This 20/20 is on UBI (universal basic incomes).
Events are happening faster than we can write articles on, so we’re switching to a summary format for some articles.
Skirting the meme war does not affect the subjects we cover; only the sources we use to cover them.
We may judge some information from a biased source as good and credible and post an extract (only) from that article.
Thanks to Nikos.
Europe Accepts the Legislative Initiative of Citizens Demanding a Universal Basic Income for All Its Residents
(https://www.pressenza.com/2020/05/europe-accepts-the-legislative-initiative-of-citizens-demanding-a-universal-basic-income-for-all-its-residents/)
The European Citizen Initiative (ECI), which calls for the establishment of a Universal and Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) for all people residing in the European Union , was accepted by the European Commission on Friday May 15, 2020 .
The General Secretariat of the European Citizen Initiative Team (which belongs to the European Commission) has communicated to the organizers the registration of the ECI proposal, entitled “Establishment of an unconditional basic income, throughout the European Union »
(https://europa.eu/citizens-initiative/initiatives/details/2020/000003_en.)
This ECI was presented by Unconditional Basic Income Europe (UBIE), the unconditional basic European network, to which individuals and groups at European level belong, among others the Humanists for Universal Basic Income (HBI).Although the deadline given by the European Commission to start collecting signatures ends on 15/11/2020, representatives of the UBIE network note that “this will probably start during Basic Income Week, between September 14 and 20 of this year”(https://ubi-europe.net/ubi/new-european-citizens-initiative-for-basic-income/)
Until then, work will focus on forming a collection platform. And that is why people and groups of all kinds are encouraged to participate, whether local, cultural, political, etc. Anyone wishing to participate in this initiative, whether an individual or an organization, can notify it by sending an email to: [email protected]
An ECI is a kind of popular legislative initiative which is presented to the European Parliament for discussion and possible approval. It involves collecting a million signatures and identity documents from European citizens who support the initiative, in at least 7 countries of the European Union (EU). In these countries, the signatures must reach a minimum number which depends of the respective population. The period for collecting signatures and documents is one year. Signature collection will be possible on paper, but especially online, thanks to the web platform which will be provided by the EU.
This ECI offers us an excellent opportunity to put the issue of the UBI at the forefront of the social debate, by showing that it is the best vaccine against precariousness and social exclusion and by obtaining greater dissemination and more information. specific on this issue, which is often silenced or distorted.
The process of this ECI was not without vicissitudes, since it was presented in January 2020, but its text was rejected by the European Commission, because it did not strictly respect the European legislation, and corrections had to be made so that it could be recorded, which was finally done on May 15.
Translated from French by Lulith Van
Angel Bravo is the ECI coordinator for Spain.
Universal Basic Income could make Scotland a world leader
Greg Russell, The National, May 30, 2020
(https://www.thenational.scot/news/18486311.universal-basic-income-make-scotland-world-leader/)
A PILOT scheme for a Citizen’s Basic Income (CBI) could still be on the cards for Scotland, despite its disappearance amid the Covid-19 health crisis.
The Scottish Government provided £250,000 to help finance a study into the feasibility of launching a pilot which was jointly run by councils in Fife, North Ayrshire, Edinburgh and Glasgow, in collaboration with NHS Scotland.
An interim report was published last October and the final report is due this summer, although the date is unclear because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The interim study indicated that a full-scale pilot would be recommended to the Scottish Government, with the aim of testing the effects of a Basic Income on “reducing poverty and providing a possible route to a fairer and simpler welfare system”.
Supporters from the Universal Basic Income Lab and Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland say a Scottish Government-sanctioned pilot would be the “most comprehensive and carefully designed” to be launched in the west and “could be a pivotal moment for this radical new idea”.
Basic income has moved into the political mainstream in recent years due to experimental schemes in Canada, the Netherlands, Namibia, India and Finland.
The economic effect of coronavirus in the UK has led to calls for an emergency Basic Income from across the political spectrum, and the Spanish government has also announced plans to roll out a permanent Basic Income in response to the crisis.
Although there is growing support, a CBI scheme would be far from easy to implement, given the complexities of devolved and reserved powers and navigating the current social security and benefits system.
Added to that are the many different models of CBI, which are all aimed at promoting fairness and giving people a basic income they can use to earn, learn, care, or set up in business.
