is hosted by Steady State Manchester and the Research Center for Social Change and Community Wellbeing at MMU. Details about Widerquist’s lecture, including registration information, are available on EventBrite. The event is free and open on the public.
Finally, Widerquist will present again on his latest book, Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy, at the Politics department in the Arthur Lewis Building at Manchester University from 16:00 to 17:30. This event is invitation only.
by Kate McFarland | Jan 22, 2017 | News
On November 19, 2016, the BBC podcast In the Balance aired an episode called “Universal Basic Income: Has its Time Come?”
Special guests included Michael Faye (cofounder of GiveDirectly, the non-profit launching a basic income experiment in Kenya), Louise Haagh (Reader of Politics at the University of York and Co-Chair of BIEN), Michael Tanner (Senior Fellow of the CATO Institute), and Ian Gough (Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics).
During the approximately 25 minute episode, host Ed Butler questioned the guests on the many common concerns surrounding basic income, from its affordability to its political feasibility to charges of causing inflation and disincentivizing work. The guests also debated what types of programs and services a basic income would replace, as well as the question of whether and when cash transfers are more effective than transfers in-kind. Another topic to emerge was the role of pilot studies, with Faye defending the relevance of GiveDirectly’s studies in Kenya to the developed world and Haagh raising the point that, while useful, pilot studies are not needed to justify basic income, which she sees as motivated by the need to eliminate dysfunction in the current welfare system and make the disbursement of support “more humane”.
Faye, Haagh, and Tanner spoke generally favorably about basic income, although their precise reasons for supporting such a policy varied. Gough, meanwhile, maintained that the idea is impracticable, with any basic income scheme being either insufficient or unaffordable.
Listen to the full episode here.
Reviewed by Danny Pearlberg and Dawn Howard
Image: British Coins CC BY 2.0 Images Money
by Dave Clegg | Dec 26, 2016 | News
A CBC news report offers a clarion call regarding the increasing demand being placed upon Canadian food banks who are attempting to address the hunger and nutritional needs of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens. Surely there is no better reason for a BI than the need for food banks in one of the richest nations on the planet?
Food Banks Canada, a national umbrella organization, has released its HungerCount2016 report on food bank use in Canada and includes numerous recommendations, the most crucial of which is the creation of a nation-wide Basic Income.
To accomplish this important goal, FBC has provided 4 policy recommendations in its report which the organization believes essential to accomplish this important goal namely:
1. a National Poverty Reduction Strategy by Oct 1. 2017
2. a Basic livable Income with steps leading to its creation
3. rethinking welfare towards a more supportive process
4. investing in Northern Canada’s food security.
Perhaps the most significant beneficiaries of a national BI would be the children who, the CBC report indicates, account for 35% of food bank use across the country. The CBC report also points out that the latest food bank figures show double digit spikes in food bank use in many parts of Canada.
While the CBC report indicates that Toronto is still the “…child poverty capital of Canada”, it also includes links to a number of related CBC items in which the Ontario government has recently announced a BI pilot program and Quebec has expressed interest in the feasibility of a BI, while three other links discuss what a BI might look like in Canada.
The Food Banks Canada full report can be found here: HungerCount2016.
Food Banks Canada has previously called for a BI in their HungerCount2015, which BIEN acknowledged here at that time as well.
by Kate McFarland | Dec 21, 2016 | News
On November 29 and 30, the White House, the Stanford University Center on Poverty and Inequality, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative co-hosted the Summit on Poverty and Opportunity.
Held at Stanford, the event brought together “275 high-level players in technology, philanthropy, community service, government, and academia” to listen to and participate in a series of panel discussions on social and economic policy and the role of technology and big data.
The conference included a 40-minute panel on “The Future of Jobs and the Question of a Basic Income”:
PANELISTS (from viewer’s left to right)
– Sam Altman, president of the startup incubator Y Combinator, and the initiator of its plan for a basic income experiment. Y Combinator is currently running a pilot study of a basic income in Oakland, with plans for a larger scale experiment in the future.
– Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook and (as of this month) a co-chair of the Economic Security Project, which will be distributing $10 million in grants to support basic income projects in the US.
– Juliana Bidadanure, an assistant professor in Stanford’s Department of Philosophy who specializes in political theory and public policy. Bidadanure will be teaching a graduate seminar on the philosophy of basic income in winter 2017.
Future of work expert Natalie Foster moderated the discussion.
All four participants are supporters of universal basic income.
PANEL OVERVIEW.
Bidadanure, Hughes, and Altman, respectively, begin the panel by describing how they came to interested in basic income and outlining their reasons for supporting such a policy. Following these introductory remarks, discussion turns to past and present basic income experiments: Altman talks about Y Combinator’s newly launched pilot study, Hughes describes the work of the charity GiveDirectly, and Bidadanure lays out the results of past experiments in Manitoba, Namibia, and India. Altman additionally stresses the ability of a basic income to alleviate financial anxiety for people who currently live paycheck to paycheck. Finally, panelists present their thoughts on the question of how to finance a basic income. Due to concerns about feasibility, Hughes proposes beginning with a small basic income of $100 or $200 per month; Bidadanure and Altman, however, raise concerns with the implementation of a basic income that is it not sufficiently large to allow for freedom and security.
Additional press on the Summit on Poverty and Opportunity:
Nitasha Tiku, “Stanford, The White House, And Tech Bigwigs Will Host A Summit On Poverty”, BuzzFeed News, November 28, 2016.
Reviewed by Jenna van Draanen
Photo (Stanford University) CC BY 2.0 Robbie Shade
