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Category: THE SOCIAL DEBATE

  • Opinion: Universal basic income is a good idea for India’s workforce

    By The Editorial Board

    See original post here.

    India’s single most vexatious economic problem is the lack of adequate employment and earning opportunities for its large and growing labour force. The nation is one of the youngest countries of the world in terms of its demographic profile. This ‘demographic dividend’ is considered to be a blessing. It could, it is argued, help India become the world’s labour force. However, for the dividend to yield returns, it would require, firstly, a well-educated and well-trained workfor­ce. The demographic dividend’s fruition is also predicated upon the availability of enough job opportunities across the world. Neither possibility seems obvious today. Although India has a large constituency of graduates, an overwhelming num­ber of them are considered unemployable. There is also a very large number that is unskilled and functionally literate. Employment opportunities abroad are limited to a few low-skilled jobs, openings in the technology sector, and some in academia. Moreover, low-skilled labour migrating to other parts of the world is subject to scrutiny since few countries look at migration favourably. Moreover, the scale and the speed of emerging Artificial Intelligence-based technologies do not augur well for the traditional job market, save for workers who are highly educated and skilled in cutting-edge technologies. On joining the dots, the future of jobs across all levels of skill is not bright.

    Given this context, the remark made by the chief economic advisor, that India does not need a universal basic income because economic growth would suffice to meet aspirations, must be taken with the proverbial pinch of salt. India’s economic structure hides unemployment behind part-time, informal, job-sharing livelihoods. These ‘workers’ are surplus in the sense that total production would not decline even if they were to be removed from their activity. Therefore, the wisdom of depending solely on economic growth to guarantee basic amenities for all is unwarranted. Some alternative strategy has to be thought of to ensure a decent living for all. The concept of a universal basic income, or some variant of it, cannot thus be ruled out. The idea is to be able to provide for collective survival and sustenance. A template of UBI has two principal challenges: the identification of beneficiaries and the avoidance of fiscal stress. The digital enumeration of personal information can solve the first problem. Additional taxes on the super-rich can resolve the latter. Reality demands that the possibility of UBI be debated and kept alive notwithstanding its political unpalatability.

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  • Everybody in the US Is Getting Depressed, CDC Says

    By Nikki Main

    See original post here.

    Depression among adults is on the rise in the U.S., according to a study released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recorded that nearly one in five American adults are diagnosed with depression. The study, which was conducted across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and focused on adults ages 18 and up, revealed that some states ranked higher in the number of depressed adults than others.

    The CDC reported higher levels of depression were found in adults living in low-income areas and regions with higher poverty rates and lower education levels, “all of which can negatively affect health and wellbeing,” the report says. The findings were based on government data collected in more than 3,100 counties across the country in 2020 as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey.

    Nearly 393,000 adults responded to the survey where they were asked: “Has a doctor, nurse, or other health professional ever told you that you had a depressive disorder, including depression, major depression, dysthymia, or minor depression?” The goal was to identify a starting point to discern whether disparities in the geographic region contributed to depression.

    “There was considerable geographic variation in the prevalence of depression, with the highest state and county estimates of depression observed along the Appalachian and southern Mississippi Valley regions,” the CDC said in the report. Among the most affected states were West Virginia, where 26.4% of respondents reported suffering from depression, Arkansas and Alabama (23.5% each), Kentucky (24.2%), and Tennessee (24.1%).

    The survey provided worrying results, reflecting that out of all participants, nearly 74,000 reported feelings of depression, amounting to a weighted result of 47 million U.S. adults (18.7%) who suffer from depression. The symptoms of depression can vary from person to person, ranging from feelings of excessive guilt or low self-worth to hopelessness and suicidal thoughts.

    These feelings increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Dr. Rebecca Brendel, president of the American Psychiatric Association. “The fact that Americans are more depressed and struggling after this time of incredible stress and isolation is perhaps not surprising,” Brendel told CNN last month. “There are lingering effects on our health, especially our mental health, from the past three years that disrupted everything we knew.”

