On Monday, former U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang announced he was leaving the Democratic Party. The announcement was made in a blog post, calling the move “the right thing to do.” But the former Democrat-turned-Independent isn’t just leaving one party: he’s decidedly creating his own.
Yang joined “Tucker Carlson Today,” Thursday explaining why he is now starting his own inclusive third party that he believes many Americans will identify with.
“Right now, this duopoly is not working for any of us,” Yang said, of the two-party system. “It’s not working for Democrats, Republicans or Independents. And so this is my new project, the ‘Forward Party’ — not left or right, but forward.”
Yang described his new party as being solutions-oriented and inclusive of all political ideologies. He famously ran for president in 2020 on a platform of promoting universal basic income – an ideal that is foundational to the Forward Party – along with addressing issues like job automation and immigrants’ impact on the U.S. economy.
Yang told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that he ran for president because he saw an economic transformation happening in America and believed it was upending the labor market.
“Our political class really either didn’t understand it or didn’t want anything to do with it,” he said. “So I decided to run for president because I wanted to advance what I saw as real solutions, like a universal basic income that would help millions of Americans transition.”
“It was an act of service on my part. I thought I could make a contribution.”
Yang explained that universal basic income would help Americans with fundamental needs while the economy transitions to automation. Instead of viewing the funds as “unearned,” he sees the money as being an aid for people who have lost jobs to A.I., automation and economic shifts.
“I am trying to bring our country back together,” Yang said, noting the increasing division in America.
Yang said he hopes to elevate diverse viewpoints and work toward real electoral reform. While the Forward Party is currently a PAC (political action committee), Yang is determined to see it reach full fruition as a third party in due time.
“If you look at the writings of the founding fathers, they feared factionalism that didn’t fluctuate, which is exactly what we have with this duopoly,” he said, noting that more than half of Americans want a third party and believe that both the Democratic and Republican parties are out of touch.
The Forward Party, as Yang explained, is focused on finding common ground.
“We’re never going to make progress if we’re not willing to talk to each other. And that’s what the Forward Party is going to be about,” he said.
“I will talk to anyone who wants to actually make our lives better and solve the problems that are getting worse around us.”
TOKYO—Japan’s new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, called for more aggressive distribution of wealth to those with lower and middle incomes, including possible new cash handouts for people suffering during the pandemic.
Mr. Kishida spoke at a news conference Monday hours after he was elected prime minister by Japan’s Parliament. The 64-year-old former foreign minister was elected head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Sept. 29, assuring his elevation to prime minister.
While he hasn’t proposed any sharp departures from the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Kishida has taken a more liberal tone, in the American sense of the word, on the economy. He says the world’s third-largest economy has a widening rich-poor gap that needs to be closed through distribution of wealth to those who are falling behind.
“We need to create an environment where the fruits of growth are properly distributed,” he said at the news conference.
Mr. Kishida said he would consider cash handouts to single mothers, workers without steady jobs and others suffering during Covid-19. Last year the government distributed nearly $1,000 to every resident. He also said his government would look at tax breaks for companies that use their cash stockpiles to raise workers’ salaries rather than only raising dividends.
He has said that if lower-income people have more cash in their pockets, it will stimulate consumer spending. However, any push to limit corporate dividends could hurt the stock market, which rose sharply between 2012 and 2020 when Shinzo Abe was prime minister.
The stimulus plans are likely to figure prominently in Mr. Kishida’s campaign this month to keep the Liberal Democratic Party’s majority in Parliament’s lower house, the more powerful of the legislature’s two chambers. Mr. Kishida said the lower-house election would take place Oct. 31.
Japan’s economy has recovered slowly from the Covid-19 pandemic, as repeated states of emergency this year have held back consumer spending on travel, restaurants and entertainment. The country’s gross domestic product in the April-to-June quarter remained more than 3% below the peak it reached in the third quarter of 2019.
Recently signs have improved, although they were too late to save the unpopular government of former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who said in early September that he would step down. The seven-day rolling average number of Covid-19 infections has fallen more than 90% from an August peak, allowing the government to lift a state of emergency last week. Shopping districts and restaurants were crowded over the weekend as voluntary curbs on businesses were eased.
Sentiment among Japan’s large manufacturers improved to the highest level in nearly three years in the Bank of Japan’s quarterly survey released Friday, helped by the global economic recovery.
Mr. Kishida has said he wants an economic stimulus valued at several hundred billion dollars to lift the economy back to normalcy.
“Kishida is keen to support the Japanese middle class by subsidizing housing and education expenses, which should lead to an increase in consumption,” said Naoya Oshikubo, an economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management.
The ruling party’s new policy chief is Sanae Takaichi, who ran an unexpectedly strong campaign for party leadership against Mr. Kishida with backing from former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Ms. Takaichi has positioned herself as the heir to Mr. Abe’s pro-growth Abenomics policies and has said Japan can issue debt freely to finance its Covid-19 recovery and other priorities as long as inflation doesn’t exceed the Bank of Japan’s 2% target. Recently consumer prices have been roughly flat.
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace confronted Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, over his support for expanding child tax credits under former President Donald Trump while he now opposes Democrats’ efforts that would expand them even further under President Joe Biden.
The 2017 Republican tax cuts doubled the existing child tax credits. Democrats then temporarily increased child tax credits further under the American Rescue Plan approved in March, and began sending out the payments monthly. Through the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation proposal, these increased tax credits would be extended.
While Barrasso supported the child tax credits as part of Trump’s signature tax cut legislation, the GOP senator now opposes the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that would improve them further. Wallace pressed Barrasso on the issue during a Sunday interview on Fox News Sunday.
“As part of the Trump tax cuts in 2017, you voted to increase the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000. Now, as part of this bill, the Democrats would extend that to 2025 at a higher level,” Wallace explained. “And the fact is that your state of Wyoming is one of the states that benefits most from the increase in the child tax credit. Why oppose that?”
Barrasso responded by pointing to his concerns about the broader $3.5 trillion package. The Wyoming Republican called it “a massive bill.”
Wallace then interjected. “Forgive me sir, but I’m asking about this specific part of the bill. I understand there are parts that you don’t like. For instance—I guess part of the question is, could you have worked with them on this child tax credit? Which you voted for in 2017, that’s one of the things that you’re voting against now. Why oppose that specific program?”
The GOP senator said that lawmakers have to “look at the entire bill and say if you’re for the bill or you’re not.” The Wyoming lawmaker went on to complain that Democratic lawmakers have not been “coming to talk to Republicans on any of these things.”
Later in the interview, Wallace pressed Barrasso over the provision to expanded childcare and fund universal pre-kindergarten through the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package: “In the state of Wyoming, less than a quarter of children [ages] three to four, which is who would be covered in the bill, are enrolled in publicly funded preschool—less than a quarter. Wouldn’t a lot of Wyoming families benefit from universal pre-k?”
Barrasso admitted that “there are a number of things that will help the people of Wyoming” in the bill. But he insisted that “overall, Joe Biden’s policies have been hurting the people of Wyoming.”
Newsweek reached out to Barrasso’s press representatives for further comment but did not immediately receive a response.
The $3.5 trillion reconciliation package proposed by the White House and Democratic leaders would provide funding for universal pre-kindergarten, extend the popular child tax credits, make two years of community college free for all Americans, expand medicare access, work to lower the cost of prescriptions drugs and address climate change, among other priorities. But Republicans in Congress unanimously oppose the Democratic legislation.
Democrats turned to the budget reconciliation process when it became apparent that they would not receive any GOP support for the bill. Due to the Senate‘s legislative filibuster rule, most legislation requires at least 60 votes to pass in the upper chamber of Congress. With an evenly split Senate—50 to 50—Democrats turned to the budget reconciliation process, which allows for passage with a slim majority. Vice President Kamala Harris, the president of the Senate, can cast the final decision on tied votes.
But moderate Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia have expressed opposition to the high price tag of the reconciliation bill—leaving its passage in doubt. Manchin said last week that he’d be supportive of a substantially smaller $1.5 trillion reconciliation bill and President Joe Biden later reportedly told lawmakers that the final package may be closer to $1.9 trillion or $2.2 trillion.
The Basic Income Gant (BIG) is on everybody’s lips at the moment. The South African government has been debating the pros and cons of the grant for as long as we have been a democracy. In August this year, the government implemented a Covid relief grant of R350, which some see as a precursor to the BIG.
There is still a long way to go before the BIG is implemented, with many aspects still to be ironed out. One of the many questions being asked is how much recipients will receive? The answer depends largely on the objectives of the grant.
The BIG will impact all South Africans, both employed and unemployed. You’ll either be on the side that receives the grant, or the side that is funding it through increased taxes (assuming that’s the solution to the funding quandary).
If the introduction of the BIG means that recipients will start thinking more long-term, what does this mean for brands and business?
This amount is more than just financial assistance to unemployed South Africans, it could also be their doorway to a world of products, brands, services and aspirations they had never considered before. A person who earns R20 to R50 a day, doing odd jobs, is only thinking of their day-to-day struggles. Do I have enough money to feed myself and my family? Can I afford some kerosene to keep the house warm? Do I have enough for the taxi ride home? They are thinking short-term, in the ‘now’. Tomorrow takes a backseat because today is not guaranteed.
But if they had enough to ensure today is taken care of, and some leftover to plan for tomorrow, what might be different?
We wanted to find out, so we surveyed potential BIG recipients to ask them what they would do with a monthly grant of R1268. Our poll included unemployed consumers aged 18 to 64. We gave them an extensive list of options, from buying a new cell phone, contributing to a stokvel, renovating their home, opening a savings account, to eating out at restaurants.
While basic needs like groceries or toiletries were considered important, with 71% and 52% saying they would spend more on these items respectively, there was a clear indication that consumers want to be responsible with their money, demonstrating a future-focused mindset. They are thinking of ways to save and grow their money to create financial stability through various means.
Saving or investing for the future
More than half the sample (51%) would open a savings account to save their money, 20% would join and contribute money to a stokvel, while another 34% would opt to invest money in investment vehicles such as unit trusts, endowments or even shares and bonds.
The desire to save and invest was strongest amongst younger consumers, with 18 to 34-year-olds showing the most interest.
Will invest in UT, endowments, shares or stocks etc.
Clear out the financial closet
A quarter (25%) of the sample would look to pay off debt and unshackle themselves from past financial obligations. This was particularly important to 25–34-year-olds, with this age group making up 53% of those who would use the money for this purpose.
Insure for the Future
Interestingly, 44% chose some form of insurance for themselves, either funeral cover, life cover or medical aid. Of these insurance options, most (20%) opted for funeral cover, with 13% choosing life cover and 11% selecting medical aid.
A path to progression
There is a real need for progression and to improve quality of life. This is clear when we see that a significant number (42%) would like to start a business, something that is especially important for 25-34 year-olds. 31% would use the money to study further, an option that was particularly enticing for younger consumers, 18-34 year-olds.
Entrepreneurship and education for many is a path to financial advancement and independence. Both are highly aspirational goals, and a small business can be an asset to pass down to the next generation.
Education empowers individuals to secure permanent employment, a potential promotion or even a better job, which all translate to a financial step up.
Will study further/ sign up for a course
Will start their own business
Opportunities for the financial sector: Improve access through simplicity, ease-of-use and convenience
Consumers are looking for greater financial stability and a way to stretch their money as much as possible.
It is clear there is interest in financial products that either ‘protect me and my family’ or ‘grow my money’. The financial services sector needs to meet this interest with accessible, user-friendly information and affordable options.
Investing and saving products need to be demystified for this consumer and explained in a language that is consumer-friendly, on a platform that is accessible and convenient. There is a need for investment or savings products that are affordable but also offer tangible benefits. So, while long-term goals are achieved, day-to-day needs are also met through relevant value-adds and rewards.
Advise and educate to empower
The need for support and advice on starting a business or courses to study is important, and this could come from any brand in any sector, provided it’s accessible. For a brand to position itself as a partner on the journey to success is highly compelling and can build real brand loyalty as long as this is done with authenticity.
While the BIG has potential to change recipients’ lives, brands have the potential to play a critical role in getting this money to go even further by partnering with consumers in a supportive and accessible way. In turn, brands would access a new cohort of consumers who previously might have not been able to consider their products. For more information, visit www.kla.co.za
Innocent Tshilombo, who spent 10 years at Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, describes how attaching conditions to cash and voucher assistance can seriously impact its effectiveness.
Innocent Tshilombo left DRC 10 years ago and has been living in Kakuma refugee camp for most of the time since then. He is founder of Kakuma Ventures in the camp and in 2020/2021 he pursued his Master’s in humanitarian action at the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies. These studies included modules on cash and voucher assistance, which inspired him to write this blog – reflecting on his experience of receiving assistance.
My Experience with Cash Assistance
I came to Kenya in 2009 from DRC and Kakuma refugee camp has been my home for much of the last 10 years. Kakuma is a camp in the north-western Kenya where WFP distributes monthly e-vouchers and in-kind assistance through three food distribution centres managed by their partner organizations to serve a population of 157,539 people.
I present the perspective of a recipient who has experienced collecting in-kind aid and who has seen e-vouchers introduced as part of the assistance provided. I believe that cash assistance offers value for money and offers more flexibility by offering options to beneficiaries and preserving their dignity compared to in-kind assistance.
However, the objectives of humanitarian organizations providing sector-specific cash and voucher assistance limit the benefits of cash assistance to beneficiaries.
Over time there has been a lot of improvement, but collecting in-kind aid in the Kakuma refugee camp still takes 2-4 hours and is a struggle discouraging some beneficiaries from collecting their aid in order to avoid the nightmare of dealing with brutality from security personnel, some of whom prioritize their relatives and friends to be served first. Sometimes people can be so frustrated with the collection process that they skip the distribution and miss out on a month’s in-kind food basket.