A report last June from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) for the study noted: “A number of powers to make discretionary payments to people in various kinds of need are also administered by local authorities. These include the Scottish welfare fund and provision of financial support to children and adults in financial need by social work departments. Legislation is already in place to allow the exercise of these powers.
“However, the terms of the exceptions devolving these powers restrict their use to cases of defined need.”
As CPAG said of their document: “The report highlights the complexities of the current social security systems and the challenges involved in putting a basic income pilot in place.”
Added difficulties come in selecting which of the many types of CBI would be best for Scotland, as well as taking into account the multitude of views on the subject.
The steering group’s interim report said: “There are mixed views across political parties and civic society on the merits of CBI, with some prominent and persuasive advocates very active in this area. There is also marked variation in the aspirations and models of CBI supported by different groups.
“Some important groups do not support a CBI as the best way of reducing poverty and are critical of some of the models that have thus far been proposed.
“There is, however, substantial support for the objectives of CBI, particularly in reducing poverty, and widespread interest in further investigating the potential of CBI.”
A prominent advocate of the universal or citizen’s income scheme is SNP MP Ronnie Cowan, who told the Sunday National: “I am delighted that here in Scotland we are taking such a responsible approach to the suitability of a UBI.
“The £250,000 supplied by the Scottish Government has enabled the feasibility study. The next step in this increasingly popular journey will be a full scale pilot. UBI is both a platform on which people can build stable lives and a safety net to catch us at those times when life unexpectedly takes the legs from under us.
“The principle is one of security for all without discrimination. Previous pilot schemes have indicated improved mental and physical health in the participants and I am sure the Scottish pilot will gather data on a range of aspects, which can then be encompassed in a UBI that is effective, practical and affordable for Scotland.
“This is an exciting opportunity for Scotland to lead the world and the worldwide UBI community will be paying very close attention to this next important stage.”
Thanks to Nikos.
Spain introduces basic income scheme to tackle poverty
Aljazeera, 30 May 2020
(https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/spain-introduces-basic-income-scheme-tackle-poverty-200530080443046.html)
Measure affecting about 2.3 million people in need guarantees income of maximum $1,126 per family, government says.
Spain’s government has introduced a basic monthly income for struggling families amid the growing hardship caused by the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
The move announced on Friday was part of last year’s coalition agreement between socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Pablo Iglesias, the head of the left-wing alliance Unidas Podemos (UP).
Iglesias said the crisis unleashed by the epidemic had forced the government “to speed up its implementation” of the measure.
“Today is a historic day for our democracy, when a new social structure is created,” Iglesias said.
The measure, which is expected to cost an annual three billion euros ($3.3bn), is aimed at ending extreme poverty, which affects about 600,000 homes and 1.6 million people.
It will guarantee an income of 462 euros ($512) a month for an adult living alone, while for families, there would be an additional 139 euros ($154) per person, whether adult or child, up to a monthly maximum of 1,015 euros ($1,126) for every home.
The funds will be allocated in line with other income, so anyone with a low-paid job would have their salary topped up to meet the threshold outlined on Friday.
The ministry for inclusion and social security said it would mean “that every home would have a guaranteed average annual income of 10,070 euros ($11,180)”.
The government said the measure was expected to benefit about 850,000 homes, affecting a total of 2.3 million people – 30 percent of whom are minors.
About 100,000 families would begin receiving the money on June 1, it said.
Rise in poverty
The coronavirus lockdown that started in mid-March has left hundreds of thousands of people jobless, triggering a rapid rise in poverty that has outstripped the 2008 global financial crisis.
Many families, particularly in Madrid, have for the first time found themselves forced to stand in line for food handouts at local churches and neighbourhood organisations.
Spain’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to contract by 9.2 percent this year due to the pandemic, while the unemployment rate is forecast to rise from 13.8 percent at the end of 2019 to 19 percent.
Trudeau arrives for a news conference outside Rideau Cottage in April 2020
Will this pandemic’s legacy be a universal basic income?
Our editorial: The entire country is now a laboratory. And we will soon have reliable data on how the CERB affects individual decisions and outcomes on work, school and health.
Maclean’s, May 19, 2020
(https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/will-this-pandemics-legacy-be-a-universal-basic-income/)
The Great Depression of the 1930s gave us the Bank of Canada, Employment Insurance (EI) and federal equalization payments. The Great Recession of 2008 produced a revolution in monetary policy and a legacy of concern about household debt.
