by Claire Bott | Feb 25, 2018 | News
Alaska’s provision of regular, unconditional income to its inhabitants has had no overall effect on employment, a recent study has found.
The Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), provided by the Alaskan government to all citizens who apply for it, currently stands at approximately $2000 per person per year. The authors of the study have indicated that, although this seems a small amount, the fact that it is applied regardless of age means that a two-parent family with two children could claim $8000 per year, which is considerably more substantial.
The study was carried out by Associate Professor Damon Jones of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, and Assistant Professor Ioana Marinescu of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice. Jones is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, while Marinescu has had her research published in a number of peer-reviewed journals.
Claims have previously been made that the provision of a universal basic income such as the PFD would tend to discourage participation in the workforce. However, the studies which seemed to support this have been based on situations where the money provided was given only to a small group of people. Jones and Marinescu posited that, in a situation where unconditional funds are provided to a large population, effects on employment could differ.
The study did in fact find that there was no overall decrease either in employment or in overall hours worked. The authors suggest that one reason for this could be that the PFD recipients, in spending their additional funds, are indirectly increasing the need for extra employees to provide goods and services to them.
The only significant change found by the study was a 17% increase in part-time work. Given that a greater percentage of women than men appeared to be taking up part-time work, it is possible that this change may have been, at least in part, the result of women using the extra funds to provide childcare, without which they would have been unable to remain part of the workforce.
The study was reported in a number of news outlets, including the New Yorker.
Alaska’s Permanent Fund originated in the 1970s, with a sudden influx of money due to revenue from newly exploited Alaskan oil reserves. Following concerns that a corresponding increase in government spending could be unsustainable should the amount of oil revenue decrease, the Permanent Fund was established, receiving 25% of “all mineral lease rentals, royalties, royalty sale proceeds, federal mineral revenue sharing payments and bonuses received by the State”, according to the wording of the relevant amendment to the Alaskan constitution.
The Permanent Fund Dividend was first provided in 1982, when it was only a few hundred dollars per person. It has since increased at an approximate rate of $500 per decade.
Edited by: Dawn Howard
by Claire Bott | Nov 10, 2017 | News
The Ministry for Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare in Namibia has floated the possibility of introducing basic income grants for those between 19 and 59, according to Namibian national daily paper New Era.
The Ministry was set up in early 2015, following the landslide election of President Hage Geingob. It is headed by former Bishop Zephania Kameeta, who has a history of universal basic income (UBI) advocacy. A paper entitled Blue Print on Wealth Distribution and Poverty Eradication, put out by the Ministry in May 2016, stated that “measures should provide people with tools that build resilience and self sufficiency to break the cycle of poverty. Social safety nets are one of such measures that can help graduate people out of poverty to sustainable livelihoods.”
Reporting on an initiative by the Ministry to discuss implementation of the poverty eradication plan, New Era titled their article “Basic Income Grant Under Consideration”, and ended it with the sentence, “The ministry will also look into introducing a basic income grant for people between the ages of 19 and 59, who do not qualify for the existing grants yet do not have means to sustain themselves.” At the time of going to press, no external confirmation could be found of New Era’s statement on basic income grants; however, although the paper is technically owned by the New Era Publication Corporation, it is in fact openly run by the Namibian state and as such may have more detail on government policies than other national newspapers.
Namibia has a population of approximately two million people, and for some time was part of South Africa, only gaining independence in 1990. Geingob is the third President of an independent Namibia.
by Claire Bott | Nov 3, 2017 | News
A short-term universal basic income (UBI) pilot in India has been found to have positive effects years after it concluded, according to a recent follow-up study. Researchers who returned to the villages involved in the original pilot study, which took place in 2012-2013, found that many of the improvements caused by a year of basic income had been wholly or partially maintained.
In a few cases, there had even been what are called “momentum effects”, in which behaviour changes due to the year-long UBI had continued to build during the intervening years. For example, in the original study, it was found that, prior to the provision of the UBI, women (or “the spouse of the head of the household” as it is expressed in the report) made decisions on how to spend money only about 9% of the time. At the end of the original study, women were making monetary decisions nearly a quarter of the time, while in the recent follow-up, this had gone up to virtually one-third of the time.
Other instances where positive and long-term effects have been maintained well after the end of the subsidy include an improvement in regular income (related to using the UBI to invest in farming equipment or to set up businesses), and a considerably larger percentage of girls in education.