A few years ago, the in-kind assistance was partially cut and replaced with a mobile food e-voucher locally known as “Bamba Chakula” (‘get your food’ in Swahili). Collecting the in-kind assistance was a pre-condition to qualify for receiving Bamba Chakula. Consequently, missing the collection of in-kind assistance led to the disqualification of receiving the Bamba Chakula. This pre-condition made those who did not feel safe at collection points or who failed to collect their in-kind assistance for any reason even more vulnerable.
WFP and their partners were the only ones that distributed e-vouchers targeting all households in the camp. The e-voucher was designed to meet specific objectives aimed at enabling people to purchase fresh foods that were not available in-kind at the food distribution centers like milk, meat, vegetables, and fruits.
The restrictions and pre-conditions attached to Bamba Chakula led to less flexibility and choice, poor value for money, and lowered the dignity of the beneficiary.
The restrictions and conditions for receiving Bamba Chakula were further tightened by the managers of the few stores pre-selected by WFP to participate in the e-voucher program. In some cases, restrictions on what to buy reduced the value of the e-voucher. In a situation when a beneficiary would need to purchase an item that was not covered by Bamba Chakula, the trader would devalue the e-voucher to a random value as low as 60% of its actual cash value. On the other hand, with only a few stores participating in the e-voucher program, the economic benefits to the local businesses that participated in the e-voucher program created a new form of market inequality and unfair competitive advantage between traders – with benefits to those who participated in the e-voucher program compared to those who did not. What’s more, Bamba Chakula was conditioned for use within less than 7 days, after which the value was discharged from the mobile account with no lasting benefit to the end-user beyond the e-voucher period.
There are obvious inequities that exist among the refugee population in the Kakuma refugee camps. Aid should not deepen these inequalities.
The introduction of restricted and conditional e-voucher assistance is perceived as another layer of constraint imposed on refugees. This comes on top of the existing constraints imposed by the refugee policy in Kenya which limits, for example, the income streams a refugee can access and sets a limit to earnings that a refugee can receive if they are employed by an organization in the camp.
The situation in Kakuma reflects how humanitarian project design is influenced by many factors. Implementation and monitoring are influenced by inherited biases, habitual perceptions about the responsibility of a beneficiary over the choices they have to make in their own lives, and the lack of evidence in the humanitarian sector. Such factors create an obvious obstacle to roll out cash assistance and fail to reap the benefits that cash as a form of assistance offers in a response to humanitarian needs.
Cash assistance is intended for beneficiaries and they have the primary responsibility to decide what is best for them. Sector-specific CVA interventions, such as the one offered by WFP in Kakuma, with a restricted focus on food, should also embrace multi-purpose cash assistance which can be used on food and other things according to need.
Just because e-vouchers are restricted to the purchase of food does not mean a person will choose to spend their money on food all the time – as they have other needs to consider – but it does mean they are penalized for doing so as value is lost in the process.
Restricted and conditional cash and voucher aid reproduces a new form of wasted resource that is akin to the distribution of unwanted products that are sometimes included in the basket of in-kind aid. Sector strategies must be adapted to promote a liberalized choice of options, flexibility, and dignity for beneficiaries, whether in education, food security, or health, while taking into account protection needs.
If you’ve never been on the receiving end of aid, you are lucky. But, if one day, you are in that position – ask yourself – do you want other people making choices about what you eat and how you spend your money?
It was the devastation of the Second World War that gave birth to the UK’s welfare state, and now, argues Louise Casey, the covid-19 pandemic provides the government with a unique opportunity to fundamentally overhaul it. Karen Day hears her call for a ‘Beveridge-style moment’
“It’s a phenomenal day,” said Baroness Casey as the UK government announced it would bust its manifesto commitment and increase national insurance to fund extra health and social care spending. “We have to declare a tiny victory for people that are poor in this country – which is the government has realised it needs to spend more money.” But for Casey, a former government tsar who has served under five prime ministers, this is nowhere near enough. Speaking at an Institute for Government event, the social welfare and homelessness campaigner says the government must see the enormity of what the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed and is calling for a ‘Beveridge-style moment’ – a fundamental rethink of the UK’s welfare and social state.
Casey, chair of the Institute of Global Homelessness, isn’t alone in this thinking. As the pandemic has taken hold a growing number of figures across the political spectrum, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the leader of the Labour Party, have called for the type of seismic change created by William Beveridge, whose report in the 1940s paved the way for the welfare state. Both Casey and IfG chief Bronwen Maddox noted that the ‘call to arms’ in the struggle against rising inequality and poverty is also being heard within Whitehall, with senior civil servants within the Cabinet Office pushing for a ‘Beveridge-moment’ for the last 18 months.
Exponential growth in poverty
Speaking at an Institute for Government event, Casey said she’d never come across “anything like” the exponential growth in poverty and inequality in Britain seen in the pandemic. “If you look at the figures from last year, 400,000 people were made redundant between March and October, that’s more than the 2008/09 recession, which is extraordinary. The number of people doubled on Universal Credit from three million to six million and if you add the people on legacy benefits, that’s a further two million.” She added that there were 1.9 million people still on furlough, the government’s popular job retention scheme, and around three million who lost work but weren’t eligible for any support.
“You are looking at 13 million people not working, furloughed or made redundant,” Casey said. “Out of a population of 66 million, that’s 20%. Those numbers are big. The argument I’m trying to stack up is that you can’t just walk away from this as a government.”
Louise Casey
Casey, also a cross bench peer, said you could ‘gift’ the government the fact that the pandemic wasn’t its choice. But she said there were strong arguments that its policy of austerity, which saw severe spending cuts for a decade from 2010, had done much to damage and weaken public services. “We could choose, and this is what they are doing today on social care, to draw a line in the sand and say: ‘You know what, we’re going to take a look at poverty and welfare in the UK. We’re going to think about the new three million people on Universal Credit, who have never been in the benefits system before, we’re going to think about furlough’.” Casey urged the government to see the pandemic as an opportunity to do things “very, very differently” – just as Beveridge used the impact of the Second World War to help create a social welfare system. “You could create a much more positive, something for something welfare state. I wish they would think about a new moment.”
While Casey called the government’s increase in health and social care spending “phenomenal”, she said it simply wasn’t enough. The rise in national insurance paid by staff, employers and those with shareholdings, dubbed the health and social care levy, will raise an extra £12bn (US$16.6bn) a year between 2022-23 and 2024-25. However, it’s already clear that the majority will go directly into the NHS to clear patient backlogs due to Covid-19, and very little into the creaking social care system for children and the elderly. “The pandemic has bought right into vision the cracks that we have all known have been there,” she said, arguing that the government needs to think about major welfare reform. “If I was sat in the Department for Work and Pensions, the Cabinet Office or Number 10 now, and I was serious about levelling up and serious about a new way of looking at Britain, I’d be having a look at welfare benefits.”
‘Fundamentally flawed’
She said the current welfare system, Universal Credit, which was designed to bring the UK’s benefits into one simpler system, was fundamentally flawed. “What they wanted to create was a system that moved and enhanced people into work. But [in real terms, the benefit income] that we hand to people is lower than 1990; that’s not workable. From the moment they enter Universal Credit, we know that 64% get into debt. So instead of keeping them steady we push them further and further away from work and that’s not what was intended.”
She said the government should review its welfare system, looking at what it achieved for families with measures like furlough during the pandemic. “We had a disease. We put millions of people on furlough, we didn’t want families to go to the wall and lose their jobs, so we put a wage benefit in place that got them through the pandemic.”
Today’s UK benefits system is designed to provide the bare minimum required to get by on, and only kicks in when people’s own savings and assets have been depleted. Instead, said Casey, government could ensure that newly unemployed people receive something close to their previous income for 6-12 months, giving them the income and stability to get themselves back into work. “You can start to see how you could create a new welfare state that is reciprocal, so I put in and I can take out. I think we have lost some of that talk in the last 30 to 40 years.” She added that she’d also throw Universal Basic Income, a payment system to ensure everyone has a minimum income level, into the ‘pot’ as the type of system she’d like to see created.
Welfare reform is an enormous task, but she told the IfG event that the upside of the pandemic has shown what can be achieved when governments are “serious”. Again, she points to furlough, where the government has so far spent over £67bn (US$92.7bn). And to its ‘everyone in’ policy on homelessness, which she led, that saw 15,000 homeless people moved off the streets and into temporary accommodation to prevent the spread of Covid. “If you want to create seismic change you need the substance of Whitehall and politics lined up behind it. That’s what social care needs, that’s what the country needs if we are going to lift up out of the way we are badly running the welfare system. We need to think big.”
Roderick Benns recentlyposed a few questions to Craig Berggold, creator of the recent basic income video that was an instant success.
Benns: What was the inspiration for this type of video, featuring these people? (We’ve had BI videos before…including one animated….but why this kind?)
Berggold: We wanted to create a short Public Service Announcement video for the Basic Income Now campaign during the federal election.
I wanted a positive, uplifting PSA that was aspirational and motivated people to take action, like voting for MP candidates who signed our pledge to make basic income a reality if elected to parliament. That is the closing line of the video: “Get Involved. Vote for Basic Income Now.”
In the first week, the PSA reached 30,000 viewers across social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TiKTok) platforms.
Some people are calling the video an advert—and I consider this a compliment. We live in a media-dense world, and staged ‘authenticity’ is a really important technique for cutting through that noise.
The PSA features powerful first-person testimonies directly addressing the viewer: “How would a basic income transform your life?” The cast of non-professional performers share thought provoking remarks from diverse perspectives of the young, old, queer, parents, students, seniors, Black, Asian and Indigenous.
“I can change my mind,” contemplates a woman in the opening lines.
“I can change the world,” reflects a mother with babe-in-arms.
A young man leans into the camera, “A basic income let’s me be the person I need to be. It gives me hope and support to reach my goals.” They return near the end of the short video and voice, “I can volunteer. I can fight climate change.”
The overwhelming response on social media to the video has been encouraging, and sometimes painful, too.
“I would be able to actually live, and not just exist,” was one comment on Twitter.
“Provincial welfare offices would be a thing of the past,” another commented on the hardships of means-testing bureaucracy.
And “Platinum Blonde” twitter handle wrote about the video: “#BasicIncome would improve my quality of life by weakening #HustleCulture.”
The video has elicited remarkable feelings of candour that are often left unspoken: “I could actually afford to go to school, without risk of being evicted from my apartment and without begging for a bursary,” commented a Twitter viewer.
The PSA video was one-part of a much larger “Basic Income Now” campaign coordinated by Canada’s leading basic income organizations and allies. The results of the campaign are impressive. More than 40+ basic income champions were elected to parliament. Over 180 candidates in 157 ridings took our candidate’s pledge.
The collaboration making the video was amazing. Shout-out to my co-producer Andrew McCann who nudged me every step of the way to direct the video. Andrew was also a campaign manager for an MP candidate while we were making the video. The night before our shoot, Andrew sent me a draft of a script, which I re-wrote with the aspirational tenor and first-person voice (as suggested by my girlfriend). The next morning, Sheila Regehr (Basic Income Canada Network) and her niece, Alexandre Kane (Black Lives Matter-London) arrived from Toronto to our Kingston set. I handed the script to Sheila and Alexandre, and said, “I need a couple hours to set-up the lights. Can you go get a coffee and read the script out loud to each other. Come back in two-hours with revisions and we will shoot it.”
“Two days of shooting, followed by four days of editing, and a French sub-titled version. We have 30,000 views in our first week, and we can make it available in other languages. Yesterday, I was on the International Basic Income Day Zoom event and a woman asked for an Estonian-language version for their campaign. The PSA script was designed to ensure it can be used for many campaigns. Let’s get 100,000 views.”
Benns: How did you find your way to the basic income issue and then knew youwanted to support the cause?
Berggold: I am an independent artist in the gig economy with no job security, no benefits, and no pension. A typical freelancer — living in a sci-fi movie where credit-card debts are zombies that won’t die. Where rent eats up more than food and bills. This anti-hero has been organizing for workers’ rights, and better public services for decades. But in a precarious plot twist, where so much work is unpaid, so many irregular and atypical workers, so many hustling, I ask if can imagine income security that is de-linked from wages — a basic income regardless of work status.
I have a history of arts and labour union activism at two of Canada’s top art schools, Vancouver’s Emily Carr University of Art & Design and Toronto’s Ontario College of Art & Design. I am a former local union president at Public Service Alliance of Canada, and co-founder of the Vancouver MayWorks Festival of Working People and the Arts.
Last year, I was the team leader for The Case for Basic Income & the Arts campaign. The case for basic income for the arts is important not just on its own, but also because it is part of much larger series of ‘cases’ coordinated by Barbara Boraks, at The Ontario Basic Income Network. OBIN has been organizing by sectors and communities, including cases for women, LGBTQ+, food insecurity, health, and criminal justice.
To jump start the Basic Income and Arts campaign, I first contacted artists’ unions, like the Canadian Federation of Musicians and CARFAC (the visual artists union). Next, I drafted the public letter and invited my colleagues Zainub Verjee and Clayton Windatt to join as co-authors. Together, we polished the letter sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling for a basic income guarantee for all.
Our public letter campaign was endorsed by over 30 artist unions representing 75,000 members and received national and international media attention, online news, social media and radio interviews, and debated in the House of Parliament’s Question Period.
A massive shout-out to the 2,000 artists who signed the letter, and a big thanks to the organizations representing over 75,000 artists, writers, technicians and performers, like The Canadian Dance Assembly, I.A.T.S.E.’s stage and film production crews, The Writers Union, Actors Equity, and many more.
Benns: How optimistic are you that we’ll have a basic income in Canada within five years? Why or why not?