    The study has a minor silver lining: it reveals that discussions of mental health are becoming more mainstream, meaning more people could seek the help they previously may have shied away from. While this will increase the rates of people diagnosed with depression, this could be a positive result long term.

    “We’re making it easier to talk about mental health and looking at it as part of our overall wellness just like physical health,” Brendel told CNN. “People are aware of depression, and people are seeking help for it.”

    The post Everybody in the US Is Getting Depressed, CDC Says appeared first on Basic Income Today.

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  • Congress Ended Pandemic Cash for Parents, but Some States Have Embraced the Idea

    By Dana Goldstein

    See original post here.

    Colorado joins a growing list of states with bipartisan support for child tax credits, which give parents money, no strings attached.

    For a brief period during the coronavirus pandemic, the federal government gave most parents monthly cash — up to $300 per child — with no work requirements or restrictions on how the money could be spent.

    The experiment, through an expanded child tax credit, died last year after 12 months, when Republicans and Senator Joe Manchin III, the moderate West Virginia Democrat, refused to renew it.

    But a growing number of states are moving forward with their own programs, often with Republican support. Last week, Colorado became the ninth state in two years to guarantee some form of cash income to its poorest parents. The law, which passed with bipartisan support, will be the second most generous in the country, providing parents making less than $35,000 per year with up to $1,200 annually for each child under 6.

    Minnesota’s program, which became law last month, is the most generous, guaranteeing families earning $35,000 or less with up to $1,750 in cash annually for each child under 17.

    “Focusing on child welfare and supporting families has been a really big selling point”

    across the aisle, said Halah Ahmad, vice president at the Jain Family Institute, a think tank that supports guaranteed income and worked with Colorado lawmakers to craft the new program.

    State child tax credits are far smaller than the federal benefit was, and are unlikely to drastically remake any household’s budget. At least initially, most will be paid annually rather than monthly, making them potentially less useful in day-to-day spending decisions.

    Still, supporters of the programs say that they will create an important precedent, and test the theory that government can expand cash support to families without discouraging parents from working outside the home — a longtime political and economic concern.

    It was in response to that concern that in 1996, President Bill Clinton remade federal welfare by tying work requirements to cash support for single mothers. But the pandemic, inflation and child care shortages have prompted some lawmakers to reconsider that model.

    In addition to Colorado and Minnesota, New York, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont and New Mexico have also passed guaranteed-income child tax credits over the past two years, with cash payments ranging from $25 to $1,083 annually per child, depending on household income.

    The policies, most popular with Democrats, have won over about a third of Republican state legislators, according to an analysis by the Jain Family Institute. That is in stark contrast to congressional Republicans, who have coalesced around the idea that child tax credits should be attached to work requirements.

    State Senator Janice Rich, a Colorado Republican who represents parts of the rural Western Slope, said co-sponsoring the legislation was an easy call, since it would help families that are struggling with inflation in housing, child care and energy costs.

    “I can’t help what the federal government decides,” she said, referencing Republicans in Congress who opposed making the expanded federal tax credit permanent. “It seemed like the right thing to do for Colorado families.”

    Ms. Rich noted that other early childhood issues, too, had been bipartisan winners in the Colorado legislature, such as efforts to increase access to pre-K and affordable child care.

    Still, there is significant debate around expanding child tax credits, for lawmakers in both parties. In Montana this year, a coalition of Democrats and conservative Republicans killed an effort by Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, to provide $1,200 annually per child for families earning up to $50,000.

    Some lawmakers prefer public dollars to be spent on established child care programs, while others continue to be concerned that cash payments will discourage work.

    “We don’t want to go back to pre-welfare reform,”

    said Kevin Corinth, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, and a former White House economic adviser under President Donald J. Trump.