Will the Great Lockdown of 2020 bequeath us guaranteed universal income?
Among the many unprecedented aspects of the global coronavirus pandemic is the sudden appearance of a widely available handout from Ottawa. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) provides $500 per week to anyone who’s out of work because of the virus, or the economic shutdown it precipitated. And while CERB originally excluded students, gig workers and many others, subsequent refinements now mean nearly everyone who finds themselves in need can get some federal cash.
Such a policy innovation was made necessary by the many flaws of the federal EI and provincially run welfare programs; pre-COVID-19, nearly 40 per cent of unemployed Canadians didn’t qualify for EI, and welfare is much too cumbersome to provide emergency support. Within a month of the lockdown, the federal government had processed CERB claims from over seven million Canadians—a third of the entire workforce—and delivered $22 billion in temporary payments. It’s a stunningly successful policy rollout in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.
But the notion of a universal or guaranteed basic income as a solution to poverty has been around in many forms for years. Proponents have ranged from philosophers to social welfare advocates to Milton Friedman, the late free market economist. A basic income given to every adult who needs it, regardless of ability or status, promises true social justice by ensuring no citizen suffers from a lack of necessary resources. For Friedman, the attraction lay in eliminating enormously complicated welfare bureaucracies. A cash payment is the simplest and most efficient way to help all people.
With so much to recommend the concept in theory, many experiments have sought to put it to the test in the real world. Several studies in the 1960s and 1970s revealed a range of encouraging social indicators, such as a greater tendency to stay in school among low-income children. Canada’s contribution, an experiment in Dauphin, Man., from 1974 to 1979, suggested benefits in hospitalization and high school graduation rates. Stockton, Calif., is currently providing select residents with a no-strings-attached $500 per month stipend; the latest evidence suggests recipients are making wise use of the money, with 40 per cent going to food.
And yet most studies also reveal a few significant disadvantages. Most notably: If you pay people not to work, they tend to work less. A 2013 academic study by current federal Treasury Board president Jean-Yves Duclos found a proposed minimum-income scheme for Quebec “would have strong negative impacts on labour market participation rates, and mostly so among low-wage workers.” Plus, it’s very, very expensive. In 2018, the Parliamentary Budget Office pegged the price of a Canada-wide basic income scheme at nearly $80 billion a year, or four times last year’s deficit. If universal income replaced all other federal programs aimed at low-income Canadians, the net cost could fall to $44 billion per year. While pricey, that’s cheaper than CERB to date.
In fact, we ought to consider CERB to be the biggest basic income experiment of all. The entire country is now a laboratory. And we will soon have reliable data on how it affects individual decisions and outcomes on work, school and health. If the results are supportive—and if Ottawa and the provinces are prepared to wind up all their other social assistance programs to create the necessary cost savings—we will have a historic opportunity to end poverty once and for all with a simple, efficient and dignified payment to all Canadians in need.
A universal basic income seems a fitting rebuttal to the universal hardship wrought by the current pandemic.
A waiter wearing a protective mask serves a customer at an outdoor section of a restaurant in Valencia, Spain, May 18, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Credit: Nacho Doce/Reuters via CNS.)
Some European Catholic leaders echo pope’s call for universal basic wage
Jonathan Luxmoore, CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE, May 30, 2020
(https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2020/05/some-european-catholic-leaders-echo-popes-call-for-universal-basic-wage/)
Catholic groups across Europe have echoed Pope Francis’ call for a universal basic wage as part of recovery plans after the coronavirus pandemic.
“No one in the church should be against a decent minimum wage which saves people from poverty; this should be defended by Catholics worldwide,” said Peter Verhaeghe, policy and advocacy officer with Caritas Europa. “Its level would need to be clarified by governments, trade unions and employer organizations. But the idea of paying contributions and building up social rights represents a solidarity system in line with Catholic social teaching.”
Verhaeghe told Catholic News Service poverty among working families had risen sharply in Europe, where not all countries had a legal minimum pay structure. He added that a universal basic wage should be distinguished from the centuries-old ideal of an automatic state income for all citizens, which raised more complex issues.
He said a basic wage would provide a “safety net of last resort” for those with no jobs and no entitlement to unemployment benefits, enabling them to “get out of poverty and reconnect with the labor market.