Berggold: I foresee a future, in 5 to 10 years, where we will be organizing to lift up the national basic income rates that the federal government has established—just like we fight for minimum wages to be increased—in the future, I believe we will be organizing to increase basic income rates to a living wage.
As Congress debates whether to extend the major, but temporary, changes to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) it adopted earlier this year, a crucial question is whether it should keep the credit fully refundable.
A new Tax Policy Center analysis finds that, for low-income families, full refundability is a key element of the CTC reforms. For families with children and incomes in the bottom one-fifth of the income distribution (income of $27,000 or less), keeping the higher credit amounts without full refundability would boost average benefits by only about $100 in 2022– from about $1,500 to $1,600. But if Congress also retains the law’s full refundability, average benefits for those families would almost triple relative to the prior law, to $4,600.
Benefits for families with children in the second income quintile (between $27,000 and $54,000) would rise by an average of almost $700 – from $2,700 to $3,400 – if credits amounts are kept at today’s levels but are only partially refundable just like before the temporary expansion. But their average credit would rise to almost $4,900 if both the higher amounts and full refundability continue. Retaining full refundability of the credit would make little difference for families in the highest two income quintiles.
Keeping the Child Tax Credit fully refundable – so that even very low-income families receive the full benefit – is critical to helping the lowest income families. – URBAN INSTITUTE
In 2021, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) temporarily increased the credit from $2,000 per child under age 16 to $3,600 per child from birth to age 5 and $3,000 per child ages 6 to 17. And crucially, it made the credit fully refundable. Under prior law the credit was only partially refundable. The changes apply only for this year.
Of the total benefit delivered to families in 2022 if the ARP rules were kept in place, keeping the credit fully refundable would represent nearly a quarter of all benefits – almost all of which would be delivered to families in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution.
A recent Urban Institute analysis finds that, in a typical year, extending the ARP provisions of the CTC would reduce poverty by roughly 40 percent – lifting 4.3 million children out of poverty. Maintaining full refundability is essential, however, to allowing the very lowest income families—those whose children are most likely to be in poverty— to receive the full value of the tax credit.
TPC estimates the child credit would deliver about $126 billion in benefits in 2022 if the ARP rules expire, about $169 billion if the credit amounts stay at ARP levels but are only partially refundable, and about $223 billion under all the ARP rules, including full refundability.
If Congress keeps full refundability but reduces credit amounts to pre-ARP levels, overall benefits would be lower. But low-income families would still receive substantial benefits if the lower credit amounts were made fully refundable.
Expanding the CTC to include even the very lowest income families was one of a package of changes that a panel of experts recommended to reduce childhood poverty. Failing to continue full CTC refundability would severely limit the credit’s ability to fight poverty, and again exclude millions of low-income children because their parents don’t earn enough. If policymakers are interested in fully using the CTC to reduce poverty, they should keep the credit fully refundable.
A small but passionate group of people came together in Halifax on Saturday to call for a guaranteed basic income, creating a social safety net that catches everyone.
Basic Income Nova Scotia (BIG-NS) held the rally at Grand Parade to mark International Basic Income Day, with members creating signs and chalk drawings to draw attention to their message.
Mandy Kay-Raining Bird, the group’s chair, said social assistance rates in Nova Scotia are too low and people using the program still fall “well, well below” the poverty line.
“Which is why they live with such misery, and which is why the impact on their physical health and their mental health has been shown to be so dramatic,” she said.
The current model also has plenty of obstacles and many requirements that are “unnecessary,” said Kay-Raining Bird. She said those on assistance are treated as though they can’t be trusted.
People walk through a Halifax rally marking International Basic Income Day. (Haley Ryan/CBC)
BIG-NS is part of the national Basic Income Canada Network, which notes there are usually two major models of the strategy.
One is a universal model, which provides the same benefit amount to everyone, and then those with higher incomes have funds taken back through taxes.
The second is a guarantee model, which the Nova Scotia group favours, and takes other income into account right away.
In this model, the person receives the greatest amount when income is very low. When income grows, the amount reduces gradually. Those who have sufficient income from other sources don’t get a payment.
Replacing the current social assistance program with a basic income would mean people could finally move into safer housing and buy healthy food, or the little things most people take for granted, said Kay-Raining Bird.
She added that studies have shown a guaranteed basic income would lift people out of poverty and help them pursue meaningful work — with very little going to non-essential items like alcohol, as critics have suggested.
Participants in Ontario’s basic income pilot project in 2017 — which was planned for three years but only ran for one —were happier, healthier and continued working even though they were receiving money with no strings attached, according to a recent report.
The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept going while receiving basic income.
Because the cost of living varies across Canada, there’s no single income level that defines poverty. But generally, advocates have talked about setting guaranteed basic income at around $20,000 a year for a single person between ages of 18 and 64.
A rally attendee creates a chalk drawing during the event. (Haley Ryan/CBC)
As someone who relied on provincial disability assistance for years, group member Wayne MacNaughton said being able to tap into Old Age Security benefits and finally get a reliable monthly payment with no strings was a “huge difference.”
Every Canadian should be able to experience that relief, MacNaughton said, adding that current income assistance programs just aren’t enough and require people to jump through too many hoops.
“It gave me some control over my situation,” MacNaughton said.
Kay-Raining Bird’s group is calling on the federal and provincial governments to work together on basic income. She said it could be funded in part by a readjustment of the tax system so a greater percentage is paid by those who can afford it.
There has been “a lot of discussion” about a basic income over the past five years or so, said Kay-Raining Bird, with more conversations at a federal level and Prince Edward Island’s push for the federal government to contribute funding for a basic income pilot program in the province.
“This is the sort of thing I think that could be the thin edge of the wedge in implementing the basic income across the country. Other provinces can follow,” she said.
Two of the calls for justice in the final report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls also said Canada should establish a guaranteed livable income for all.
A small but passionate group of people came together in Halifax on Saturday to call for a guaranteed basic income, creating a social safety net that catches everyone.
Basic Income Nova Scotia (BIG-NS) held the rally at Grand Parade to mark International Basic Income Day, with members creating signs and chalk drawings to draw attention to their message.
Mandy Kay-Raining Bird, the group’s chair, said social assistance rates in Nova Scotia are too low and people using the program still fall “well, well below” the poverty line.
“Which is why they live with such misery, and which is why the impact on their physical health and their mental health has been shown to be so dramatic,” she said.
The current model also has plenty of obstacles and many requirements that are “unnecessary,” said Kay-Raining Bird. She said those on assistance are treated as though they can’t be trusted.
People walk through a Halifax rally marking International Basic Income Day. (Haley Ryan/CBC)
BIG-NS is part of the national Basic Income Canada Network, which notes there are usually two major models of the strategy.
One is a universal model, which provides the same benefit amount to everyone, and then those with higher incomes have funds taken back through taxes.
The second is a guarantee model, which the Nova Scotia group favours, and takes other income into account right away.
In this model, the person receives the greatest amount when income is very low. When income grows, the amount reduces gradually. Those who have sufficient income from other sources don’t get a payment.
Replacing the current social assistance program with a basic income would mean people could finally move into safer housing and buy healthy food, or the little things most people take for granted, said Kay-Raining Bird.
She added that studies have shown a guaranteed basic income would lift people out of poverty and help them pursue meaningful work — with very little going to non-essential items like alcohol, as critics have suggested.
Participants in Ontario’s basic income pilot project in 2017 — which was planned for three years but only ran for one —were happier, healthier and continued working even though they were receiving money with no strings attached, according to a recent report.
The report shows nearly three-quarters of respondents who were working when the pilot project began kept going while receiving basic income.
Because the cost of living varies across Canada, there’s no single income level that defines poverty. But generally, advocates have talked about setting guaranteed basic income at around $20,000 a year for a single person between ages of 18 and 64.
A rally attendee creates a chalk drawing during the event. (Haley Ryan/CBC)
As someone who relied on provincial disability assistance for years, group member Wayne MacNaughton said being able to tap into Old Age Security benefits and finally get a reliable monthly payment with no strings was a “huge difference.”
Every Canadian should be able to experience that relief, MacNaughton said, adding that current income assistance programs just aren’t enough and require people to jump through too many hoops.
“It gave me some control over my situation,” MacNaughton said.
Kay-Raining Bird’s group is calling on the federal and provincial governments to work together on basic income. She said it could be funded in part by a readjustment of the tax system so a greater percentage is paid by those who can afford it.
There has been “a lot of discussion” about a basic income over the past five years or so, said Kay-Raining Bird, with more conversations at a federal level and Prince Edward Island’s push for the federal government to contribute funding for a basic income pilot program in the province.
“This is the sort of thing I think that could be the thin edge of the wedge in implementing the basic income across the country. Other provinces can follow,” she said.
Two of the calls for justice in the final report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls also said Canada should establish a guaranteed livable income for all.
MOUNTAIN VIEW (KPIX) — Mountain View is just one of the Bay Area cities moving ahead with a guaranteed or universal basic income program. That’s what Saturday’s rally was primarily about but there was also talk of a different kind of politics. “I think we’re seeing good results in other cities and that’s why I felt like it was time for us to try it here,” said Margaret Abe-Koga of the Mountain View City Council.
With $1,000,000 worth of American Relief Act funds, Mountain View is on its way to becoming the latest city to experiment with a universal basic income, in this case a $500 monthly payment to a family at or below 30% of the average median income. The people behind the idea largely credit one person for it.
“I was inspired by Andrew Yang,” said Abe-Koga. “I was an early Yang Ganger and it was because of his UBI concept.”
“We always had the money and we also know that people will spend it on food, fuel, keeping a roof over their head,” Yang told the crowd.
For the former presidential candidate, this rally seemed a bit like a victory lap in one sense. From Oakland to Marin to Santa Clara County, UBI programs are gaining momentum. State senator Dave Cortese was on hand to lend his support. Now polling with a 54 percent approval rating nationwide, this is an idea with a lot of fans.
“It’s a thrill to be here to help continue the movement for basic income, which now the majority of Americans know is common sense,” Yang said.
“Universal basic income makes perfect sense,” said rally attendee Doug Ridley. “As a matter of fact, it’s so obvious that it almost doesn’t need explaining.”
There is, of course, opposition and the early programs are using grants and philanthropic funds to avoid legal challenges. Supporters say UBI is the future now that it’s gaining political support. As for the subject of politics, Yang also spoke about what he calls a system “leading us to nowhere” and the possibility of his launching a third political party.
“I’m thrilled to be trying to provide a middle ground for Americans who aren’t seeing themselves represented in our politics,” Yang said. “Because our politics have become so extreme and polarized on both sides.”
As for Mountain View’s basic income efforts, they will be talking about that on Tuesday night, specifically, the subject of which families should be prioritized with the launch of the program.
Nearly 94% of parents said they planned to continue working or even work more once receiving the credit, which began in monthly installments in July, according to a report from a team of researchers from Washington University of St. Louis, Appalachian State, UNC-Greensboro, the Urban Institute and Humanity Forward.
Only 6.4% of respondents said they’d use the credit to either work less or change jobs, and those that did were more likely to have young children or a partner at home. To that point, some 11.2% of parents with infants or toddlers said the credit would change their work status, and roughly 20% of those who said they’d use the credit to stay home lived with a spouse or partner.
“Allowing parents, especially mothers, to meet those caretaking requirements is especially important,” said Leah Hamilton, an associate professor of social work at Appalachian State. “That support helps families gain better footing, raise their children and make greater long-term contributions to the economy.”
Of course, there’s currently a debate over the future of the credit and whether it should be tied to work. While most Democrats want to extend the enhanced credit through 2025, moderate Senator Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has argued for work to be required to get the benefit.
Yet increasing requirements on aid programs, such as work restrictions, keeps the poorest children from getting help, according to Hamilton.
“What you mostly find is that you’re excluding the most vulnerable children of parents who have complex barriers to employment,” she said, adding that includes illness and disability.
Could boost entrepreneurship
The study, which surveyed a nationally representative group of 1,514 parents eligible for the credit before the first monthly payment in July, also found that the program could help boost entrepreneurship.
Of those questioned, 21.3% are either currently running their own business or planning to start one. Getting the credit over the next six months will help support these families as they continue to build or start new businesses.
“There’s unmet hunger for entrepreneurship in U.S. households,” said Steven Roll, a research assistant professor at the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, adding that expenses such as childcare, utilities and rent, are all common barriers to starting one’s own business.
“What we’re seeing here is that [child tax credit] may help families solve that equation,” he said. This is also highlighted by the finding that 72% of families said they would prefer to get monthly payments over a lump sum at tax time.
“This to me speaks to the need that these families have for day-to-day liquidity coming in,” Roll said.
Further support kids and the economy
Beyond supporting families at work, the credit would also potentially help level the playing field for children in low- and moderate-income households, said Roll.
Families in this group said they intended to use the money to pay for essentials, save and pay for some extra-curricular activities for children, which are often only accessible to those in higher income households.
And, there’s further evidence that the enhanced credit may boost the economy. A report by the Niskanen Center, a non-profit think tank, estimates that across the next 12 months an expanded child tax credit would increase consumer spending by $27 billion and support the equivalent of 500,000 private-sector jobs.
“A child tax credit that’s well-designed and broadly supported has the potential to generate billions of dollars in economic activity and growth,” said Liam deClive-Lowe, executive director of Humanity Forward.
Universal Basic Income (UBI). It’s a topic that has generated many headlines in Wales in recent months.
The concept of UBI is simple. Everyone, regardless of their own particular circumstances, gets paid a set amount of money by the state on a regular basis.
It is every citizen’s right – providing security from poverty and improving health and well-being.
National income is distributed more equitably.
Non-paid labour such as caring is rewarded.
Workers get the freedom to choose what they do.
Easier to understand than the current benefits system.
The arguments against Universal Basic Income
It’s expensive – a full UBI in Wales could cost anywhere between £35 and 40 billion. The NHS budget in Wales is currently £8.3bn a year.
It’s not targeted, so money goes to those who don’t need it.
A huge shift from the current benefits system and one that could lead to a disincentive to work.
Tomorrow’s economy
There is also the threat (or opportunity?) of automation in the workplace. In the future, increasingly more jobs will be replaced by automation technology. According to analysis firm Oxford Economics, up to 20 million manufacturing jobs could be lost by 2030. And other industries are just as vulnerable – think about when you last used a self-service checkout at the supermarket.
Technology obviously brings a benefit of increased production – just look at the Industrial Revolution – but can we as a society reap those benefits by supporting those whose jobs have been replaced by automation? That’s where UBI could help.
Valuing the individual
But proponents of UBI argue that it is something more fundamental than pure economics.
The UBI Lab Network is an organisation of local groups putting forward the argument of a universal income.
Helena Hyatt helped establish UBI Lab Caerphilly.
The New Tredegar resident said: “This is not just for people with low incomes. The aim of work is to survive – if you are lucky then you do something you enjoy – but people don’t work their best when they are at the other end of the whip.
“UBI could flip that. People could work 100 hours a week – but doing something they love to do. It is about changing the relationship with work so you can do what you want. So much work is already unpaid – from the caring to the arts.
“For me, that’s what UBI is about – breaking the link between the need to survive and human activity. It values each individual in a society, giving them back their agency.”
What’s happening about UBI in Wales?
First Minister Mark Drakeford quickly committed the Welsh Government to a UBI trial immediately after May’s Senedd election. So far, not many details have been released, but what we do know is that any trial could involve people leaving care. However, the Welsh Government is limited in its powers as the benefits system is not devolved in Wales. Any trial would have to work within the current devolution areas.
It estimated that it would cost £99m over two years with 5,000 people taking part – half in a rural area and half in an urban setting. This would amount to 0.6% of the Welsh Government’s 2021/22 budget.
Helena, from UBI Lab Caerphilly, said the county borough would be suited for such a trial.
She said: “It is varied. It has areas of wealth and it has areas of deprivation. We think it is a good area to trial UBI for everybody.
“At the moment, all that is being proposed, or being considered, are care leavers. We are pushing for a whole trial because we want to test this out. When the results come in, we want them to be conclusive.”
What’s happened with UBI trials in other parts of the world?
The largest and longest term study of UBI is in Kenya. It began in 2016 and involves 20,000 people split into three groups: a short term group (two years), a long term (12 years), and a lump sum group.
In March 2021 the study reported that the recipients of UBI experienced “better food security and were less likely to report experiencing hunger”. However, it also found that UBI in Kenya “was not effective at completely protecting recipients from economic hardship”.
Finland
A Basic Income Experiment was undertaken in Finland between 2017-2018. 2,000 unemployed people aged 25-58 received a monthly payment of €560. The experiment found that employment effects were small, “but recipients were “more satisfied with their lives and experienced less mental strain” and had “a more positive perception of their economic welfare”.
USA
In February 2019 a two year study began in Stockton, California. A report of the first year’s findings said recipients of the guaranteed income were “healthier, showing less depression and anxiety and enhanced wellbeing”, and were able to find full-time employment.
South Africa’s government met Tuesday to discuss how to accelerate the country’s economic recovery and consider the most feasible way to provide further welfare grants.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has agreed in principle on the need for a basic income grant and the government is now considering the most sustainable way to implement it, Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele said in remarks broadcast on television broadcaster Newzroom Afrika.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana warned in a presentation to ANC officials last week that the government has limited budget space to fund the party’s project wish list.
In addition to a range of social grants the government already offers, it introduced a special grant in July to mitigate against the effects of Covid-19 for those not currently receiving other payments.
“The fact that the finance minister said there are fiscal pressures, does not change the fact that we need to find innovative ways on how to make sure that we deal with the desperations of people,” Gungubele said.
The cabinet will discuss whether or not the grant would be given to households or to individuals, he said.
Godongwana will present a fiscal outlook to the gathering, and advise on expenditure pressures and whether there is a need to make any adjustments.
The Canada emergency response benefit renewed calls for establishing a national livable income program
By: Jaela Bernstien
When the federal government launched the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB) last year, it left some wondering whether it could lead to a lasting framework for a national basic income program — one that would help lift struggling Canadians out of poverty.
While it was a temporary program, CERB provided a touchstone for many who wondered, if the country can create a standard livable wage during a pandemic, why stop there?
Port Elgin, Ont., resident Mini Jacques was one of many who reached out to Ask CBC to find out where the parties stand on basic income during this election.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s an even playing field for basic living,” she said in an interview.
“The government is saying that for CERB, people get $2,000 just to exist and yet … [we] haven’t had a raise in disability for some time.”
Jacques is blind and relies on the Ontario Disability Support Program for income. Her rent costs $1,022 monthly and she receives $1,169 through ODSP. That leaves her just $147 a month to cover the remaining necessities.
She works part-time to supplement those benefits, but if she earns more than $200 monthly, half of her take home earnings over $200 are deducted from her income support.
Her rent is increasing, and she worries that her ODSP cheques won’t increase at the same pace. She’s 61 years old, and for now she said she’s getting by with the help of friends and family.
What Jacques wants is for the government to create a basic income program that sets the same standard income for everyone who needs help — whether you’re unemployed, disabled, or working but not earning enough to stay above the poverty line.
What is basic income?
What makes basic income different from other programs, such as income assistance or welfare, is that it comes with no strings attached. In the simplest terms, it’s a regular payment without conditions, sent from the government to families and individuals.
In Canada about 3.7 million people live below the poverty line, according to the 2019 Canada Income Survey. Statistics Canada considers people as living below the poverty line if they don’t have enough income to cover the local cost of necessities such as food, clothing, footwear, transportation and shelter.
Right now, struggling Canadians can access help support through a patchwork of federal, provincial and municipal programs.
Health economist Evelyn Forget, a professor in the department of health sciences at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, said that basic income would replace many of those programs, and ideally cut out a lot of the confusing, bureaucratic red tape.
Forget, the author of Basic Income for Canadians: from the COVID-19 emergency to financial security for all, is a firm believer in the benefits of basic income.
She explained there are two types:
Universal basic income (UBI) means that everyone in a society — rich or poor — gets a monthly cheque for the same amount. At the end of the year, the government uses the tax system to balance out the scales and recoup that extra cash from the higher income earners who didn’t end up needing it.
Guaranteed basic income(GBI) is the system most people are referring to when they talk about basic income in Canada. It is an income-contingent system, meaning monthly payments only go to families and individuals with lower income.
The CERB program was not, in fact, basic income, because there were conditions to qualify: Canadians were only eligible if they had earned at least $5,000 in the last year.
Because the cost of living varies across Canada, there’s no single income level that defines poverty. But Forget said generally, advocates have talked about setting guaranteed basic income at around $20,000 a year for a single person between the ages of 18 to 64.
Where has it been tested and how well did it work?
Countries around the world, including Spain, Namibia, Brazil and Iran, have experimented with basic income, mostly through pilot projects and trial runs.
In Canada, Manitoba ran a pilot project called Mincome from 1974 to 1978 in the rural community of Dauphin.
The idea was to test whether a no-strings attached wage would actually help the working poor by supplementing their income, or end up deterring them from working altogether.
Forget studied the outcomes of that project and found that participants were less likely to be hospitalized and more likely to continue their education.
She said for the most part, basic income did not discourage people from working. One of the groups who worked less were new mothers who, in the 1970s in Manitoba, would have only been entitled to a few weeks of parental leave.
The other group that was disincentivized to work by basic income was young, unattached males. Forget discovered the reason those young men, often in their teens, were less likely to work was because basic income meant their families could afford to let them stay in school. Instead of dropping out to earn wages, they were able to get their high school diplomas.
“The fundamental idea behind basic income, I think, is solid,” she said.
“Unconditional money available to people allows them to make choices about their own lives, allows them to make better decisions about how to live their lives, and leads to better outcomes.”
More recently, Ontario introduced a basic income pilot project in 2017. Close to 4,000 people were enrolled and it was supposed to last three years, but was cancelled early following the election of Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government. They said the program was too expensive.
A 2021 report by Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer found that, if the federal government created a national basic income program similar to Ontario’s, it would cost around $85 billion in 2021-2022 and cut poverty rates by almost half.
“It costs a lot, no question about it,” Forget said.
However, she added that a lot of that cost would be balanced out by eliminating the programs basic income would replace, which might include income assistance or various refundable tax credits.
“A simplified process is always cheaper. It’s always more efficient,” she said.
What are the disadvantages?
In 2018, the government of British Columbia asked a panel of experts to study the feasibility of a basic income for the province. The resulting report found that “the needs of people in this society are too diverse to be effectively answered simply with a cheque from the government.”
Panel chair David Green, a labour economist and a professor at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of B.C., said the better solution is to reform the programs that already exist.
“If our problem is really, the full heterogeneous, complex issue of poverty — how do we make a more just society — then, in many cases, sending people a cheque and hoping they will do better is not going to answer the problem,” Green said.
Green said it would be better to tackle issues head-on, targeting poor working conditions and low wages, reforming the disability assistance program and boosting rent assistance.
Still, others believe basic income is the right solution for Canada.
Two of the calls for justice in the final report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls said Canada should establish a guaranteed livable income for all.
Where do the main parties stand?
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, top left, Conservative Party of Canada Leader Erin O’Toole, top centre, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, top right, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, bottom left, Green Party Leader Annamie Paul, bottom centre, and People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier. (CBC, Erin O’Toole/Creative Commons, CBC, CBC, Chris Young/The Canadian Press, CBC)
Like economists, Canada’s main parties are also divided on basic income, though none are promising universal basic income. Here’s where they stand:
The Green Party:
Platform commits to establishing a guaranteed livable income program.
“The federal government would provide an initial base-level subsidy across the country, and an intergovernmental body would determine and administer the necessary supplemental amounts.”
The NDP:
Platform commits to a guaranteed livable basic income.
“New Democrats will work to expand all income security programs to ensure everyone in Canada has access to a guaranteed livable basic income.”
Would start by lifting seniors and people with disabilities out of poverty, and build on that to establish a basic income for all.
The Liberal Party:
No platform commitment to basic income.
Strong support from within the party for a basic income program.
Liberal MP for Davenport, Julie Dzerowicz, tabled a bill calling for a national basic income strategy in 2021. The bill died at the dissolution of parliament when the election was called.
About the Author: Jaela Bernstien is a Montreal-based journalist reporting on news and current affairs. She has covered election campaigns, criminal trials, riots and natural disasters, and even once explored an ice-age cave.
Some people support them, others reject them, here’s where the candidates stand
With election day on Sept. 20, the time to make a decision is upon us. To help you parse where the party’s stand on the issues of the day, we sent a questionnaire to the candidates of the four parties with a member in parliament, as well as the People’s Party of Canada candidates.
Issues we polled the candidates on were climate change, affordable housing, Laurentian University and the post-secondary sector, the opioid crisis, Indigenous issues, vaccine passports, corporate taxation, universal basic income and mental health supports.
Questionnaires were sent to all candidates, though not all candidates chose to participate. As well, some candidates did not answer all questions provided.
Nickel Belt Riding
Under what circumstances should Canada institute a universal basic income? If not, why not?
Craig Gravelle, Green Party
Canada should institute a universal basic income in perpetuity no matter the circumstances. A universal basic income program would provide Canadians with more choice, dignity, and opportunity, stimulate local economies and leave no one behind. The results from OBIP and Mincome have proven that the program has many benefits including better health outcomes, a decrease in crime, and more bargaining power for workers. 77 per cent of Liberal delegates at a recent convention voted in favour of having a UBI in the Liberal party platform. Unfortunately, the Liberal party leader lacks enthusiasm in the idea, and will not include what 77 per cent of Liberal delegates want in their platform. There is only one party offering voters an unconditional guaranteed livable income and that is the Green Party of Canada.
Marc Serré, Liberal Party
Affordability is crucial. We must explore different methods to support Canadians and residents of Nickel Belt. Rather than exploring basic income we are working to create an EI system that works better for everyone, supporting low income seniors, boosting Child Canada Benefit for families, making affordable $10 a day childcare accessible for all, investing in home retrofits to save on energy, introducing a disability benefit, making our financial system more fair and much more.
Sudbury Riding
Under what circumstances should Canada institute a universal basic income? If not, why not?
Viviane Lapointe, Liberal Party
The membership of the Liberal Party of Canada has endorsed a Universal Basic Income for Canadians, but the government has not yet agreed to pilot it. Instead, the Liberal government has continued to build out targeted support programs for vulnerable Canadians, and those programs have been very successful.
For example, the Liberal government passed the Canada Child Benefit, to replace the Conservatives’ old Universal Child Benefit. The CCB has proven to be one of the most successful poverty reduction programs in modern Canadian history, having been widely credited with up to 435,000 families out of poverty. In Sudbury alone, the CCB puts $54 million annually directly into the pockets of Sudbury families who needed it the most.
We also provided a CCB top-up of up to $1,200 to help parents of children under 6 cope with extra costs during COVID-19.
Our government also reversed the Conservative policy and restored the age of eligibility for OAS and GIS to 65, from 67, preventing 100,000 seniors aged 65 and 66 from plunging into severe poverty each year. We also increased the Old Age Security pension by 10 per cent for all seniors aged 75+, providing $766 over the first year to pensioners receiving the full benefit.
Going forward, a re-elected Liberal government will also work with all provinces and territories over the next year to increase the support survivors, many of whom are women, receive by increasing the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan survivor’s benefit by 25 per cent.
David Robinson, Green Party
We support a Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI) program to replace the current array of income supports, such as disability payments, social assistance, income supplements for seniors and refundable credits. We would begin to implement it immediately if a miracle happened and we formed the government.
Ian Symington, Conservative Party
Basic income supports will never replace the benefits of a job. The benefits of working include increased self worth, improved mental health, community involvement, ability to improve yourself, and contribution to economies and providing services to others. Those who cannot work will be covered under the large safety net we have in Canada. Canada’s Conservatives will create jobs through our Jobs Plan, providing stability to working Canadians. We need a recovery for all Canadians in every sector, which our plan will deliver. We also need to make work pay, make it more secure, and protect workers. That’s precisely what our plan delivers. $1/hour Raise for Working Canadians Canada’s Conservatives believe that it’s time to make work pay and help those most in need. We will: double the Canada Workers Benefit up to a maximum of $2,800 for individuals or $5,000 for families, and pay it as a quarterly direct deposit rather than a tax refund at year-end. This will put an average of an extra thousand dollars into the pockets of the most vulnerable workers, helping three and a half million families put food on the table. We will be giving someone making $20,000 per year a $1/hour raise. We will also double the disability supplement from $713 to $1,500. This will help almost 90,000 disabled workers.
Nadia Verrelli, NDP
New Democrats believe that this is a critical moment to strengthen our social safety net and to improve income supports so that all Canadians can live in dignity and security. We know that when we invest in meaningful income supports, it gives people a chance to live full and healthy lives.
With the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, we have seen what’s possible when governments mobilize to make a livable income a priority. But unlike the Liberals, who moved quickly to cut these benefits, New Democrats won’t stop there – we’ll get to work right away building towards a guaranteed livable income for all Canadians.
We’ll start this work immediately by lifting every senior and person living with a disability out of poverty, and build from there until every Canadian can count on a basic livable income when they need it. This will be complemented by bold new investments in housing, health care, post-secondary education and training to set all Canadians up to succeed.
In time, New Democrats will work to expand all income security programs to ensure everyone in Canada has access to a guaranteed livable basic income. Making the creation of a guaranteed livable basic income a priority will strengthen our social safety net and finally ensure dignity, security and peace of mind for everyone in Canada.
Here we are, a week away from the federal election, and I can’t get a scene from the sitcom Seinfeld out of my head.
It’s the one in which Jerry and George go to a big American network to pitch an idea for a TV show, and when the TV executives ask what it would be about, George replies, “I think I can sum up the show for you in one word. Nothing.”
Sadly, when I think about this election, its timing and the important moment Canada finds itself in, when I ask myself, “What is this election about?” the answer is the same as George Costanza’s: nothing.
But it’s not as if there wasn’t a Big Idea out there that could have been a key one to ponder in this election.
Last year, when COVID-19 forced governments to impose strict lockdowns, Ottawa rolled out the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit, which provided $2,000 a month for those who lost income due to the pandemic.
It didn’t take long for proponents of a universal benefit to realize the CERB was basically a beta test for a wide-scale basic income program in Canada. A group of 50 senators immediately began pushing the Trudeau government to turn the CERB into a universal benefit program – an idea that has since gained traction and support from advocates and experts across the country, especially those who work with the vulnerable and marginalized and those living in poverty.
Many of these advocates were so convinced that Ottawa might actually consider implementing a basic income program, they expected to see money dedicated to it in Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s 2021 budget last April.
They weren’t the only ones. Liberal delegates at the party’s policy convention this spring overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution calling on the federal government to implement a universal basic income for all Canadians. The resolution pointed specifically to the “success of the CERB program” as a major argument in favour, noting that a universal benefit program would help “seniors and low-income Canadians maintain an adequate standard of living, regardless of working status.”
Now, candidates are out on doorsteps, speaking with voters who are telling anyone who will listen they can’t afford basic necessities.
A universal benefit would also reduce bureaucracy and “ensure that communities at risk (including Indigenous peoples) are able to feel financially secure,” the resolution says, and it noted that a basic income would give workers more leverage to say no to exploitative wages and poor working conditions.
Despite the strong endorsement of this resolution by Liberal party faithful (77 per cent of delegates voted in favour), no money materialized in the Trudeau government’s budget for a basic income program and there is no mention of even a pilot project in the Liberal platform.
Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives have similarly steered clear of the idea in this campaign and, while the NDP and Green parties have endorsed a basic income project in their platforms, the NDP hasn’t pushed it enough to make it a major campaign issue and the Greens started so far behind in this race, their promises are little more than hopes and dreams.
Ultimately, however, this election was the moment for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to show whether they would ever truly be willing to make universal income a reality. After six years in power, they had plenty of time to study and debate its merits. Their members say they want it. And after the pandemic hit, the CERB gave the Liberals an opportunity to show the country how a national safety net program can work. Now, candidates are out on doorsteps, speaking with voters who are telling anyone who will listen they can’t afford basic necessities.
In an election struggling for a raison d’être or a Big Idea, this could have been it. There’s intense need among a large number of Canadians, thanks to the pandemic, rising income inequality, overheated housing markets and spiking inflation rates. And there’s political buy-in from a large majority of the membership of three of the four parties vying for power in this election.
This is a recipe policy experts will tell you hits the sweet spot when deciding whether to take the plunge on a new idea.
There’s also plenty of data to draw upon, thanks to a number of in-depth studies, costings and the preliminary results of the now-defunct 2017 Ontario pilot, in which researchers found most recipients of the benefit continued working and reported a “transformational” reshaping of their living standards, improved sense of self-worth and hope for a better future.
Here was the moment the Liberals could have made it a centrepiece of their campaign to create a national safety net that Canada, through the CERB, has already demonstrated is possible when the urgency and will is there to roll one out.
If not now, Mr. Trudeau, when?
Sen. Kim Pate, a tireless advocate for marginalized women, is among those pushing for a guaranteed livable income to address the social inequities that disproportionately affect women, especially those who are Black, Indigenous and people of colour.
She says a universal benefit would protect Canadians from the types of financial catastrophes many confronted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It would offer greater economic and therefore health security to the most vulnerable Canadians: precarious workers, the under-employed and the homeless. It would also help workers in the energy industry and other sectors that are likely to experience future vulnerability.”
In other words, it could have been a proposal that demonstrated Trudeau’s progressive bona fides, or at least a Big Idea to give voters something to chew on in this campaign.
Instead, we are left with an election about nothing. Serenity now.
_________________________________________
About the Author: Teresa Wright is a freelance journalist based in P.E.I. who covers federal and regional politics, most recently for The Canadian Press in Ottawa. She is also a journalism instructor at Holland College in Charlottetown.
As Democrats debate whether to extend the enhanced and fully refundable child tax credit (CTC) past this year, almost 450 U.S. economists have come out in support of doing so.
By: Alicia Adamczyk
In an open letter to Congressional leaders, the 448 economists — which span institutions and include several Nobel Prize winners in economics — write that there is robust research indicating the expanded CTC “can dramatically improve the lives of millions of children growing up in the United States and promote our country’s long-term economic prosperity” by reducing child poverty.
In fact, expanding the credit through 2025 would reduce child poverty from 14.2 to 8.4%, a recent analysis from the Urban Institute found. That’s 4.3 million fewer children living in poverty — a 40% decrease.
The CTC was changed in two key ways in 2021 as part of the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan: It was increased from $2,000 to as much as $3,600, and it was made fully refundable, meaning even the lowest-income Americans can receive it. Eligible families began receiving the first of six monthly payments in July.
Those changes have been especially beneficial for low-income families over the past three months. Food insecurity dropped significantly after the first payment, as many families used their deposits to buy groceries. Others bought school supplies and clothes, and paid utility bills, Census data showed.
Research has shown that reducing child poverty has lasting positive effects for low-income kids: they are healthier, do better in school and are more likely to be employed and earn more as adults. These are key reasons so many economists support making the enhanced CTC permanent, says Jacob Goldin, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in tax policy and helped organize the letter.
“It’s very rare to find an issue where so many economists agree on everything,” Goldin says. “But there’s just very, very strong evidence that providing extra financial assistance to kids growing up in low-income households yields big benefits in their lives.”
One of the key debates in Washington right now is whether or not parents should be required to work in order to receive the credit. As with other social safety net programs, some politicians argue that parents will have no incentive to work if they know they will receive a monthly check from the government.
What the research summarized in the letter shows “is that a work requirement would exclude the very children who have the most to gain from receiving the benefit,” Goldin says.
Though it is still not a sure thing that Democrats will make the expanded CTC permanent, Goldin is “optimistic” that they will.
“Democrats will want to make sure that families keep getting these payments each month,” he says.
A South Korean politician who once said he aspired to be a “successful Bernie Sanders” is leading the field to replace Moon Jae-in as president after rising to prominence with an aggressive pandemic response and a populist economic agenda.
Lee Jae-myung, the governor of Gyeonggi province, has led in many recent national polls and dominated the early rounds of the ruling liberal Democratic Party primary, including the latest voting over the weekend.
As governor, Lee advocated for universal basic income and instituted cash payments to all 24-year-old people for a year. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, all province residents also received regular payments.
Under Lee, Gyeonggi also took aggressive steps to combat the pandemic, introducing restrictions on gatherings that were later adopted by the national government, raiding a church at the centre of a large outbreak, and imposing a controversial requirement that all foreign residents be tested.
His outsider image was once seen as a liability in the face of establishment competitors with closer ties to the outgoing Moon.
But with many South Koreans disillusioned by runaway housing prices, a poor employment outlook for young people and a string of corruption scandals, that populist message has driven him to the head of the pack as he looks to blunt conservatives’ efforts to capitalise on voter discontent.
Lee no longer compares himself to Sanders, the progressive senator who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for U.S. president, and has expressed willingness to adjust his policies to avoid strife while embracing “compromise and consensus”.
But he still casts himself as someone who will take on the establishment – which at the moment is largely his own party.
“Only politicians who have the courage and driving force to put up with the resistance and backlash from the establishment can keep and fulfil promises and achieve results,” Lee said during a primary in the eastern province of Gangwon on Sunday. “And I have never made a promise that I could not keep.”
EXPANDING WELFARE STATE
Born to an impoverished farming family in a remote mountain village in the country’s southeast, Lee, 56, attributes his focus on economic equality to an early life as a child labourer in chemical factories that left him with impaired hearing and a wrist deformity.
When elected mayor of Seongnam, one of the largest cities in Gyeonggi, in 2010, he initiated a plan to establish a new, larger public hospital with unprecedented numbers of negative pressure rooms and intensive care beds. The facility now serves as a national COVID-19 centre and has treated more than 3,000 patients.
“Keeping people from disasters and infectious diseases by providing public medical service is one of the government’s most fundamental duties, and my political career began from there,” Lee told Reuters in December.
A longtime advocate of universal basic income, Lee vowed to provide 1 million won ($850) to all citizens and another 1 million to people aged 19-29 every year if he takes office.
He also pledged to boost housing supply by building more than 2.5 million homes, including 1 million to be distributed under a “basic home” scheme, aimed at allowing non-homeowners to live in high-quality public housing at low prices for up to 30 years.
To bankroll the programmes, Lee proposed a carbon tax and a national land tax scheme to increase taxes for all property holders and cut transaction costs.
“I will adopt universal basic income as a national policy to pave the way for a grand transition from a low burden, low welfare state to a medium burden, medium welfare state, while minimising tax resistance,” he told a news conference in late July.
FROM OUTSIDER TO FRONTRUNNER
Lee, who came in third during the Democratic Party’s last presidential primary in 2017, has been dogged by personal controversy while in office, including allegations of an affair with an actress, which he has denied.
As proof of their alleged relationship, the actress said the governor had a large mole on his body. In 2018, Lee publicly undertook an examination to refute that claim, with doctors concluding he had no such mark.
A lawsuit by the actress demanding 300 million won ($255,000) in compensation from Lee is pending in court.
Lee’s rise has been driven chiefly by young and politically independent South Koreans who propelled Moon to victory in 2017 but have since grown disillusioned.
This year Lee has pulled past party bigwigs such as former prime minister Lee Nak-yon, who were seen as favourites of insiders seeking a trusted nominee who can protect Moon’s political legacy.
The conservative opposition, meanwhile, remains in disarray with no one emerging as a potent contender yet.
“Despite mainstream Democrats’ efforts to keep him at bay, Lee’s experience and outsider image cater to many voters’ craving for a candidate who can get the job done,” said Kim Hyung-joon, a political science professor at Myongji University in Seoul.
The coronavirus pandemic threw millions of Americans into unemployment last year, leading to the first drop in household income from work since 2011, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
But even though the official poverty rate also increased, a supplementary measure that accounts for stimulus payments found that poverty actually fell while incomes rose.
In other words, the public health calamity turned out not to be an economic calamity, or at least less of one, thanks to government programs that provided people with assistance. Government programs that provided people with health insurance probably helped people too, although the evidence on that is a little murkier.
“Despite delays and other issues with how relief was provided, poverty would have been far worse without the unprecedented relief,” said Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Not long after the first coronavirus cases had been confirmed in the U.S., Congress enacted the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, creating a massive payroll subsidy for small businesses, the largest-ever expansion of unemployment insurance, and an unprecedented $1,200 relief payment for the vast majority of American adults.
The stimulus payments, in particular, had a big effect, boosting incomes by 4% and lifting more than 11 million households above the poverty line, for a 2.6 percentage point decrease in the poverty rate to 9.1%, according to the Census Bureau’s supplemental poverty measure.
The official poverty rate measure, which omits the payments because they were technically tax credits, increased by 1 percentage point to 11.4%, while the median income for households, not counting the payments, declined 2.9% to $67,521.
