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This issue is on universal basic income. Some of the articles are long.
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Universal Basic Income: Which countries have a Universal Basic Income? (long)
Liam Doyle, Express, May 4, 2020
(https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1277823/Universal-basic-income-which-countries-have-universal-basic-income-UBI)
UNIVERSAL basic income is what millions of ordinary people around the world equate with the ideal economy, with potential benefits for combatting poverty. Which countries have a universal basic income?
Universal basic income strives to give every citizen of a country an income without strings attached, giving people financial security and an escape from potential poverty. An array of countries have experimented with it over time, and only a few have accepted it permanently in some form.
Which countries have a universal basic income?
Universal basic income may seem like a no-brainer promise for most governments, but very few have tried it.
The public programme is naturally expensive, as it would require officials to roll it out to everyone, regardless of their working situation or other personal details.
Only one country has adopted universal basic income for every one of its citizens permanently – most programmes give unconditional cash to a select group of people.
Universal Basic Income: Iran has used UBI since 2011
The only nationwide unconditional cash programme is in Iran, where officials started giving each household 29 percent of its income in 2011.The national scheme sought to compensate for phasing out subsidies on bread, water, electricity, heating and fuel.Iranian officials eventually scaled back the programme over fears it was disincentivizing people to work, but economists concluded it still had merit.The scheme is still running today as the only one of it’s kind in the world.
Iran is the only country to roll out the policy to everyone, as others have opted for rolling it out to a limited portion of the population.
Universal Basic Income: Alaska has had basic income since 1989
The US as a whole unsuccessfully experimented with the application in small-scale, short trials, but it stuck in the state of Alaska.
Since 1982 the territory has given each of its citizens a cheque, dependant on oil prices.
People may receive anywhere between $1,000 (£803) to $2,000 (£1,607) per year from the state-owned Alaska Permanent Fund, which is financed by oil revenues.
Universal Basic Income: The coronavirus has led Spain to introduce UBI
The scheme hasn’t taken off in Europe so far, with few experiments on the continent, but a host of proponents.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed this, however, as Spain will soon become the first European country to adopt the policy.
Nadia Calvino, Spain’s Minister for Economic Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister told Spanish broadcaster La Sexta on Sunday families would receive help during the COVID-19 crisis via government cheques.
Although the country’s economy is struggling under the weight of social restrictions, Ms Calvino promised the policy would become a “permanent instrument” in Spanish society.
Universal basic income: What is universal basic income? 
Universal basic income UK: How much would UBI cost UK?
COVID-19 also inspired a push for universal basic income in the UK.
In an open letter to Chancellor Rishi Sunak, 170 MPs urged the government to consider the option to help struggling Brits, but the proposal didn’t fly with officials.
Mr Sunak said the Government was “not in favour” of introducing the policy, and put his faith behind the welfare system with a £7 billion cash injection.
Officials have loosened requirements around Universal Credit and other benefits, and introduce the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to help those struggling during the lockdown.
Related articles
A Universal Basic Income might help society out of coronavirus’s economic crisis
Paul Donovan, East London and West Essex Guardian, May 1, 2020
(https://tinyurl.com/y9pmxauw)
The idea of paying a Universal Basic Income to all citizens is something that has been gaining support over recent years.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been mentioned a number of times in relation to the present crisis caused by the coronavirus. Many have argued it would be far easier if the Government just handed out a basic amount of money to everyone, rather than go through the system of delays and obfuscation that seems to be attached to the Universal Credit system and other schemes.
After all, this was what happened at the time of the financial crisis of 2008: the government handed out money to banks and the like in the form of schemes like quantitative easing. The banks then used this money to prop up their balance sheets. Company directors also used the largesse to buy back shares in their own companies. The quantitative easing approach did not mean the money was put out into the economy so that ordinary people could use it to buy goods and keep the system moving.
The idea of a universal basic income has received support from both right and left of the political spectrum. The left sees it as a way to cut poverty, providing a floor below which no one should fall. It would also give people time for education and developing new skills. Quality of family life could also improve, providing the space to spend more time together etc.
