by Tyler Prochazka | Mar 26, 2016 | News
Original Article by Jean-Eric Hyafil
On October 30, 2015, the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, asked MP Christophe Sirugue to write a report on potential social welfare potential (including the means-tested benefit known as Active Solidarity Income (RSA), and various benefits such as disability pension, elderly people pensions, etc.). The aim is to make the system fairer, more efficient and less complex in order to reduce the number of people eligible to these pensions and benefits but not redeeming them. Mr. Sirugue is due to give out his report by the end of March.
The French Movement for a Basic Income (MFRB) contributed to the report (the contribution in French is available here. The contribution has been written thanks to Robert Cauneau, Public finance expert, and Jean-Eric Hyafil, Economist at Paris I University, Jean-Marie Monnier and Carlo Vercellone, Economics professors at the Sorbonne University.
Given the transformation of labour, particularly due to the digital revolution, we recommend to replace the RSA, a conditional and stigmatizing aid given to individuals in poverty, with a basic income based on the principles of unconditional rights and independence.
Nevertheless, establishing a basic income goes along with deep tax reform, yet taxation is not among the missions attributed to Mr. Sirugue for this report. Indeed, his mission was focused on the reform of minimum social benefits.
A short-term reform of the solidarity income (RSA)
Taking into account the constraint of the Prime Minister’s request, the MFRB first formulated RSA reform proposals which could gradually lead to a basic income. For example:
- remove the mandatory status of job seeker to receive the RSA
- change the rule relative to alimony and as a consequence the principle of subsidiarity
- automate RSA payment to all the legal beneficiaries
- individualize the RSA
- pay the RSA ex-ante in order to suppress activation delays
Implementing these proposals would improve RSA’s efficiency in reducing poverty. Nevertheless, even if each and every proposal were implemented, it appears necessary to formulate a global reform integrating another redistribution mechanism: the income tax. Indeed, the first limitation is related to RSA ex-ante payment; this is possible if undue RSA payments could be directly debited to incomes. But such a process should be integrated to a system that allows for income tax withholding.
The second limitation is related to the RSA individualization. A complete individualization (i.e. payment to a person without income, even if he or she lives with a person with a substantial income) is not possible without changing the way the income tax is calculated for a couple.
A middle term reform of the income tax for an introduction of the basic income
The MFRB formulated a second set of recommendations including various proposals for the implementation of a basic income simultaneously with income tax reform. These proposals could be applied on a midterm basis, along with the creation of a withholding system for the income tax.
Following this logic, the MFRB suggests a range of options to show the spectrum of possibility to policymakers. With the introduction of a basic income, numerous reforms become possible, particularly fusions of the income tax for individuals (e.g. “impôt sur le revenu des personnes physiques, IRPP”) and the general social contribution (contribution sociale généralisée, CSG). Indeed, issues have been raised regarding tax exemption policies for income tax, and income splitting, that is whether the income tax apply to individuals or to households.
Fiscal expenses through tax exemption are largely used by wealthy households to reduce their income tax. Therefore, it seems wise to reduce their impact. Yet some of them also play a role in social protection, particularly for the poorest households. For example, tax credits given for paying a nursery school service, and other non-profit organizations.
The MFRB formulates proposals for an adjustment of fiscal expenses (through tax exemption) in order to keep a tax exemption level of around 34 billion euros (the 2014 figure) for the French households, after the merge of income tax and general social contribution (IRPP and CSG) and also a high tax rate (20 percent to 30 percent) from the first euro. Additionally, these proposals would allow shifting the advantage of tax exemption toward poor households.
The MFRB also formulated proposals to switch some fiscal expenses to mechanisms involving “service cheque“, following the principle of drawing rights developed by the tenants of unconditional autonomy. Such a proposal would actually allow the absorption of the benefits associated to the solidarity income (RSA), as discounts for public transportation, school restaurants, sports or culture.
Individualisation of the income tax or household taxing?
The second issue is the income tax individualisation. Nowadays, the income tax is applied to households. Should it be applied to individuals, simultaneously as the implementation of an individual basic income?