It wasn’t the first time Congress sent out stimulus payments, but it was the first time lawmakers sent payments even to households that had no incomes at all, meaning the money was especially effective at pushing households above the poverty line.
Congress followed the CARES Act payments with a round of $600 checks in December and then a $1,400 payment earlier this year. The payments proved popular, and Democrats set up recurring monthly checks of as much as $300 per child for most households this year.
Now Democrats are hoping to continue the child payments through 2025, but are facing some opposition from members of their own party. And Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a key vote in the Senate, said Sunday that he doesn’t think households with no work income should be eligible for the payments.
“Don’t you think, if we’re going to help the children, that the people should make some effort?” Manchin said.
Children had higher poverty rates than adults or seniors in 2020, according to both the supplemental and official poverty measures. Experts have said the monthly child payments wold likely reduce child poverty substantially.
No Change In The Uninsured, Probably Because Of Obamacare
For health insurance, the new census report focuses on comparisons between 2020 and 2018, not 2019, in order to provide a more accurate picture of how coverage changed from before the pandemic.
Overall, the proportion of the population without coverage basically stayed the same. It went from 8.5% in 2018 to 8.6% in 2020, a tiny change that’s well within the margin of error.
The result is consistent with other recent studies, including one from the Urban Institute and one from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that found no significant change in the number of uninsured Americans despite so many people losing insurance because they lost their jobs.
The likeliest explanation for that, scholars have agreed, is the existence of government insurance programs ― in particular, the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” which has made Medicaid and subsidized private insurance available to many more Americans. Official Medicaid data, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, shows that enrollment increased substantially between early 2020 and early 2021.
But there’s a wrinkle in the census report: It picked up no Medicaid enrollment increase, even though it found a decline in employer-sponsored insurance. One possible explanation is that low-income Americans were less likely to respond, or at least to respond accurately, to questions about health insurance.
Although this is always a problem with survey data, it may have been particularly severe during the pandemic, as the Census Bureau made clear in an accompanying blog post. Among other things, COVID-19 relief measures blocked states from requiring people to reestablish their eligibility for Medicaid, as they frequently do, during the public health emergency. As a result, many people on Medicaid might not realize they still have coverage.
“We know based on actual data from states that Medicaid enrollment is up substantially, so the census survey is very likely an undercount of how many people are covered by Medicaid,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, told HuffPost. “The census report is based on people self-reporting their health insurance coverage, which is subject to error, and probably particularly so during a turbulent period like this. States have been prohibited from ending Medicaid eligibility for anyone on the program during the pandemic, which may leave some people especially confused.”
A separate finding in the census report offers more reason to think government programs made a difference. As always, the bureau broke down insurance coverage by state, which makes it possible to compare what happened in states that expanded Medicaid eligibility to cover their entire low-income populations, taking advantage of funds the Affordable Care Act made available, and those that have not.
Among nonelderly adults living at or below the poverty line, the uninsured rate basically didn’t change in expansion states. But it went up by 2.6 points in states that didn’t expand.
There are a dozen such states, including Florida, Georgia and Texas, mostly scattered across the South and all under the control of Republican officials.
The dramatic differences in insurance coverage between states that expanded Medicaid and those that did not is nothing new. But the finding has particular relevance today, because a key part of the spending bill President Joe Biden and the Democrats are trying to pass would finance insurance coverage for low-income people living in those states and currently ineligible for Medicaid.
As the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the deficiencies in income support systems in Canada, calls have been amplified for a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) to provide more comprehensive, ideally universal, protection for household incomes. Some called for permanent implementation of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) but, popular as the CERB was, it has recognized design deficiencies that might be expected from its rushed development.
Opposition to a GBI has also arisen recently. After a thorough vetting of the issue, the B.C. Expert Panel on Basic Income concluded that the province should fix existing supports and services rather than institute a GBI. That conclusion, while widely reported as a rejection of basic income, should rather be understood as a rejection of a GBI on its own at the provincial level. A careful reading of the report would reveal that the Expert Panel viewed the GBI as a useful guideline for future modification and development of income assistance in B.C. and the province should pursue a GBI without federal participation, since the tax system provides the best way to implement a GBI and the B.C. tax system, like all provinces but Quebec, is thoroughly interwoven into the federal system.
The Expert Panel even goes so far as to recommend cooperation with the federal government to address barriers to benefits receipt and tax filing under current tax administration. [Full disclosure: I was a research contractor for the Expert Panel but I was not involved in the writing of the final report.]
While a GBI is often conceived as a grand standalone plan, the federal government has already moved in significant ways toward a basic income plan for certain target groups.
That is, we have developed income support programs along the guidelines set by the Basic Income Canada Network: programs that provide a maximum benefit to those with the lowest incomes and gradually reduce the benefit as incomes rise such that those with higher incomes receive no benefit. The vehicle for these programs is the refundable tax credit, which provided the basis for a GBI in form of a negative income tax in the earliest proposals by Friedman and Mirrlees a half century ago. As the tax system has become increasingly efficient at providing benefits to tax filers, and as the proportion of the population who file taxes has increased, the refundable tax credit has become the sensible choice for the delivery of a GBI. The B.C. Expert Panel advocates refundable tax credits as the most effective method of delivering a GBI to reduce poverty.
Federal refundable tax credit initiatives date back more than half a century. The Guaranteed Income Supplement was introduced in 1967 to top up incomes by 40% of the value of Old Age Security for those seniors with no other source of income. The benefit was reduced at a rate of 50 cents for each dollar of income beyond OAS to target the lowest income seniors.
Its popularity ensured that it has endured to this day as an effective tool to keep poverty rates low among elderly Canadians.
The federal sales tax refundable credit was introduced in 1986 as a modest annual payment for low-income families. It became the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Credit shortly thereafter to assist low-income consumers. It has also endured as a modest quarterly benefit of $456 for single Canadians, $598 for couples, and $157 for each child under 19. Benefits are reduced but at a gradual rate of 5% for family incomes exceeding $38,892.
While these current refundable tax credits have been instituted and maintained under both Liberal and Conservative governments, the Liberals seem to have more clearly embraced refundable tax credits to provide income support for Canadians. Their current platform, for example, aims to augment the Guaranteed Income Supplement by $500 for singles and $750 for couples. It also proposes a Canada Disability Benefit to provide a monthly refundable tax credit for persons with disabilities aged 18-64. The Conservatives, for their part, have proposed to convert the Childcare Expense Deduction to a refundable tax credit to increase assistance to low-income families with child care expenses.
Recognition of the effectiveness of refundable tax credits to deliver benefits to address poverty and assist low-income families should be accompanied by recognition that targeted credits to seniors, children, and those with disabilities leave a significant gap in income support for non-elderly adults, an outcome recognized by the B.C. Expert Panel. The federal sales tax credit covers this group but it is very modest. A refundable tax credit program for non-elderly adults would address remaining poverty and allow Canada to achieve the goals set by the Poverty Reduction Act to reduce the poverty rate to 6% by 2030.
As part of a composite motion to conference, Artists’ Union England is calling on the TUC to support UBI trials for workers in the creative industries.
By: LORAINE MONK and MARTIN GOLLAN
UBI is a cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or requirement to work.
It offers workers choice and flexibility about the work they do. For anyone unable to work, because, for example, of a disability, top up payments would be made.
UBI provides workers with a shield against exploitative employers. It gives workers more freedom to retrain and to pursue careers in sectors, such as the creative industries, where for all but the most successful, incomes are low and conditions precarious.
Trials of UBI have found it reduces stress and anxiety and improves physical health with fewer workers accessing hospital services.
Proposals for a basic income date back to Thomas Paine. A form of UBI was proposed as an alternative to the Beveridge report.
Interest in UBI has now returned in response to globalisation and automation in the workplace threatening the livelihood of millions of workers.
The Labour Party committed to trials of UBI in its 2019 general election manifesto. The trade union movement was beginning to discuss the issue and its implications for workers when the pandemic struck.
Last year as Covid-19 demanded shutting down the economy, the British government was forced to pour billions of pounds into supporting jobs and services, including furlough payments for employees, grants for self-employed workers and a universal credit top-up.
However, all these schemes were conditional, not all workers benefited, and all are due to end.
This ultimately inadequate response from the Tory government raises the opportunity for the trade union movement to consider, across all sectors, radical future options for both work and entitlements, including UBI.
The Irish government recently confirmed its plans for a trial of UBI for artists. We in AUE call on the TUC to support an introduction of a UBI trial for creative artists in England.
Too many talented people are forced to abandon working in their creative field because they cannot afford to carry on.
Before the pandemic, being an artist was already a precarious career path. Most artists do not earn enough from their practice to support living costs.
In a survey of our members we found that 83 per cent of artists earn less than £10,000 per year from their practice and 20 per cent have three or more jobs to support themselves.
These jobs are generally part-time, zero-hours or short-term contracts. This allows flexibility to work on art projects but not a steady income or benefits like sick pay.
During Covid many artists have experienced the double loss of freelance income and wages as creative opportunities have disappeared and whole sectors such as hospitality have closed.
Creativity is an attribute unique to human beings and developing our artistic talents should not be a luxury only a privileged few can afford.
There may be a lot that is still up in the air this back-to-school season, but there is one new constant for nearly all parents with kids in America. On Sept. 15, for a third month in a row, the expanded Child Tax Credit will be helping support parents with a no-strings-attached monthly check.
It will cut child poverty nearly half even as it helps middle class families save for college and pay for cover child care. And it will make a much-needed and disproportionate impact for those living in deep poverty, as well as Black, Hispanic, and Native American kids as a whole.
It’s an anti-poverty program that is wildly effective, and a middle class tax cut, all at once. As the recent analysis from the Urban Institute underscored, programs like stimulus checks and the CTC can dramatically slash poverty in a remarkably short period of time.
The first round of CTC payments made a huge difference to individual house households and to the economy overall. Retail sales in July grew to 10.9 percent, nearly quadruple the average growth in the month of July.
And since the CTC is a nearly universal benefit, it helps people in every community in this country: urban, rural, suburban, and everything in between. In a recent analysis the Niskanen Center found that when looking at states’ gross domestic product, rural states received the greatest relative benefit from the benefit.
The radical commonsense of these direct cash programs have a lot to teach us about how we can rebuild our economy. The organization I co-founded, the Economic Security Project has been in the business of creating such opportunities and uplifting these lessons. We’ve invested and partnered with local organizations and cities to advocate for and learn from these direct cash pilot programs.
But not everyone is so sure that all this direct cash is a good thing. Under the unfounded fear that cash on hand discourages people from taking jobs that help our economy run well, twenty-six states have rushed to end federal unemployment benefits this summer, ahead of their scheduled September expiration.
As we’re seeing, these actions haven’t spurred job searches and instead are likely just reducing household spending. Further, the most recent jobs report indicated strong gains in hiring, particularly in the leisure and hospitality sector, countering the notion of a labor shortage.
If workforce participation is of concern, there was a time when the United States invested in getting some of its parents into the workforce. It was a short-lived effort that ended as men reentered after the conclusion of the Second World War but the women, who benefited from that program, who were given choice and flexibility from its implementation, protested. They demanded permanency.
As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in its aftermath, “Many thought they were purely a war emergency measure. A few of us had an inkling that perhaps they were a need which was constantly with us, but one that we had neglected to face in the past.”
As American families continue to receive these payments and use them to help pay for essential needs or to save for their children’s college education, it is incumbent on Congress to not let the CTC expire.
The CTC found political will in a moment of a global crisis. Let’s make sure we learn some important lessons from COVID-19 and be better prepared for what comes next.
Natalie Foster is the co-chair and co-founder of the Economic Security Project, a network that challenges the current status quo by catalyzing ideas that build economic power for all Americans.
In five hours of public testimony late last month, a line of Alaskans criticized members of the Alaska Legislature for failing to come up with a reliable formula for Alaska’s annual Permanent Fund dividend.
Legislators have heard similar testimony since 2017, but this year’s comments brought a new wrinkle: A growing number of Alaskans, dissatisfied with a lack of change, are calling for a constitutional convention to address the issue.
Voters are asked once every decade whether they want to call for a convention, and the next vote is in November 2022.
Because conventions aren’t limited to one subject, conservatives and libertarians are embracing the trend, saying it could allow them to pursue long-held goals like a ban on abortion, public funding for private schools, or changes to the way judges are picked.
Michael Chambers is a libertarian who is urging Alaskans to vote yes on the convention next year. He has a list of items he’d like to see addressed and said the PFD issue is “100%” helping the cause.
“I don’t mean this in a negative way, but for the low-information voter, it absolutely makes a difference,” he said. “The more the PFD festers out there and sits there, the more … the low-information voters are the ones that say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, this is enough!’”
Legislators say they’re not certain that a constitutional convention will bring conservative nirvana. Alaska’s political divides could mean a convention split between conservatives and progressives, just as the Legislature is today.
”What may start out looking like a solution on the PFD could turn into a social battleground like we’ve never seen in this state,” said Senate President Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna.
”I think there is a potential for unintended consequences beyond the scope of anything we can currently imagine,” he said.
In a convention, uncertainty abounds
Alaska hasn’t had a constitutional convention since its first, which took place in late 1955 and early 1956, but voters are asked every 10 years if they want to hold one.
In 1970, 1972, 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012 they said no, mostly by wide margins. (The 1970 vote passed by about 500 votes but was overturned by the Alaska Supreme Court, which said the wording of the question was too leading. A re-vote in 1972 changed the result.)
Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, said things could be different this time around.
“I think there’s a real chance that people could vote for a constitutional convention,” he said, adding that any convention would be unpredictable.
“If you go to a constitutional convention, you just don’t know where it goes. You don’t know who’s going to be the delegates, you don’t know how the decisions will be made. And you just don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.
Unless the Legislature passes a different guiding law, a convention would generally follow the rules in place in 1955.