The right views UBI as a way to cut welfare costs. The amount would be paid but in exchange, welfare and health support would be reduced – it should all be covered by the UBI.
Funding of UBI would come from general taxation.
The present economic system, with its growing inequalities, certainly needs something like UBI to stimulate demand. The polarisation of wealth, with a small group of people having most of the wealth while the mass have very little, is not sustainable. The people that hold the mass of wealth put it away or lend it to others. They are not out spending the money in the marketplace, creating the demand for goods. If people all have a basic amount of money, they will spend.
A number of places have trialed UBI, including Canada, Finland and India. There are projects planned here in Sheffield and Glasgow. In Alaska, they have had UBI for many years, provided by the wealth that came into the state from the oil industry. It is regarded as a fundamental right in Alaska, set each year, though there have been arguments about levels and the effect the UBI has on other services.
What does seem clear from examples of UBI around the world is that it has not resulted in stopping people from wanting to work. The UBI provides a basis subsistence level income, people still continue to want to work. It does though help cut poverty and stimulate the economy.
There would of course be potential problems over what level the UBI was set at each year but this would be a matter for negotiation. In the short to medium term it would provide a simple way of getting money out to people in order that they can survive as well as getting the ecomomy going.
- Paul Donovan is a Redbridge Labour councillor for Wanstead village and blogger. See paulfdonovan.blogspot.com .
Debate over basic income programs reignites amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Universal Basic Income After COVID-19 (long)
Jamison Chung, Peter Jacobs, Aaron Kaufman, Hannah Pugh, Brianna Rauenzahn, and Jasmine Wang, The Regulatory Review, May 2, 2020
(https://www.theregreview.org/2020/05/02/saturday-seminar-universal-basic-income-after-covid-19/)
Last month, millions of Americans began seeing deposits in their bank accounts. Eligible individuals received up to $1,200 with an additional $500 for each qualifying child.
Direct payment to individuals in the face of a looming economic crisis is familiar to some Americans. Alaska, for example, pays each inhabitant nearly $2,000 annually just for living in the state. During the Great Recession, certain individuals who were already beneficiaries of select federal programs received a one-time payment of $250.
But the sheer cost and scope of the direct payments authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) has required an unprecedented level of effort and coordination.
The stimulus checks have also reinvigorated debate in the United States about Universal Basic Income (UBI), a policy idea which, if implemented, would provide direct government payments to individuals regardless of need. The concept received attention during the Democratic presidential primaries, especially because candidate Andrew Yang made a so-called Freedom Dividend a key feature of his platform.
Public support for a national universal basic income has grown significantly in the last decade, and recent studies indicate that Americans are now split with roughly equivalent support for and against UBI. Indeed, some scholars argue that the damage caused by COVID-19 has revealed a fragile and inequitable economy and that the recent one-time payment should become a regular feature to give everyone basic financial security going forward.
Other scholars are less convinced, maintaining that partial or conditional UBI would not reduce poverty and inequality and that a system sufficiently generous to ensure a basic standard of living for all would be prohibitively expensive. These critics assert that it is more efficient for the government to invest in better quality public services and improve existing social welfare systems.
A major source of division between opponents and proponents of UBI is the effect on work incentives. Would UBI encourage general apathy toward employment? Or would the impact on workplace participation be minimal?
One aspect of UBI that critics and supporters likely agree on is cost. Paying each American over the age of eighteen a guaranteed monthly income of $1,000 would, by one estimate, cost around $2.8 trillion a year. And even among UBI supporters, there is no consensus on where a government already running a large deficit would be able or willing to find the necessary funding.
Some advocates, such as Andrew Yang, have proposed a higher capital gains tax supplemented with a value added tax to fund a federal UBI program. But some calculations suggest that even these funding measures might not provide enough resources. A cost-neutral plan exists but could require repealing programs such as Medicare and Social Security, as well as changing deductions and credits for individual taxes.