In this report, the MFRB presented two alternative solutions. The first considers the fusion of the income tax and the social contribution (IRPP and CSG) into an individual tax. The second integrates the basic income into the income tax system in order to preserve household taxation. This second proposal advantageously avoids a sharp tax increase for households where there is a large income disparity between the couple’s incomes.
Finally, the MFRB considered possibilities of converting some employment subsidies to a basic income, particularly the exemption of employers’ contributions aimed at low salaries (exonération “Fillon”).
With such a broad proposal spectrum, the MFRB wanted to put the minimum social benefits reform in the perspective of a broader and ambitious French redistribution system reform, which would associate the implementation of a basic income with fiscal reform.
The MFRB is pleased that the question of a basic income is currently being considered by French policymakers. On the one hand, this report provides an array of ideas regarding minimum social benefits. On the other hand, a Digital National Council report described the future of organisation in the context of the digital revolution. The expert assessment brought by addressing these issues puts increasing emphasis in the public discussion on the basic income and the new opportunities it brings.
Translated into English by Romain Garbage and Antoine Stéphany
Reviewed by Tyler Prochazka
by Marc de Basquiat | Feb 1, 2016 | Opinion
Multiple surveys across many countries show an increasing support for the idea of providing every citizen with a monthly lump-sum allowance to ensure everyone can meet their basic subsistence needs. In France, the IFOP (a leading French national market research institute) has shown that this support goes beyond political orientation divisions. From the question: “Are you in favour of implementing a guaranteed basic income for all citizens which would replace most existing allowances?” came a positive answer, depending on the degree of support for one party or another, from 72% to 79% for left wing sympathizers and from 50% to 54% for right wing sympathizers.
However, what would an unconditional basic income in France look like in concrete terms?
The Finland experiment
Since the election in April of the Finnish pro-basic income coalition, the topic has given rise to renewed international interest. All started when the Prime Minister of Finland Juha Sipilä announced the launch of a series of pilots, the most important being a “universal basic income” [1], in order to reform the social security system in response to the evolution of the labour market. This will also allow the evaluation of how to reinforce autonomy and incentives to work, as well as reducing bureaucracy and the complexity inherent in accessing social assistance.
The lead role in this project has been given to professor Olli Kangas (KELA) who has outlined the following schedule[2]: preparation phase from December 5th, 2015 to November 15th, 2016; two-year experimentation starting in 2017; evaluation in 2019.
Olli Kangas explained that the work group will evaluate at least four options:
- a “full basic income” (~800 €) replacing almost all basic and insurance-based benefits;
- a “partial basic income” (~550 €) replacing all basic benefits but leaving intact almost all insurance-based benefits;
- a negative income tax in which benefits would phase out as people earn more money;
- miscellaneous other approaches including a universal income and additional components.
Everyone who has recognised the need for major reforms of our social protection mechanisms perceives the announcement of the Finish pilot as an opportunity. However, we need to give time to our Finnish friends for their project to mature.
Which options are possible in France?
The Association for the Introduction of an Existence Income (AIRE) has been working on these questions since 1989, gathering studies and proposals from numerous experts, philosophers, economists, sociologists, politicians, etc. The French Movement for a Basic Income (MFRB) created in 2013 involves activists from a wide variety of backgrounds, leading actions through the country and enriching proposals by bringing together citizen experiences from the grass-roots[3].
Despite apparent simplicity, an unconditional basic income would require a series of structural choices. Precise adjustment of the parameters would need to be made in order to ensure it performs optimally in terms of justice and efficiency. Considering the vast number of options, it would be fallacious to believe that there is an ideal solution. Actually several options that must be weighted by parliamentary and experts in order to create a consensus that is adapted to the reality of our country.
Our experience leads us to recommend a universal income that would vary based on the beneficiary’s age. In particular the case for children should be processed separately, which means organizing an in-depth discussion about the French family assistance policy. This means replacing all or part of the actual eight allowances[4] by a lump-sum for each child. A key stake is to eliminate the high variability of the State grants according to the child’s rank within the family, the matrimonial status of the parents or the parent’s income (knowing that a single child of a middle-income level couple currently receives a remarkably low grant). The potential variation of the universal income amount according to child age (3, 14, 18 year old thresholds) must also be further investigated.
Similarly a discussion is needed regarding senior citizens. The question of incentive to work disappears with the elderly, but the dependency issue arises. Do we need to define a higher amount above 65 years old? How should the matrimonial life conditions be integrated? The ASPA[5] level (800 € for a single person, 1242 € for a couple) gives an indication but not a clear answer on the solution to be implemented.
The coordination with housing allowances constitutes a third theme to be carefully analysed. Acknowledging the inflationary effect of housing allowances (APL) on the rental market price, some politicians and economists[6] are investigating the potential effects of merging the APL and the RSA[7]. As the AIRE association is attached to the Tinbergen rule[8], we are highly reluctant to support this proposal, but the underlying issues must nonetheless be addressed. In any case, it is important to revisit conditionality links between several allowances and the housing grant, in particular the existence of a problematic “housing lump-sum” component within the RSA.
The last framing issue is to define the scope of beneficiaries for a “universal income”. Despite this designation, it is necessary to limit eligibility to a national community. This needs to be defined in terms of residence and/or nationality, probably through continuity of the rules applying today for the RSA beneficiaries. However, this still creates a variety of fundamental questions, for example the potential right to the universal income for prisoners or asylum seekers (currently receiving the ATA[9]).
Three scenarios for a universal basic income for “active age” adults
Similarly to the Finnish approach, we identify three quite different scenarios to defining a universal basic income that would be paid to any adult in France.
- Baseline: extend the distribution of the “RSA single person allowance” to the whole country population (excluding the housing lump-sum component), being 470 € by month in 2016, financed by a flat tax system replacing several current basic social and family allowances as well as tax mechanisms.
- Maximised: distribute equally to the whole population the entirety of the social protection budget, including pensions and unemployment benefit. This would mean about 800 € per month.
- Dynamic: delete all employment incentives to companies and allowing a massive flexibility improvement in terms of minimum salary, in order to finance a basic income ranging between 500 € and 550 € by month. This would also replace a major part of the social and tax mechanisms but leave intact all insurance-based benefits.
The financial feasibility of scenario A is proven and it does not lead to a large upheaval of the redistribution operating in France. It allows a massive simplification of the social and tax systems, facilitating the daily life of the population and reducing operational costs. This scenario, like the following ones, eliminates many inconsistencies, iniquities, and numerous more-or-less known perverse effects. In terms of microeconomic analysis, it implies a massive evolution neither by an income effect nor by a substitution effect, unlike the other scenarios. However, when it comes to tax in france for non residents, one may have to pay tax on income that comes from French sources. In other words, if you work for a French company, even if you do not reside permanently in France, the income you earn will be taxed.
Scenario B designates the losers: those who contributed all along with their life for pensions and unemployment benefits and who would be left without those related benefits. Neither the AIRE nor the MFRB association support this scenario. Such an approach – if it proves to be meaningful – could be considered only through a very long migration phase from one system to another. This would need to be built cautiously, with the implication of the labor unions. Besides, the high level of the benefit leads to a high income effect, many people being possibly satisfied by this amount without seeking a complementary paid activity. The substitution effect contributes on the same way, due to the high level of contribution necessary to finance it.
Scenario C is probably the most audacious challenge, by lightening massively legal constrains framing the labour market, leaving it up to individual and collective negotiations. Citizens with better secured economic status are then on a better position to decide whether to accept or not professional opportunity offers, or to create their own activity by minimising their personal and family risks. The micro-economic analysis is more ambiguous, the income effect being stronger than in scenario A and on the contrary the substitution effect encouraging the activity thanks to a higher flexibility of the labour market.
Of course, the consensus that will emerge from a parliamentary work gathering representatives of all parties and the support of experts from diverse fields could finally be a combination of those three scenarios with potential integration of others approaches. In any case, no option presented in this note should be excluded without in-depth investigation.
Special thanks to Xuan-Mai Kempf for translating the text from French.
ENDNOTES
[1] https://www.kela.fi/web/en/press-releases/-/asset_publisher/LgL2IQBbkg98/content/universal-basic-income-options-to-be-weighed?_101_INSTANCE_LgL2IQBbkg98_redirect=%2Fweb%2Fen%2Fpress-releases
[2] https://www.vox.com/2015/12/8/9872554/finland-basic-income-experiment
[3] Some discussion papers from the field can be tough however well documented. For instance, in order to rebel against the home control by the family assistance administration: https://www.lesenrages.antifa-net.fr/la-caf-contre-les-femmes/
[4] Family allowances, premium for age, family complement for 3 children, basic allowance for child under three, school yearly allowance, RSA increase for each child, income tax reduction according to the number of children, tax reduction for child schooling.
[5] Solidarity allowance for elderly persons.
[6] Cf. the « Unique social allowance » of François Fillon or the IPP report: https://www.ipp.eu/publication/juin-2015-reformer-les-aides-personnelles-au-logement/
[7] RSA: Revenu de Solidarité Active, is the main French allowance providing a minimum guaranteed revenue.
[8] Based on the name of the first Nobel Prize for Economics winner, Jan Tinbergen, a supporter of an unconditional basic income, who stipulated that for each policy objective, one policy instrument is needed, and one only.
[9] Allocation Temporaire d’Attente.
by Citizens' Income Trust | Jan 25, 2016 | Opinion
Anthony Painter and Chris Thoung, Creative Citizen, Creative State – The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income. Report published by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), December 2015.
This report from the RSA is a most welcome addition to the recent flurry of publications and media interest in Citizen’s Income. It outlines a context – technological change – resulting in
underemployment, unemployment or the need to transition careers with some frequency for many. A Basic Income could provide a foundation to smooth working-life transition; (p. 5)
and an ageing population, requiring more people to spend time on caring for others.
The report notes the growing Citizen’s Income movement; studies a variety of other reform proposals (and particularly a Participation Income and an enhanced contributory system); and argues that polling data that shows that the British public regards ‘making work pay’ as far more important than tackling poverty and inequality provides a powerful argument for Citizen’s Income:
It is Basic Income and Basic Income alone that sends out absolutely clear yet non-coercive signals about the incentive to work. … Basic Income is a foundation for contribution. It incentivizes work but supports other forms of contribution too. In this regard, it is the system of income support that best rewards contribution – albeit contribution defined beyond narrow cash terms. (p. 14-15)
The report describes the UK’s current benefits system, notes that the sanctions regime will increasingly attack the self-employed and the employed once Universal Credit is rolled out, shows how Citizen’s Income would offer the ‘power to create’, and then sets four tests for the idea to pass:
- Does the system accord with a widespread set of moral precepts?
- Is it broadly fiscally achievable within the parameters of existing taxation and expenditure?
- Is it distributionally just when compared to the current system?
- Will greater individual (and civic) freedom and creativity be realized? (p. 18)
The particular scheme that the RSA evaluates in relation to the second and third criteria is based on the scheme published by the Citizen’s Income Trust (CIT) in 2012 but with a few minor variations – you can download the CIT proposal here.
A non-binding contract to encourage contributions to society will run alongside receipt of Citizen’s Income. The fact that it is non-binding, and the recipient’s failure to adhere to an agreed contract would not compromise their receipt of a Citizen’s Income, retains the scheme’s reciprocity – important for its ability to pass the first test – and retains it as one characterized by an initial act of generosity on the part of the state, rather than as one that expects a claimant to prove a contribution before the state reciprocates. There is, though, a danger with such a contract. It would be easy for a future government to make receipt of a Citizen’s Income dependent on adherence to a contract’s conditions, thus turning the Citizen’s Income into a Participation Income, so that it would no longer be a Citizen’s Income and would be loaded with administrative complexity and bureaucratic intrusion in people’s lives – precisely what is not required.
In relation to the levels of Citizen’s Income, the RSA scheme attempts to reduce the losses that poorer families with children might suffer at the point of implementation (which has been recognized as a problem in relation to the Citizen’s Income Trust 2012/13 scheme) by allocating a higher level of Citizen’s Income to the first child in a family, and possibly lower levels to the third and subsequent children. This compromises the definition of a Citizen’s Income, because that requires that every individual of the same age should receive a Citizen’s Income of the same amount: but this is a compromise in theory, and not a new compromise in practice, and so should not overly concern us. This is because in any Citizen’s Income scheme the children’s Citizen’s Income are paid to the main carer: so although in theory every working age adult (or adult over 25 years old, as in the RSA and CIT 2012/13 schemes) receives the same amount, in practice the main carer of children receives their own adult Citizen’s Income and the Citizen’s Incomes of their children. Because allocating different amounts to different children in a family will adjust a total amount paid to an adult that is already variable in relation to the number of the children in the family, no new compromise has in practice been generated. We might hope that if such a Citizen’s Income scheme were to be implemented, then eventually it might prove possible to reduce the compromise by bringing the Citizen’s Income levels allocated to different children nearer to or identical with equality: but as a transitional measure with some useful effects, the RSA’s approach has much to commend it.
A compromise that has nothing to commend it, though, relates to lone parents:
One group that could lose out in the transition to Basic Income in the RSA model are low income, lone parents with children over the age of five. … there may be scope for a transitionary measure whereby lone parents could continue to claim a Child Benefit top-up … introducing an element of household calculation. (p.31)
A lone parent addition would not satisfy the ‘unconditional’ requirement of a Citizen’s Income, and would result in precisely the kind of bureaucratic intrusion into people’s personal relationships that a Citizen’s Income is trying to get away from. If it is felt that lone parents need an additional payment, then an additional and separately administered payment should be made, so that the Citizen’s Income itself is not compromised. We are used to social policies that we can tinker with without destroying them. A Citizen’s Income is different. If we tinker with it, then we destroy it. This lesson has thankfully been learnt in relation to Child Benefit. In 2010 we were told that it would be means-tested. It has not been. Instead, an additional tax charge is imposed on high earning individuals living in households receiving Child Benefit. This is not sensible, because it has resulted in domestic disharmony and in the withdrawal of Child Benefit claims: but at least it does not destroy Child Benefit as a universal benefit. A similar approach could be employed in relation to lone parents in the context of a Citizen’s Income. The Citizen’s Income must never change; but an additional benefit could be established with its own conditionalities and administration.
When the report discusses some alternative Citizen’s Income schemes – such as scheme B in the recent Institute of Social and Economic Research paper, its use of the word ‘modified’ might be somewhat confusing. Scheme B is not a ‘modified’ Citizen’s Income, or a ‘modified’ Citizen’s Income scheme. The Citizen’s Income is a genuine Citizen’s Income. It is simply that scheme B retains more means-tested benefits than some other schemes – it still takes a lot of households off means-tested benefits, or reduces their claims to such low levels that they are likely to come off them. We ought to avoid the use of the word ‘modified’. Either a proposal is for a Citizen’s Income, or it is not; and if it is, then the whole scheme, including changes to means-tested benefits, tax allowances, etc., is a Citizen’s Income scheme. Some schemes, such as scheme B, would be easier to implement than others, such as the RSA scheme. In many ways, the RSA scheme would be preferable to scheme B. So perhaps we ought to regard scheme B as a useful first step, and the RSA scheme as a useful second step.
The RSA report is a long, detailed, well researched, and most useful document, and no short review can do it justice. The minor caveats that I have listed above are precisely that: minor caveats, and areas for continuing research and debate. The RSA is to be highly congratulated on the research project that has led to the report, and on the report itself. There could be no better place to start the next phase of the Citizen’s Income debate than this report.