That means voters would likely be asked to vote for delegates during the 2024 election, and might be asked to approve a resulting draft in 2026.
Bob Bird, chairman of the Alaskan Independence Party, has been trying for years to convince Alaskans to vote for a convention, most recently in columns published by the Watchman, an Alaska-based Christian website.
He said he’s been talking to groups he considers “Ron Paul constitutionalist” and said concerns about the Permanent Fund dividend unite them, but so does a desire to change the state’s judicial system.
The Alaska Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled in favor of abortion rights, and there has been a steady conservative push to change Alaska’s judicial selection laws in order to overturn those rulings.
“I can’t tell you which is the most energizing in regards to the call for a con-con,” he said, using shorthand for the constitutional convention.
Chambers said that while it might seem ironic, he’s seeing libertarian interest in a PFD amendment.
“We libertarians believe in less government, and the best way for you to have less government is if they don’t have money. And the easiest way in Alaska for them not to have money is to give it directly to the people,” he said.
Bird said he’s seeing growing interest in a convention, regardless of the issue.
“I think it’s a small snowball that’s picking up momentum,” he said.
Those concerned about a convention are also seeing that momentum.
A group called the Permanent Fund Defenders has been urging lawmakers to guarantee Permanent Fund dividend payments in the state constitution. For at least two years, members have been warning legislators that unless they act, voters might seek a convention.
Juanita Cassellius, a spokesperson for the group, said the prospect of a convention is worrying because it could turn into a “can of worms.” Despite that prospect, many Alaskans might be willing to risk it in order to end perennial debates over the dividend.
“There is a very vocal group that will get attention because it’s a simple message,” she said. “I think it would be very catchy. And now, the people in our group are very afraid of that.”
Sen. David Wilson, R-Wasilla, represents one of the most conservative legislative districts in the state. He said that when the topic comes up in small groups, he reminds people that a convention of delegates is likely to resemble the mix of views present in the Alaska House of Representatives.
There, a coalition of independents, Democrats and moderate Republicans holds a narrow majority.
“I think that’s part of the issue: There’s a lot of unknowns,” he said.
The Alaska Senate is taking the prospect of a convention seriously enough that some state senators have begun researching the potential costs and how a convention might operate.
Chambers and others said that if the Alaska Legislature fails to settle the dividend issue by the end of the 2022 regular legislative session, it will become a significant issue in next year’s races for governor and Legislature.
He speculated that the push will begin ramping up around February, “because that’s where campaigns start coming out and people start taking positions.”
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James Brooks: Juneau-based James Brooks covers state government, the Alaska Legislature and general assignments for the Daily News. He previously reported and edited for the Juneau Empire, Kodiak Daily Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
After dismal jobs numbers in the spring, about half of states in the US ended federal unemployment early.
But research has continually shown that ending benefits had little effect on states’ employment.
However, it did cause a big dip in spending — and unemployment is associated with cutting down food insecurity.
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Americans who’ve already lost unemployment benefits aren’t going back to work in droves — instead they are spending less and may not be getting enough to eat.
Federal unemployment benefits have become one flashpoint in the debate over pandemic economic recovery. When the spring’s jobs number showed that people weren’t flocking back to the workforce as quickly as expected, 25 GOP governors (and one Democratic governor) pointed to enhanced benefits as a deterrent — and opted to cut off most, or all, of them completely ahead of the September expiration.
However, there’s one thing that increasingly hasn’t happened. Research has continually found that cutting off the benefits early had little difference on job growth and employment. The latest analysis comes from the Wall Street Journal, which found that there was “roughly similar job growth” in states that did and did not opt out of benefits.
Economist Peter Ganong, who co-authored a paper that found the disincentive effect of benefits was small, told the Journal: “If the question is, ‘Is UI the key thing that’s holding back the labor market recovery?’ The answer is no, definitely not, based on the available data.”
That aligns with other early research on the impact of benefits ending. CNBC reports that analyses from payroll firms UKG and Homebase both found that employment didn’t go up in the states cutting off the benefits; in fact, that Homebase analysis found that employment declined in the states opting out of federal benefits, while it went up in states that chose to retain benefits. In June, Indeed’s Hiring Lab found that job searches in states ending benefits were below April’s baseline.
In July, Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, found that ending benefits didn’t make workers rush back.
“Even as there was a clear reduction in the number of people who were receiving unemployment benefits — and a clear increase in the number of people who said that they were having difficulty paying their bills — that didn’t seem to translate, at least in the short run, into an uptick in overall employment rates,” Dube told Insider at the time.
But the impact on people and economies is very real
In August, Dube — along with researchers from Harvard University, Columbia University, and University of Toronto — released a new paper looking at 19 states who withdrew benefits early. They found that ending benefits had a small impact on employment in those states: “For every 8 workers who lost their benefits, 1 worker found a new job.”
But the bigger hit came to spending and states’ economies. The researchers found that consumer spending in those states dropped by $2 billion — “for every $1 of reduced benefits, spending fell by 52 cents.”
A January paper from Julia Raifman, Jacob Bor, and Atheendar Venkataramani looked at the link between unemployment insurance and food insecurity. They concluded that UI “was associated with a 35% reduction in reporting any food insecurity and a 48% decline in eating less due to financial constraints.”
Now, an estimated 7.5 million Americans are set to lose all of their federal benefits in a matter of days, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Century Foundation. Dube’s research extrapolates that that could lead to $8 billion less in spending in September and October. It could also lead to a reversal in those food insecurity trends.
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Originally posted in Business Insider: https://basicincometoday.com/?p=11593&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=11594
Michael Moritz and Douglas Perkins are the richest people in Wales with combined fortunes of billions of pounds. Surely giving them a basic income makes no sense because they don’t need it, right? Well, wrong.
By: Jane Dodds.
A point that is often missed is that a basic income scheme is not just a change to the welfare system. It is also a change to the tax system. Any serious proposal for a basic income scheme combines changes to both welfare and taxes.
So, any serious scheme (and there are many) ensures people who are considered rich enough actually end up paying back, in taxes, the basic income they receive. They will be net contributors and not net recipients from the pot.
If they are going to end up giving it back, why give it to them in the first place? Isn’t that a waste of time? Isn’t it better to target benefits to those who need them, by way of means-testing? Well, again, no. For a number of reasons.
The first is a universal payment (like a basic income, which goes to everyone) is much cheaper to administer than a means-tested one.
With a universal payment, there are no eligibility criteria (or if there are, they are incredibly simple ones, like age), which means you don’t need to set up expensive and intrusive systems to decide and monitor who is eligible and who isn’t.
Secondly, universality carries no stigma.
When everyone gets something, there is no shame in receiving it. We know hundreds of thousands of people are failing to claim benefits they are entitled to, to the tune of billions of pounds a year.
This is partly because people are ashamed of claiming benefits as the process is so humiliating: you have to convince someone you are in need.
In other words, you have to parade your poverty, or your disability, in front of strangers so they can decide whether or not you are ‘deserving’ of help.
Not surprisingly, lots of people prefer to go without than to demean themselves in this way.
The other reason benefits go unclaimed is they are designed, on purpose, to be difficult to get in order to minimise the number of claimants. Some of the most vulnerable in our society, the ones who are least able to navigate the system, simply give up.
These are the people that we, as a society, are supposed to be trying to help, but we have designed a system to do exactly the opposite and turn them away.
A third reason is they give everyone a stake in society and an interest in the system working well.
Have you ever wondered why the NHS (universal) is so much more popular than Universal Credit (means-tested)?
You are only rarely ill but you know the NHS will be there for you when you need it. Means-tested benefits are seen as ‘not for me, but for other people’, so they are easy to dismiss as unnecessary.
But the Covid pandemic has shown that lots of people in Wales, especially low and middle-income families, can and have been thrown into financial instability by situations over which they have no control.
A basic income could have helped them during Covid. It should be in place by the time the next economic shock comes. Let’s make sure it will be.
In short, although it may at first seem counterintuitive to offer a basic income to billionaires like Moritz and Perkins, it actually makes a lot of sense. So let’s do it. As Liberal Democrat leader in Wales. I support a basic income trial for our country.
I will be campaigning for it to be as broad and inclusive as possible so we can see and measure the positive impacts it will have on individuals and communities.
I had a short chat with Harold Hedelman, the co-founder of Business Climate Leaders (BCL), the other day. We talked about the critical need for a carbon tax and he shared some information with me. BCL is a nonpartisan group that works with businesses to advocate for carbon pricing and market-based climate solutions.
Harold explained that BCL is a lobbying group. Most of us tend to have a negative viewpoint toward lobbyists in general, but lobbyists can also be lobbying for critical legislation for the future of humanity. Dealerships lobby legislatures to make laws that benefit them financially while hurting consumers. Other corporations use this tactic to do the same. However, if you want to beat the game, you have to play it, and BCL is doing just that by working with leaders from all industries to help point our political leaders in the right direction.
The goal is to enact legislation that puts a price on carbon. Everyone on this planet would benefit from that.
“When Musk says ‘just have a carbon tax and the market will do the right thing’, he knows that EVs aren’t the only beneficiary. Changes everywhere in the economy will happen, things like investment dollars flowing away from fossil fuels and into renewables, R&D, and energy efficiency. It’s like that Cabaret song ‘money, money, money makes the world go round!’” Harold then referred to Elon Musk’s interview with Joe Rogan on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “My top recommendation, honestly, would be just add a carbon tax,” Elon Musk said.
The Upcoming Senate Reconciliation Package Includes A Carbon Tax
For those who may not have been keeping up, the Senate will be voting on a reconciliation package soon and one of the things in that package is a proposed carbon tax that would make fossil fuel companies start paying for the pollution they profit enormously from creating. Harold told me that BCL urgently needs everyone’s help in contacting our representatives and sharing support for this. A carbon tax would specifically impose fees on businesses that emit greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide and would fall largely on the oil and gas companies.
Yahoo! Finance has reported that Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) said that there is growing bipartisan support to implement a carbon tax that would hold fossil fuel companies accountable.
You Can Help
You can take action now by sending a letter to your Representative in the House. Click here to do that. Next, you can also call them. After this, you can write and/or call your U.S. Senators. Click here to write and call them. If you want to take this further, Harold suggested asking your friends and family to do the same.
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria shared why pricing carbon pollution is the simplest and most elegant way to decarbonize our global economy. He explained that at the heart of the infrastructure fight in Washington is a simple question: Should the U.S. hike taxes on corporations to raise money to fight climate change? He then went on to summarize:
“Republicans point out that whatever you tax you get less of and today’s economy needs more corporate activity not less. It’s a fair point. So then the answer, to me at least, is obvious. Let’s tax the thing that we all agree that we want less of, which is carbon dioxide emissions.
“The fundamental reason why we’re not making much headway with reducing carbon emissions is they’re everywhere. We tend to focus on electricity and transportation but those sectors account for only about half of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. When we make cement, that emits carbon. Even if you have solar panels and drive an electric car, the process of making the panels and the car generate carbon. Our food production creates huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
“We could try to reduce carbon sector by sector, issue reams of regulation to mandate emissions cuts, and spend large amounts of money to prop up certain technologies. That is essentially the current approach. Clunky, selective, and subject to political swings. The government is essentially adding red tape and picking winners and losers.”
Zakaria suggested that instead of these clunky “solutions,” we should unleash the power of the market to solve the problem and stated that this is what a carbon tax would do.
“Think of it as putting a price on carbon. Making sure that all products reflect their true cost to society by charging a fee for carbon pollution.
Suddenly, every industry and business would have a powerful incentive to reduce emissions whenever they occur. And rather than the government telling them how to do it, they’d be free to figure out the best, cheapest way.” Zakaria noted that hundreds of solutions would bloom if we implemented a carbon tax.
How This Climate Bill Could Send Money To Americans, Save The Planet, And Grow Our Economy
Forbes recently published an article on how this climate bill would send checks to Americans, save the planet, and grow our economy. The author explained that the word “tax” is technically a roadblock that creates a knee-jerk reaction among Republicans and critics of taxes in general. He explained that there is a specific piece of carbon tax legislation, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA), that would actually use the funds from the carbon tax to create jobs, grow the economy, and even send monthly checks to US households.
In the next part of his video, Zakaria also mentions this dividend and breaks it down:
“The idea is to take at least some of the revenue raised by the carbon tax and give it back to people, sending out checks every few months. Remember how popular the stimulus checks were? Polls indicate two-thirds of America support the basic idea behind carbon dividends. A growing number of conservatives are getting behind this idea. It’s mostly former Republican officials, but some Republican lawmakers like Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham have expressed interest. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute now support carbon pricing as well.”
In the Forbes article, the author pointed out that economists think that this will work. In 2019, 3,567 economists — including 28 Nobel Laureate Economists, 4 former Chairs of the Federal Reserve, and 15 former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers — announced support for carbon fees and dividends.
Appropriately funded and managed, with no wiggle room for state incompetency or corruption, a Basic Income Grant could finally lay the foundation for sustainable healing and justice in post-apartheid South Africa. To those who say such a grant is unaffordable, the obvious answer is that South Africa can no longer afford not to.
A few days ago, Statistics SA announced that South Africa’s unemployment rate had reached a record high of 34.4%, or a staggering 44% if we use the expanded definition of unemployment, which includes those who have given up looking for work.
More than 46% of young people under the age of 34 – and a staggering 63% of under-24s – are unemployed.
The simple fact is that our economy is unable to generate enough jobs to reduce and eliminate unemployment, which leaves millions of South Africans without any access to an income. It is physically impossible for any adult of employable age to live day to day, month to month and year to year without income.
Prioritising the implementation of a Basic Income Grant – or Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) – is a social, moral and historical imperative crucial to the sustainability of South Africa’s constitutional democracy.
Appropriately funded and managed, with no wiggle-room for state incompetency or corruption, the BIG could finally lay the foundation for sustainable healing and justice in post-apartheid South Africa.
To those who say such a grant is unaffordable, the obvious answer is that South Africa can no longer afford not to.
Inequality was the overarching policy of apartheid and its colonial predecessors. The fact that inequality has deepened in post-apartheid South Africa is a shameful slur on the state, the governing parties, the business sector and all South Africans of social conscience and integrity.
Among the funding mechanisms that the state is duty-bound to consider are redistributive measures recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) 22 years ago.
Among the commission’s key recommendations were that those to whom it did not give amnesty for apartheid-era human rights violations should be prosecuted (all being equal before the law), and that the state should implement a reparations policy.
Recognising that funding reparations were expensive – but nonetheless imperative in contributing to narrowing the “intolerable” inequality gap – the commission proposed a number of redistributive measures.
None of the recommendations was implemented.
Commission chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu said later that the mood in the country created by its first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, was such that many businesses and individuals would have been happy to contribute to the reconstruction of the country. In a sense, it could also be a cathartic mechanism to pay something back in acknowledgement of the privilege they accrued under apartheid.
The archbishop referred to the unimplemented recommendations as the TRC’s unfinished business.
Despite government’s efforts to provide houses, security and comfort to citizens – the millions of fully subsidised homes that have been built and connections made to the water, sewerage and electricity grids – 22 years after the TRC published its recommendations, levels of poverty, joblessness and inequality have increased. Unsustainably so.
On top of deeply entrenched structural barriers to economic inclusion, the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic has been devastating. According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, social scientists from five South African universities recently estimated Covid-related job losses at three million, of which two million jobs were lost by women.
Nearly half the South African population is living in poverty, a burden that is disproportionately carried by women, with 74% of women-headed households living below the poverty level.
Dismantling the deeply entrenched structures that created economic, social, spatial and environmental injustice will require all of our efforts. South Africa has a well-established social assistance programme – of cash transfers – but the programme makes no provision for able-bodied adults between 18 and 59 years, the assumed age of economic activity.
Their exclusion condemns many to live in intolerable conditions.
Section 27 of the South African Constitution guarantees every person the right to sufficient food and water and to “social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependants, appropriate social assistance”.
It is in this context that the debate about the BIG must be understood. When an economy is unable to provide enough jobs for people to earn an income and take care of themselves financially, then the state has a duty to provide relief.
It is not a gift or a handout; it is a right.
In response to the economic turmoil occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, the state introduced a temporary Covid-19 Social Relief of Distress Grant of R350 per month. Payment of this grant has been extended to March 2022. It’s far from perfect, and hardly sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, but it is helping nearly seven million beneficiaries.
The first step on the road to a BIG is to continue to provide the social relief grant of R350 per person per month and expand access to whoever applies for it.
But we must recognise this grant for what it is: A commendable state response in an economic emergency wrought by a health pandemic – a Band-Aid to stem the flow of blood from a gaping wound.
The next step must be finding the means to address legitimate concerns about universality, quantum and affordability.
The benefit of the grant being universal – that is, available to every adult regardless of their personal financial circumstances – is that it reduces the barriers to access for those who need it most by reducing systemic errors. But extending the grant to all, including those who don’t need it, will add to the financial burden on the state.
The International Growth Center proposes that “transfers should be made universal or accessible on an opt-in basis (i.e. beneficiaries self-evaluate their eligibility), where feasible to try to reach as many in need as possible”.
It makes obvious sense to reduce unnecessary spend while securing ease of access. As a start, an opt-in system for all who are not registered for income tax, for example, could be a sensible balancing condition that would be relatively easy to manage.
The question of quantum is equally challenging.
The most recent data published by Stats SA shows the Food Poverty Line at R585 per person per month. This is the amount of money a South African needs to afford the minimum daily food required. The same report places the Lower Bound Poverty Line at R840 per person per month and the Upper Bound Poverty Level at R1,268 per person per month. These levels are a combination of the minimum daily food requirements plus non-food essentials.
In the ideal circumstances, we should be able to provide social security that meets, at the very least, the upper-bound poverty level of R1,268 per month. This could eliminate poverty in as little as three years. But it would cost the fiscus about R415-billion per year.
If we lower our initial expectations and set the quantum at the Food Poverty Line of R585 per month, the amount of money required drops to R197-billion. This number could be further reduced to R157-billion by restricting payments to unemployed people only. Reaching 60%-80% of this group, which is likely in the initial period, would further reduce annual costs to around R95-billion.
How does the country afford it?
If the new minister of finance follows through on the plan to introduce zero-based budgeting – a budgeting process aimed at reducing wastefulness and identifying absolute spending priorities – then this would free up significant cash. Correctly implemented, it would place the BIG into the budget as a non-negotiable expense and build the rest of the budget around it.
Secure access to sufficient food and water is the most basic of needs of every human being. It should be budgeted for before anything else.
According to the Institute for Economic Justice, eliminating government waste would save about R20-billion. This is a very conservative figure when you consider that State Capture is said to have cost the South African people about R500-billion.
If properly prioritising the budget falls short of the BIG funding need, tax mechanisms must be considered. It is here that the TRC’s recommendations come into focus. The Institute for Economic Justice estimates that a wealth tax of 1% on the top 1% of earners in South Africa would bring an additional R63-billion in revenue.
South Africa has the resources to fund this. It is a question of priorities.
Finally, it should go without saying that economic growth that creates jobs is the pathway we are all looking for. Championing and supporting a BIG does not equate to giving up on an economy that grows inclusively and gives every adult, of employment age, the opportunity to earn a decent wage and experience a life which is fulfilled by meaningful employment.
The money spent on the BIG will not be lost to the economy. It will be spent by the recipients in the economy and contribute back to our revenue through VAT and taxes.
In its latest survey on economic confidence, Gallup found that 60% of adults believe the U.S. economy is “getting worse” while only 37% think it is “getting better.”
In addition, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index fell from -6 in July to -12 in August. Prior to the start of the COVID pandemic, approximately February-March 2020, the Economic Confidence Index was at a positive 41, and had been in the positive range going back to early 2019.
The Index hit a low point in April 2020 of negative 33, apparently because of the effects of the COVID pandemic.
“The decline in confidence appears likely tied to the recent increase in coronavirus infections,” reported Gallup. “The August survey found the percentage of Americans naming COVID-19 as the most important problem facing the country doubling, and it is once again the top overall problem mentioned.”
“The pandemic has brought a number of shocks to the U.S. economy,” said the survey firm. “The recovery from widespread business shutdowns in the spring of 2020 has been solid at times and uneven at others. Currently, the economic growth as measured by gross domestic product is healthy, the unemployment rate is decreasing and stock values are at record levels.”
“At the same time, the U.S. is still well short of the number of jobs it had before the pandemic, and employers are struggling to fill the openings they do have,” said Gallup.
Another major factor potentially affecting economic confidence, but not mentioned as meaningful by respondents in Gallup’s survey, is inflation.
On July 11, the Wall Street Journalreported that, “Americans should brace themselves for several years of higher inflation than they’ve seen in decades, according to economists who expect the robust post-pandemic economic recovery to fuel brisk price increases for a while.”
“Higher inflation for several years would ripple through the economy in various ways,” said The Journal. “Consumers could find their household budgets squeezed. Higher borrowing costs could weigh on stock values and could crimp growth in interest-rate-sensitive industries like housing. Higher inflation can also make it harder for businesses to plan longer-term investments.”
Kevin Swift, chief economist at the American Chemistry Council, told The Journal, “It’s disruptive — you can’t be sure of what your costs are, whether you can get supplies or what the costs will be six months from now.”
“I’d hate to be in the construction business trying to bid on a job when you don’t know what the cost of steel will be 18 months from now,” said Swift.
For the Aug. 2-17 survey, Gallup interviewed 1,006 adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The margin of sampling error was +/- 4 percentage points.
Canada’s National Observer asked federal Green Party Leader Annamie Paul about hot-button issues in the upcoming election, and what Canada needs to focus on to tackle the climate crisis.
Q:What is the No. 1 most pressing issue facing Canadians this upcoming term?
The first is the green recovery — “the green rush,” as we’re calling it — which is the global move to take ambitious, decisive climate action. By that, I mean dramatically reducing our greenhouse gas emissions with the shortest possible delay. The second is completing our social safety net to ensure that every person in Canada can live in dignity. And the third is reconciliation and forging a truly just society.
Q: When it comes to those three things, where should we be concentrating our efforts?
For climate action, the prescriptions have been clear for a long time. In Canada, it means we need to drastically reduce our use and extraction of fossil fuels. We need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2030, and invest heavily in renewable energy to move away from fossil fuels. This process will create sustainable, well-paying jobs of the future and a prosperous green economy. We need to work very closely with the United States on these goals because we have a partner there that we can work with. And we need to absolutely end all new pipeline projects, all oil and gas exploration, and all fracking.
Q; And how about the other two issues you mentioned?
For the social safety net, we just never want to be back where we were during the pandemic with so many people left with inadequate support and protections in ways that cost people their lives. We need a national consensus that we are going to be a country that protects every person and provides a complete social safety net, so everyone can live in dignity.
That has to include a guaranteed livable income, and universal programs like pharmacare, dental care, post-secondary education, and a profound reform of our long-term care system.
Reconciliation begins with respect for nation-to-nation engagement, respect for Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, and ensuring Indigenous people are the leaders and decision-makers when it comes to anything related to the future of their nations and of their lands. And, more generally, the work of identifying and dismantling structural discrimination and systemic racism, that’s an ongoing project, but that’s certainly part of forging a just society.
Q:What is needed to dismantle some of those systems you just mentioned?
Discrimination is a systemic problem and fixing it requires a systemic approach, which we still do not have. It takes looking at every single policy, every single piece of legislation, every single institution, every single structure through that lens, identifying the systemic failures, and dismantling them one by one. The process should be led by those most directly impacted by those failures in the system. And so bringing more diversity into our civil service, bringing more diversity into our Parliament, ensuring that civil society has a very strong leadership role (are key) to ensuring the process is successful and doesn’t lead to unintended consequences and systemic barriers.
Q: Back on the climate path, what do you think about Canada’s Paris targets?
What the climate scientists have told us very clearly in the IPCC report that was just released is we need to go further faster, because we are at critical tipping points. In that report, it was very clearly set out that we have got to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2030, and net-zero by 2050. And so just by that scientific target, our new Paris target is inadequate.
Q: What is an appropriate target? And how can we reach it?
We would up Canada’s efforts and commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. And then reaching net-zero no later than 2050. To do that, we must rapidly reduce our use and our extraction of fossil fuels and phase out coal as quickly as possible. We need to have a carbon budget in this country, so we know exactly how much carbon we have left to spend, retrofit our buildings, continue with carbon pricing, and invest heavily in renewable energies. We must also create the infrastructure that will support a green economy.
Q: What is the single most important and time-sensitive step you think Canada needs to take to address climate change and its effects on Canadians?
To agree that we need to do it. This is an election cycle, so the most important thing that people in Canada need to do right now is to vote for candidates and to vote for parties that they know will make climate action an absolute priority, and are willing to work collaboratively to have that happen as soon as possible. There is no question that there is no single level of government, party, or country that can do this alone.
Q: Given the dire warnings in the IPCC report, does non-green hydrogen produced from gas make sense as a climate solution?
That is not part of our plan. This is the time to be focusing on technologies and solutions that are absolutely doable right now, with the resources we have right now, with the infrastructure that we have, and that have been proven.
Q: What are some of those existing, or easier to implement, technologies you think are better alternatives?
Q: Does green hydrogen factor into your plans at all?
All of those things are under consideration. But, as I said, we’re focused on those things that hold the most promise in the most immediate term.
Q: What do you think about carbon capture? Is this something we need in our toolbox?
It’s an area that has advanced tremendously. Canada is considered to be home to a number of the leading carbon capture startups and companies in the world. I put carbon capture on the track of technologies that show promise, that may have a role to play, but we should focus on the Track 1 options first. I know there are concerns that carbon capture as a technology is a distraction from other potential solutions. But I believe that there’s room to make sure we are putting all of those doable solutions in place, while at the same time, ensuring Canada continues to be a leader in innovating on the other possibilities.
For the Green Party, it doesn’t. We consider it an extremely expensive technology, well-known for its cost overruns, particularly when compared to other technologies that can be used for deep decarbonization. It also takes a very, very long time to bring online. Given where we are now and the amount of time we have left, we don’t consider it to be a practical, implementable solution. Also, there is still no satisfactory way of dealing with nuclear waste.
Q:How will you address anxieties about job loss and the economy in the context of a green transition?
We need to explain what an extraordinary economic opportunity this is. Other countries are not simply pursuing more aggressive, ambitious plans and targets because they want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally; they’re doing it because it is the sector considered to be the greatest source of future economic prosperity since the Industrial Revolution. This is an opportunity to create the jobs of the future in a way that is sustainable and respects the finite resources of the planet. It’s still being presented as this grinding sacrifice, as opposed to the thing that will ensure oil and gas workers have better-paying, safer, more sustainable jobs that aren’t subjected to the boom and bust cycle. That is very exciting and is something we can all feel optimistic about.
Q: What makes your party best positioned to tackle the challenge of climate change?
If I were to whittle it down to one thing, I would say it is our understanding of the urgency and of the opportunity and our absolute commitment to working with every single person, every single party, every institution, every single member of civil society that is committed to that action. If we continue to return people to Ottawa and parties to Ottawa who are primarily focused on partisan concerns, primarily focused on perpetuating their power, as opposed to coming together when it really matters, then I am not hopeful we’re going to get the climate action that we need.
(@AndrewYang) October 5, 2021