A further question centers on whether the need for UBI will increase with time. Specifically, is UBI the consequence of or a response to a world in which robots may increasingly come to replace portions of the workforce?
A 2013 report from Oxford University indicates that nearly 50% of the entire U.S. workforce is at risk of losing their jobs from rising automation in the coming decades. Some observers, such as Bill Gates, see the rise in automation as an opportunity to raise government revenue through a robot tax, while others such as Elon Musk reportedly claim that UBI will be necessary to confront society’s inevitable technological dependency.
This week’s Saturday Seminar focuses on the debate surrounding Universal Basic Income, as well as on how the coronavirus pandemic and CARES Act might alter public perceptions of UBI in the United States.
- In an essay published in The Regulatory Review, staff writer Tim Yang examines Alice Fabre, Stephane Pallage, and Christian Zimmerman’s 2014 paper on whether UBI is more beneficial than unemployment insurance in addressing the impact of unemployment on the economy. According to Fabre and her coauthors, UBI programs may appear to be an easier solution, but unemployment insurance is ultimately more advantageous. Fabre and her coauthors argue that unemployment insurance can better tailor benefits to those who need them most, prevent increases in voluntary unemployment, and balance the costs of maintaining these support programs.
- Noting the popularity of the earned income tax credit (EITC), a refundable tax credit that often functions as a payment from the government, American University Washington College of Law professor Benjamin Leff argues for modifying the EITC to make it more “UBI-like.” In a recent article in the Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, Leff proposes removing the EITC’s income-linked phase-out, making payments monthly instead of yearly, and increasing the size of these payments. “An expanded reformed EITC could provide a universal safety net that could capture many of the benefits of a UBI without the need to invent a bold new system seemingly out of nothing,” Leff asserts.
- The technical aspects of UBI implementation are “essential elements” of a successful program, Miranda Fleischer of the University of San Diego Law School and Daniel Hemel of the University of Chicago Law School argue in a forthcoming article in the University of Chicago Law Review. Drawing on scholarly literature on taxation as well as ethical and political theory, Fleischer and Hemel contend that “the implementation of a UBI may prove to be the most important domestic policy endeavor of our time.” They identify six components that govern UBI implementation: size, eligibility, uniformity, assignability, payment mechanism, and funding mechanism. Although proponents of the present UBI movement disagree on the proper political and ethical treatment of these components, Fleischer and Hemel maintain that their analysis provides innovations that can unify the movement. Offering specific recommendations for design and outward framing, they argue that UBI “is not all-or-nothing.”
- In an article in the Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, Brishen Rogers of Temple University Beasley School of Law argues against UBI, claiming that it is neither morally nor practically preferable to current social insurance and assistance systems. Rogers claims that the morality of social insurance, which hinges on individuals’ rights to a social minimum and their reciprocal obligations to society, is still compelling and more politically feasible than UBI. According to Rogers, current socioeconomic inequalities are a product of policies that disempower labor, and not the byproduct of a decline in manufacturing. Instead of UBI, Rogers advocates strengthening the social democratic welfare state by providing more robust benefits and facilitating labor market participation.
- Feminist scholars disagree about the merits of UBI, according to Sara Cantillon of Glasgow Caledonian University and Caitlin McLean of the University of California-Berkeley. In an article published in the Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, Cantillon and McLean report the results of a gender analysis of existing UBI schemes to assess some of the key claims about the impacts a basic income might have on gender equality. They conclude that UBI could mitigate intra-household inequality by providing independent income. Furthermore, Cantilon and McLean assert that new and developing research shows that independent income contributes to economic autonomy and psychological well-being. They conclude, however, that the overall gender impacts of UBI are ambiguous and that more research is necessary before scholars can draw a conclusion on its efficacy in promoting gender equality.