In an April 12 letter to social movements and organized groups of casual laborers, Pope Francis said the COVID-19 pandemic should give rise to consideration of “a universal basic wage” to guarantee people have the minimum they need to live and support their families.
Meanwhile, another Catholic aid expert told CNS “fragilities in the system” had been exposed during the COVID-19 crisis.
“We’ve seen how the poor have been much more severely impacted – even in wealthy countries, lower-wage people are suffering from job losses and precarious work conditions and are also more vulnerable to this disease,” said Josianne Gauthier, secretary-general of the Brussels-based CIDSE, which groups 17 Catholic development agencies from Europe and North America.
“This is what’s bringing these moral arguments about social justice back to the fore. If we’re to heal wounds, this must include correcting pay inequalities and giving people a right to live in dignity,” she said.
Support for a universal basic wage to ensure minimum living standards have been growing across Europe, where some countries have subsidized wages by up to 80 percent during the pandemic.
Poverty-proof income schemes are advocated in the Council of Europe’s 1961 European Social Charter and the European Union’s 2017 Pillar of Social Rights, but have not been implemented in all countries.
In Spain, where an income boost for 2.3 million people below pension age is to be launched in June, the bishops’ conference president, Cardinal Juan Jose Omella, told Diario de Leon May 19 a universal basic wage should be made permanent “where decent jobs, homes and wages cannot be guaranteed.”
Two days later, the cardinal told Spain’s Telecinco TV that requests for aid from the church’s Caritas organization had tripled during the pandemic, and he said “a decent salary, job and decent home” should now also be “assured as much as possible to everyone.”
Demands for a “social protection network” for those without “jobs, wages and rights” were introduced in mid-May by Spain’s conference of religious superiors, Catholic action network, justice and peace committee and other church organizations.
The Christian Workers Movement in neighboring Portugal said in a mid-May statement it also believed a universal basic wage would give citizens “a more dignified, just and humane life” after the coronavirus crisis.
Calls for a basic wage or similar livelihood guarantees, in line with church teaching, have come from Catholic groups in Austria, where unemployment doubled over the past year, as well as from Cardinals Reinhard Marx of Germany and Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community.
Gauthier said there was “wide agreement now across religious and political divisions that real change is needed. We can’t just go back to normal, but must emerge stronger and better from this time of sickness.”
“It’s the lower-paid workers who’ve kept everything going during this crisis – those once invisible beneath the system have now had their humanity recognized,” she said. “Giving them the same rights as everyone else is a question of justice, but also of economic logic, since we’ve seen how much we depend on these people.”
Universal Basic Income Program in Finland Improved Participants’ Well-Being
Brandon Wiggins, Global Citizen, May 7, 2020
(https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/finland-universal-basic-income-coronavirus/)
A universal basic income (UBI) policy in Finland has been found to improve recipients’ “mental well-being, confidence, and life satisfaction,” according to the Guardian.
The policy is part of a larger trend of renewed interest in UBIs, especially in recent weeks, as a potential remedy for the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The basic income recipients were more satisfied with their lives and experienced less mental strain than the control group,” the study concluded, according to the Guardian. “They also had a more positive perception of their economic welfare.”
Further, the UBI did not have an adverse impact on people seeking jobs, Business Insider reported. However, other basic income researchers have criticized the study, claiming that there are serious flaws in the experiment’s design.
In the experiment, which was carried out in 2017 through 2018, 2,000 randomly selected unemployed people between 25 and 58 years old were given $600 a month, Business Insider reported.
The study’s results could be evidence for and against UBI, depending on one’s political preferences, Professor Helena Blomberg-Kroll, the study’s lead, told the Guardian.
“While basic income can’t solve all our health and societal problems, there is certainly a discussion to be had that it could be part of the solution in times of economic hardship,” she added.
“I think it would bring people security in very insecure situations when they don’t know whether they’re going to have an income,” said Minna Ylikännö of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, which took part in the study, according to New Scientist.
The economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been drastic. The World Bank projects that it could lead to an increase in global poverty for the first time in 20 years. This has prompted governments to give consideration to UBI programs as a way to alleviate the economic fallout.
The Spanish government announced in April that it would roll out UBI “as soon as possible,” and Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has said that “the time has come” for UBI in the country.
UBI has also been found to have a positive impact in Canada and could fight climate change and extreme poverty, two of the United Nations’ Global Goals.