However, there are also some areas where the effects of the UBI have been found to have been rolled back over the years. One of the most prominent of these is in the area of indebtedness. In the original study, the villagers who were provided with the UBI found that 70% had reduced their debt, but the new study found that there is no longer any statistically significant difference in indebtedness between those who had received the UBI and those who had not.
The study also includes a number of case studies and quotations, including one from the head of the village school, who stated, “The experiment gave a major push to the economy of the village in many ways. In front of my eyes, I could see things changing. Equally, I have also noticed a major positive behavioural change in these people because of that experiment.”
The original study, which was a pilot to test the effects of UBI, involved nearly 140 people in two villages, one of which was provided with a UBI and one of which acted as a control. Every precaution was taken to ensure that the two villages were as similar as possible in all socio-economic characteristics.
The study’s authors include Guy Standing, who is a Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London and co-founder of BIEN, as well as Sarath Davala, a sociologist who co-wrote a book entitled Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India with Standing and Renana Jhabvala, another of the study’s authors. The report concludes by recommending that further UBI pilot studies take place, that existing welfare studies be analysed, and that an Independent Commission on Universal Basic Income is established.
Asked to comment, Davala provided the following statement: “We went back after four years to the same village that received Basic Income for a year in 2012. It was heartening to see that some of the effects still continued when we compared with the situation in the control village. So, what does that show? That unconditional basic income payments have a deeper psychological impact, and that even when they are given for a short period like a year, they do leave a lasting positive impact. They provide people with a sense of economic security. This is a very valuable insight for us and policy makers.”
by Claire Bott | Oct 3, 2017 | News
Nearly 90% of respondents to a New Zealand-based poll stated that, assuming that the economy and nz stock market was strong enough to support all residents, a universal basic income (UBI) was the fairest way to ensure basic support to all who need it, according to the independent news website Scoop.
Scoop, which conducted the poll via its Hivemind system, also released a number of other results, including the following:
Ninety-four percent of respondents believe that “due to changing economic conditions we need a new system that better guarantees the welfare of the least well off and those facing insecure work conditions.”
In addition, 94% believe that “A Universal Basic Income would better facilitate and recognize unpaid work such as care for the elderly, children, disabled people or other volunteer work which benefits society.”
Eighty-eight percent of respondents believe that “We need to streamline the inefficiency and wasteful bureaucracy of our current tax and benefits systems.”
Additionally, eighty-one percent believe that “a Universal Basic Income will be necessary to protect millions of working people from the worst effects of insecure employment caused by new technology.”
Seventy-four percent of study respondents disagreed with the statement that some people “are simply lazy so providing them with a foundational amount of money to cover basic needs like food, shelter, and medical costs would mean they would just stop working or being productive altogether.”
The Hivemind polls are conducted by surveying people who chose to join a debate on the relevant topic, which is described as such on Scoop’s homepage. Scoop is a New Zealand-based site which claims to have more than 500,000 readers per month. It started nearly 20 years ago, and is owned by a not-for-profit charitable trust.
Scoop Media, “Hivemind Report – a Universal Basic Income for Aotearoa New Zealand“, Scoop, September 2017
by Claire Bott | Aug 18, 2017 | News
Richard Branson. Credit to: Wikipedia.
Multi-billionaire Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, recently became the latest wealthy entrepreneur to publicly support universal basic income (UBI), following similar public statements by Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook and Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of Flickr.
Writing on his personal blog on the Virgin website, Branson said: “In the modern world, everybody should have the opportunity to work and to thrive. Most countries can afford to make sure that everybody has their basic needs covered. One idea that could help make this a reality is a universal basic income. This concept should be further explored to see how it can work practically.”
He went on to discuss the UBI experiments currently taking place in Finland, and stated that: “A key point is that the money will be paid even if the people find work. The initiative aims to reduce unemployment and poverty while cutting red tape, allowing people to pursue the dignity and purpose of work without the fear of losing their benefits by taking a low-paid job.”
Branson also indicated that he had discussed this with The Elders, a group he helped to create which aims to be the “village elders” of the new “global village”. The Elders include members such as Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon. He reported: “What I took away from the talks was the sense of self-esteem that universal basic income could provide to people.”
More information at:
Richard Branson, “Experimenting with Universal Basic Income”, Richard Branson’s blog, 14th August 2017
Edited by Genevieve Shanahan