- Libertarians are often skeptical of government-sponsored income redistribution programs, yet some of the biggest proponents of UBI are self-described libertarians, argue Miranda Fleischer and Daniel Hemel in an article published in the Wisconsin Law Review. They explain why libertarian support exists for a program ostensibly at odds with libertarian principles. A limited redistribution policy of guaranteed periodic cash disbursements, Fleischer and Hemel argue, can address individual economic circumstances better than existing social welfare programs. Furthermore, Fleischer and Hemel claim that giving individuals cash without work requirements can further individual autonomy as individuals are best suited to understand their unique needs and capabilities.
Governors Who Are Banding Together on Pandemic Response Should Adopt Universal Basic Income (long)
David A. Love, The Appeal, May 1, 2020
(https://theappeal.org/universal-basic-income-coronavirus-state-governors/)
The federal government is not going to lead the way on addressing the economic pain caused by the shutdowns. But states have the power to do something about it now.
This piece is a commentary, part of The Appeal’s collection of opinion and analysis.
Over the past several weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out tens of millions of U.S. jobs, creating unemployment numbers not seen since the Great Depression. Now Universal Basic Income, once regarded as a fringe concept, is gaining traction as a solution to the crisis.
Given the lack of guidance or leadership from the White House on dealing with the pandemic, state governors have formed regional consortia to coordinate their response.
The federal government is also not going to lead the way on addressing the economic pain caused by the shutdowns needed to slow the spread of the virus. The president has lavished trillions in tax breaks on the wealthy and corporations, and the Senate leadership would rather see states go bankrupt than offer coronavirus aid. The one-time, $1,200-per-adult payment provided by the CARES Act is wholly inadequate because it is a Band-Aid for a bullet hole, and it excludes some of the most vulnerable in our society. A single payment will cover some expenses for one month, but will not help the millions of people who will remain on lockdown, jobless and penniless for months on end—possibly for a year or more if there is no coronavirus vaccine or treatment in sight, and if death rates accelerate as some states prematurely reopen.
But states have the power to do something about it now. While governors are already banding together to procure supplies, provide mutual aid, and plan the reopening of businesses, UBI must be part of their response. And while the governors of California, New York, and New Jersey may say they don’t have the money to provide UBI, these states are resource rich with large corporations available for taxation.
The pandemic has laid bare the systemic flaws of American capitalism: perverse and systemic inequality, and an economic system lacking resilience or a robust social safety net. The top 1 percent of Americans hold 40 percent of the wealth, and the poorest 90 percent have less than one-quarter. We’ve had decades of near-zero wage growth, and of declining labor unions and worker bargaining power.
Even before the pandemic, 40 percent of Americans lacked $400 to cover an emergency expense, while one-quarter had to forego medical care because they could not afford it, and 17 percent were unable to pay monthly bills. The U.S. economy is killing people through compromised physical and mental health, suicides, and overdoses.
A Universal Basic Income would serve as a means of downward wealth redistribution to correct these inequalities, which will only be worsened by the pandemic.
The moral case for UBI is strong. Before his death in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. called for a guaranteed income as the “simplest approach” and most effective solution to abolish poverty directly, noting that “widespread economic security” would bring about psychological benefits. “We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other,” King said, speaking of the need to increase the social good and ensure that “the potential of the individual is not wasted.“ More recently, Pope Francis suggested it is time for countries to consider a universal basic wage to address the economic dislocation brought about by the coronavirus.
And the rest of the world has been embracing it—Finland, Kenya, and Ontario, Canada, have had basic income experiments in recent years. Over a dozen nations are providing their citizens with a monthly income for the duration of the emergency, with the Netherlands, Denmark, and even the Tory-led United Kingdom paying most of workers’ wages, Germany offering payments, and Spain planning to make such a measure permanent.
The idea of UBI was also picking up steam in the U.S. before the pandemic. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang proposed a $1,000 per month UBI funded with a 10 percent value-added tax (VAT), a consumption or sales tax levied at every point of sale where value has been added to a good or service. California Assembly member Evan Low introduced UBI legislation based on Yang’s proposal. Stockton, California, is testing a UBI program with $500 per month for 130 people for 18 months, while Newark and Milwaukee have planned their own pilot programs and task forces.