    In Washington, he added, “Republicans seem pretty united in the view that you should not get the child tax credit unless you have some amount of earnings. The fact that a state like Colorado has Republicans that are buying into the child allowance is somewhat surprising.”

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  • What if everyone were entitled to a universal basic income?

    By PAUL MASON

    See original post here.

    News that a universal basic income (UBI) is to be trialled at two locations in England, paying 30 people £1,600 a month regardless of their work, has sent shockwaves through the tabloids.

    “Something for nothing” is the way working-class Conservatives have always described out-of-work benefits, with the implication that those receiving them were “spongers”. The idea of actually paying people a good subsistence wage, whether they work or not, is – well – just not capitalism.

    And in a way they’re right. The idea of work for wages has been burned deeply into our collective consciousness by 250 years of industrialisation. The eight-hour shift; the hierarchical team; work for piece rates; work to targets; after-work drinks – so many rituals and rhythms of life assume work is compulsory and for ever.

    So why are we suddenly talking about the idea of a universal, or unconditional, basic income? And why are trials much bigger and more advanced than the one proposed by the Autonomy think tank happening all over the world?

    It’s a response to the idea of rapid automation, due to digitisation, robotics and artificial intelligence.

    In every industrial revolution until now, new machines have made old skills redundant. But new technologies always created new skills and new demands: the automobile put the coachman and the farrier out of business, but it created the motor mechanic, the used-car salesman and the taxi driver.

    In 1990 the economist Paul Romer realised the digital revolution might be different. Digital goods need almost no labour to reproduce them, and in a market economy their price will fall towards zero, he said – unless specific laws are passed to make information scarce.

    A visit to what remains of the EMI factory in west London shows the effect: in the rock’n’roll era it was a mass production line producing music on vinyl discs, to be sold in stores and – of course – made on actual guitars, drums and amplifiers.

    Today, not only are the record shops and the factory redundant, but large parts of music production take place using electronic instruments, played in simulated concert halls. There is still a music business; there are still pop stars; but music is basically rented, not bought, and the workforce needed to bring it to the consumer is much smaller.

    And what the MP3 file did for vinyl, computers did for office admin assistants and electronic ticketing did for the bus conductor. It’s no longer futurology to argue that a mixture of robotics, artificial intelligence and big data could begin to perform tasks like medical triage, basic legal work or – take a deep breath here – tabloid journalism.

    There are three basic responses to this prospect. The first is denial. There’ll always be new kinds of jobs created and the task of progressive politics is to make sure they’re highly skilled and well remunerated, say the trade unions. That’s why there’s usually scant support for basic income schemes in the traditional labour movement.

    But as the late anthropologist David Graeber argued, in a book entitled Bullshit Jobs, what we’re actually creating are jobs that don’t need to exist.

    The person who delivers a single bottle of milk to your door on a bike at midnight; the graduate frothing your cappuccino; the store greeter; the in-house magazine journalist… are all doing jobs that they are glad to have, and demand respect for doing, but, said Graeber, people know, deep down, that they don’t need to be done.

    For its left wing supporters, the UBI is not intended merely as a fairer or simpler form of welfare benefits. People who need these should get money on top of any basic payment.

    Instead, the idea is to gradually and purposefully separate work from wages. To mitigate what Graeber called the “profound psychological violence” of a culture that defines everybody’s virtue through work.

    Instead of automation producing a small elite of skilled people and a mass of low-paid people doing de-skilled jobs, it could then produce more leisure time and wellbeing.

    The basic income, for its left wing advocates, is a way of subsidising the transition to a society where fewer work hours are done. It is a way of overcoming our resistance to automation. Since it would make poverty impossible, it should – over time – eradicate some of the diseases and mental stress of poverty. That’s why Autonomy, which is pioneering the proposal, has developed it by working with some of Britain’s poorest communities.

    But here’s the quid pro quo. With a basic income, more human-to-human services would have to be done voluntarily and for free. We would need to transition to a less frenetic, less energy-intensive lifestyle.

    And that’s why you need trials. What they’re trialling is not just greater financial security: it’s the way humans behave if they are not compelled to work all day every day. Do they volunteer for stuff? Are they healthier and happier? Do they produce and consume culture in different ways? Do they manage their work-life balance actively, developing new skills? Do they take a more active part in their children’s education?

    To the tabloid writers such questions sound outlandish: but they’re the practical questions faced by any retired person with a decent pension scheme. In fact, the most constructive way to think of basic income schemes is as “pensions paid early”.

    Of course, the cost of paying every adult of working age £1,600 a month would be unbearable. But what if everyone were entitled to claim it for a year of their life, or maybe two? The fact is, because the costs and benefits would be behavioural and social, not just financial, we won’t know until we try it.

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  • How universal basic income’s impact on people’s finances could transform the nation’s health

    By Matthew T. Johnson and Elliott Johnson

    See original article here.

    In October 1936, 200 men marched from South Tyneside to London to protest against the poverty and unemployment in their town, Jarrow.

    Nearly a century later, Jarrow is taking part in a small pilot scheme to test how universal basic income (UBI) could tackle financial insecurity and health inequalities – which continue to plague the town. Under the scheme, two groups – 15 people in Jarrow and another 15 in East Finchley, London, will receive £1,600 a month for two years.

    This micropilot will produce new UK data on the impact of the basic income in these communities, particularly the stories and experiences of the people that participate. This can be used for further research on the effects of UBI on a larger scale in these communities. This will help show if there is a case for a national basic income, or at least more comprehensive UK trials.

    UBI generally involves giving a regular cash payment to all adult citizens. It differs from existing welfare systems that are conditional on people’s assessed needs.

    In this pilot, participants are paid the same amount as a separate Welsh government pilot that involves people leaving care. The Jarrow and East Finchley pilot is focused on a broader, locally representative pool of people in each of these communities.

    The project has been based on our research on basic incomes, which suggests that tackling financial insecurity is essential to promoting public health. This is a particularly important issue now because the effects of COVID and the cost of living crisis on Britons who are employed, self-employed or who run small businesses have left many people at risk of destitution.

    Financial insecurity has risen to levels unseen in generations. Evidence from the Child Poverty Action Group shows millions of Britons face fuel poverty, while the campaign group End Fuel Poverty Coalition found that 1,047 people died in England from living in cold, damp homes in December 2022.

    The Bank of England’s commitment to a gradual and sustained increase in interest rates has exacerbated the rate of repossessions without addressing inflation caused by factors largely beyond consumers’ control.

    This has created a second pandemic that will only get worse: mental ill health. Our recent report shows the only way we can bring this current crisis to an end is through bold interventions.

    Universal basic income (UBI) is a radical but, we believe, feasible alternative to the existing, failing welfare system. It could reduce poverty to unprecedented levels, address inequality within and between regions, and massively improve the nation’s health.

    A radical approach

    The government has committed to realign healthcare so that it’s not just about treating the ill, but preventing illness in the first place. One of the best ways to do this is to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality.

    The idea of the state redistributing resources by providing an adequate, regular and predictable payment to citizens is radical. It turns the discussion about welfare on its head: from a payment to a select few with no other means of satisfying their needs, to a payment that protects those in, as well as out, of work from the threat of destitution.

    One of the key, and often overlooked, consequences of this is its potential contribution to public health. Basic income set at an adequate level could boost public health in three ways.

    First, by reducing poverty, it would increase people’s ability to satisfy their basic needs by helping them to afford better food and housing.

    Second, by reducing financial inequality, it would also give people the option to leave abusive, damaging environments. This would reduce stress and stress-related illnesses. The pandemic has highlighted the dangers of people being unable to escape these environments and the potential long-term impacts on health are significant.

    And third, by giving people a more predictable and secure future, it would increase their perception of their lifespan. This could lead to changes in behaviour in the process. People with clearer long-term futures may be less likely to engage in hedonistic activities, such as drug and alcohol misuse, and more likely to engage in exercise and health-promoting activity, according to our research.

    While there are examples of people “binge spending” following large benefit payments, some evidence suggests that those that feel they have some kind of future ahead will spend money on activities that enhance their health, such as healthier eating and fitness. On the other hand, people facing destitution are more likely to engage in short-term, hedonistic behaviour, since they feel unlikely to have to face the long-term consequences.

    Such effects would be most keenly felt in those parts of the UK, such as the north of England, midlands and Wales, that suffer most from the low incomes, inequalities and general hopelessness that contribute to ill health.

    This generation’s equivalent of the NHS

    The NHS made healthcare free at the point of use. Three decades after its implementation, the Labour government sought to understand why health inequality persisted.

    The resulting report highlighted that people’s social and economic circumstances shaped their outcomes. To reduce health inequality, we need to deal with these circumstances, which have rapidly declined since the 2008 global financial crisis. And UBI can do this in the three ways outlined above.

    Future generations may look back at recent discussions about UBIs with the same confusion we feel when thinking of opposition to the NHS in the 1940s.

    The solutions Britain needs are just as far reaching as those implemented in 1945. Basic income is one such solution that could be as popular and transformative as the NHS.

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  • Survey: Majority of Germans in favor of unconditional basic income

    By Berliner Zeitung.
    Translation by Raymond R. Watson, M.A.

    According to a study people, particularly young people, are in
    favor of a basic income. Even those who are very concerned
    about the climate and the environment are more likely to be in
    favor of a UBI.

    The majority of Germany’s population is in favor of an
    unconditional basic income. This was the result of two surveys
    conducted in the summer of 2022 conducted by the German
    Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin, Germany. The
    results of the surveys showed that 53 percent of respondents
    were in favor of this particular social model, while 36 percent
    were against it.

    Researchers from DIW and the University of Konstanz located
    in Baden-Württemberg, Germany also found that people with
    low incomes experiencing personal, financial challenges
    support introducing an unconditional basic income. A basic
    income of €1200 per month (US$1290) received the most
    support.

    Study: Whoever considers climate protection important is
    also in favor of a UBI

    The study found that to finance a basic income most
    respondents support an increase in income and wealth taxes.
    One of the authors from the DIW study, Juergen Schupp said:

    “Politically, the idea of an unconditional basic income is highly
    controversial, but for years has been immensely popular among
    the German population.”

    He argues that UBI be taken into
    account in future debates on reforms to the German social
    systems.

    The impactful study analyzed whether people are in favor or not
    of a basic income in connection with social and demographic
    characteristics such as age, household income or life
    satisfaction. A total of 2,000 eligible voters were interviewed.

    Younger people, people with low income or low life satisfaction
    in particular are thus in favor of a basic income. Respondents
    greatly concerned about climate and the environment also
    would have favored a basic income.

    In recent years the issue has already been seriously debated
    politically in Berlin – but poignantly unsuccessful. A referendum
    held in the German capital in the fall of 2022 called “Expedition
    Grundeinkommen” (Expedition Basic Income) failed to meet the
    legally defined target for signatures. Thus, the corresponding
    initiative could not take place.

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  • Hamilton city council right to support basic income

    By Spectator Editorial, The Hamilton Spectator.

    See original post here.

    Hamilton city council did a smart thing this week by unanimously supporting a motion from Coun. Ted McMeekin calling on this city and others of a like mind to support basic income.

    Cities can’t make this happen alone. It requires the financial and political support of at least one senior government. McMeekin’s resolution stated: “That the City of Hamilton encourages other municipalities across the province and the country to join in advocating for a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income as a key policy tool in the fight against poverty and inequality and to this end, Hamilton City Council will advocate through its representatives at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the Canadian Federation of Municipalities for Guaranteed Livable Basic Income resolutions at meetings of those organizations.”

    Why is this motion worthwhile? