by Kate McFarland | Mar 13, 2017 | News
In a recent article for the popular left-wing magazine Jacobin, economists Mark Paul (Duke University), William Darity Jr. (Duke University), and Darrick Hamilton (New School for Social Research) argue that the United States government should provide a Federal Job Guarantee (FJG) for all Americans who want to work.
Before laying out their arguments for an FJG, however, Paul, Darity, and Hamilton describe the rising popularity of Universal Basic Income (UBI), which they claim “makes sense,” especially in the given the threat that automation poses to many jobs. Despite this, the authors provide five reasons to prefer an FJG to UBI:
1. An FJG would lead to greater immediate economic gains for the least well off, since minimum earnings from a full-time job under the program would exceed those of the most common basic income proposals.
2. An FJG would help fill existing demands for workers. (As the authors note, “The robots haven’t taken over yet.”)
3. Jobs can offer benefits beyond income — such as social structures and sense of purpose and meaning — that a UBI alone cannot guarantee.
4. The authors point out that while a UBI would create the financial freedom to volunteer, to care for sick relatives, to start small businesses, or to stay at home and engage in care work, jobs created under the FJG could provide important goods and services. They offer such examples as repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure, developing cleaner energy sources, or providing high-quality childcare and elder care.
5. An FJG would provide greater economic stabilization effects: “During economic downturns, it would expand and hire more people; it would then shrink during economic boom periods as people move from public to better-paying private employment.” A UBI, in contrast, does not possess such counter-cyclical features. (During an economic downturn, as the authors put it, “basic incomes provide no automatic stabilizers to right the sinking ship.”)
Paul, Darity, and Hamilton conclude,
Not only would a federal job guarantee bring justice to the millions who desire work, but it would also address the long-standing unjust barriers that keep large segments of stigmatized populations out of the labor force. Finally, it would reverse the rising tide of inequality for all workers. By strengthening their bargaining power and eliminating the threat of unemployment once and for all, a federal job guarantee would bring power back to the workers where it belongs.
A UBI, they claim, has no comparable benefit.
Read the full article:
Mark Paul, William Darity Jr., and Darrick Hamilton, “Why We Need a Federal Job Guarantee,” Jacobin, February 4, 2017.
Reviewed by Russell Ingram
Photo CC BY 2.0 Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York
by Kate McFarland | Mar 12, 2017 | News
Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former US Secretary of Labor, recently visited Google to discuss the economic impact of automation and artificial intelligence. Reich has previously endorsed a basic income as a way to address automation in the future.
At one point in his talk, Reich predicts that, as we move to a “new world of technological displacement,” people will be forced into lower wage and less secure jobs. To address this problem, he maintains that, in the future, we will need to implement a new type of income supplement, such as a guaranteed minimum income. (On a terminological point: Reich mentions “guaranteed minimum income” but discusses “universal basic income” during the Q&A. There is no indication that these terms are meant to refer to substantively different policies.)
During the Q&A, Reich elaborates upon issues related to universal basic income, beginning with the question of whether giving people money would just encourage them to be lazy. Reich explains that the this outcome has not been observed in pilot studies of basic income — “people don’t just sit and do nothing” — and that, moreover, the basic income could and should be fixed at a level that covers only minimal needs, so that most people would still be motivated to seek a job. In response to the worry that work is also a source of meaning to many people, Reich points out that a universal basic income doesn’t imply that there will be no more work. Additionally, not all meaningful work is paid, and many people currently face the problem of working long hours at multiple low-paying jobs.
Reich also states that a basic income in the United States should be built on popular federal programs like Medicare and Social Security (which provide medical and financial benefits to Americans upon reaching retirement age). He says that he’d call “universal basic income” by a different name, and call it “Title V of Social Security.”
In answer to a third question, Reich turns to discuss the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as a near-term solution to low wages and economic insecurity.
Watch the full video:
Source
Robert Reich, “Preparing Our Economy And Society For Automation & AI,” Social Europe, February 17, 2017.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo: Reich speaking at the Santa Rosa Unitarian Church in 2013, CC BY 2.0 ATIS547
by Ashley | Mar 11, 2017 | News
Bill Gates. Credit to: The Huffington Post
On a recent Reddit AMA, Bill Gates says countries aren’t rich enough to support a Universal Basic Income (UBI). In the meantime, Gates suggests investing in government programs and increasing the demand of labor.
Bill Gates posted his fifth Reddit AMA on Monday, February 27th, 2017. He responded to questions on a number of topics, ranging from his favorite vacation spot to his viewpoints on whether social media has contributed to divisions in the United States. One Reddit user asked Gates about his thoughts on Universal Basic Income (UBI).
In his response, Gates points to constraints in making this alternative economic system scalable today. He described how countries may not currently have the financial capacity to support a UBI, stating: “Even the US isn’t rich enough to allow people not to work.” Currently, there is a lack of evidence that UBI is linked to decreasing employment or willingness to work. On the contrary, Rutgers Professor James Livingston has shown there is empirical evidence that a subsidy to one’s income has little to no impact on one’s work ethic. Countries around the world are initiating UBI pilots to test feasibility, structure and impacts. In fact, the Finnish UBI pilot is intended to increase employment and reduce poverty.
In the meantime, Gates proposes supporting specific historically marginalized populations, such as seniors and youth with disabilities. He also suggests increasing the amount of “adults helping in education.” One pathway of support he mentions is investment in government programs, like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), that will “help increase the demand for labor.” The Earned Income Tax Credit is a policy initiative that focuses on alleviating poverty for US citizens and has been shown to increase labor-market participation. There are numerous variations of UBI models; some which envision a guaranteed income working in tandem with existing government programs. In contrast to many currently existing government subsidies and programs, UBI assumes a guaranteed income to each individual member regardless of household income.
Gates raises a noteworthy point about the need for an increased demand for labor during a time where there is growing concern about how automation may lead to the loss of jobs. In a recent video interview, he has proposed taxing robots that take humans’ jobs and using that money to finance sectors like education, provide job training, and support government programs. Basic Income News author Tyler Prochazka expands upon Bill Gates’ former comments on taxing robots in his article and how this connects to UBI.
More information at:
Tyler Prochazska, “Bill Gates is Wrong: Don’t Tax Robots”, Basic Income News, February 22th 2017
Mary Hynes, “Jobs are disappearing and to me that’s a good thing: Why We Should Abandon Work”, CBC Radio, March 2nd 2017
John Henley, “Finland Trials Basic Income for Unemployed”, The Guardian, January 3rd 2017
Giacomo Tognini, “Universal Basic Income, 5 Experiments Around The World”, WorldCrunch, February 23rd 2017
On Youtube: “Bill Gates: The Robot That Takes Your Job Should Pay Taxes”, February 16th 2017
On Reddit: “I’m Bill Gates co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Ask Me Anything”, February 27th 2017
by Kate McFarland | Feb 27, 2017 | News
Intelligence Squared U.S. (IQ2US), a debate program moderated by ABC News correspondent John Donvan and broadcast on more than 200 public stations, will air an episode on basic income on Wednesday, March 22.
Four guests will debate the question “Is the universal basic income the safety net of the future?”
“For the Motion”
- Charles Murray (W. H. Brady Scholar at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute). Murray supports a basic income of $10,000 per year to all Americans over age 21, which would replace all current welfare programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security (as laid out in his recently reissued book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State). Murray’s right-wing approach to basic income has made him a controversial figure within the movement, with many progressive UBI supporters disavowing his proposals.
“Against the Motion”
- Jared Bernstein (Senior Fellow of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; formerly Chief Economist to Vice President Joe Biden). In a previous debate with Murray, Bernstein maintained that replacing the social safety net with a universal basic income would undercut advances in fighting poverty and ultimately leave many of the poor worse off.
- Jason Furman (Senior Fellow at the nonpartisan think tank Peterson Institute; formerly Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to President Barack Obama). Furman voiced his opposition to basic income in a speech at a White House workshop in July 2016, viewing the policy as giving up on the possibility of job creation and full employment.
The event will be staged live at the Kaufman Center in New York, NY, including an hour long reception before the debate (see details on the live event here). The debate will also be streamed live on the web.
For more information and to listen to the live stream on March 22, 6:45 pm Eastern Time, visit “The Universal Basic Income Is The Safety Net Of The Future.”
Reviewed by Danny Pearlberg
Photo of Kaufman Center (event venue), CC BY-SA 3.0 Kaufman Center
by Kate McFarland | Feb 26, 2017 | News
Attorney and writer Matt Bruenig has published frequently about universal basic income within the past several years.
One of his most recent articles on the topic went viral after it was published on the blog site Medium and in the American left-wing journal Jacobin. In this article, Bruenig contends that, far from being an outlandish notion, passive income — that is, income not derived from work — already exists in capitalist societies: capital income earned by the wealthy is an example.
[C]apitalist societies already dedicate a large portion of their economic outputs to paying out money to people who have not worked for it. The UBI does not invent passive income. It merely doles it out evenly to everyone in society, rather than in very concentrated amounts to the richest people in society.
Moreover, Bruenig notes that we do not worry that the rich will experience “meaninglessness, social dysfunction, and resentment” due to receiving money without working for it.
Bruenig later appeared on The Benjamin Dixon Show, a progressive talk radio show, to discuss the article. In a 23-minute video interview, Bruenig addresses questions about what rebuttals others have given in response to his claims about capital investment and what the feedback he has received reveals about hurdles to the implementation of UBI. He additionally describes how UBI would promote entrepreneurship and stresses the strategic importance of connecting UBI to the notion of a sovereign wealth fund (the idea being that all people have shares in the nation’s collective assets).
Read the article:
Matt Bruenig, “The Rich Already Have a UBI,” Jacobin, January 2, 2017.
Reviewed by Cameron McLeod
Photo: Wall Street Bull, CC BY-NC 2.0 Thomas Hawk