Governors may point to dramatic budget shortfalls caused by the pandemic as a reason they can’t implement UBI, but the governors of New Jersey, California, and New York are multimillionaires, and their states are also wealthy. California’s GDP of $3.1 trillion would make it the world’s fifth largest economy, smaller than Germany and larger than the UK. Its Western state consortium with Oregon ($252 billion) and Washington ($600 billion) claims a combined GDP of $4 trillion. Similarly, New York and New Jersey have a GDP of $1.7 trillion and $645 billion, respectively, while their Northeast consortium with Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Delaware is also $4 trillion.
States can help fund UBI by taxing corporations. For example, a VAT targeting companies with gross receipts of $200,000 or higher would rely on medium or large businesses and exempt small businesses. A corporate tax could bring about wealth redistribution by taxing certain industries who are thriving amid a second Gilded Age of vast economic inequality. The billionaire-led tech sector—including Silicon Valley companies such as Facebook and Google, and Washington-based Amazon and Microsoft—is a prime candidate for a levy in California and Washington. In New York, Wall Street banks that have profited from bailouts and consumer exploitation are ripe for a financial services tax on stock trades to spread the wealth and bring about economic justice. And in New Jersey, the lucrative pharmaceutical sector is large and growing. The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend, the closest thing to a state UBI, has provided $23 billion in oil and gas revenue since 1982.
A 2 percent financial wealth tax is another potential revenue source for UBI. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed a Switzerland-style progressive wealth tax to pay for such items as universal child care and health care, free public college, and affordable housing.
A Universal Basic Income would bring many potential benefits to the states that implement it, as states rely on economic activity to raise revenue and thrive. A UBI would result in economic growth by eliminating poverty and boosting the security of low-income workers—who are more likely to spend in the near term, as opposed to the rich, who are hoarding their mounting piles of money, hence the inequality. Such a policy shift would also bring permanent relief to gig workers with precarious income, those whose jobs are displaced by automation and globalization, and the massive ranks of the unemployed. Further, a UBI would empower people to choose jobs that they enjoy, allow them to spend more time with family, and make decisions that benefit themselves.
In a nation where COVID-19 and economic devastation join forces and Washington is missing in action, a UBI would allow states to fortify their economic future and provide stability to their citizens during the pandemic and beyond.
‘Time has come’ for universal basic income, says Sturgeon
Craig Paton, Independent, May 4, 2020
(https://tinyurl.com/yboq6qle)
Coronavirus prompts Scotland’s first minister to make UBI a policy priority
The “time has come” for universal basic income (UBI) in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh, the first minister said there will be “constructive discussions” with the UK government on the matter.
Under the scheme, residents would be given a universal payment from the government, with some benefits scrapped.
The Scottish government has brought forward four pilots of a similar scheme in different council areas, but it is the UK government that has the ultimate power over creating a national scheme.
When asked about the move at the briefing, the first minister said: “The experience of the virus and the economic consequences of that have actually made me much, much more strongly of the view that it is an idea that’s time has come.
“As one of the many things that we should rethink, this should be up there, quite close to the top of the list.”
The Scottish government would need more control over taxation and social security to make such a scheme a reality but the first minister said she hopes to “get into a constructive discussion” with the UK government about the scheme.
She added she would like conversations to take place “hopefully reasonably quickly” after the coronavirus pandemic is over.
The first minister added: “Watch this space.”
Think tank Reform Scotland devised a detailed proposal for a UBI scheme.
It would consist of an annual payment of £5,200 a year for adults and £2,600 for those under 16.
Annually, the scheme would cost the Scottish government £20 billion, with measures found to raise £18.34 billion in revenue to support the scheme.
When the think tank published its report in April, the first minister described it as “interesting and timely”, adding the coronavirus outbreak strengthened the case “immeasurably”.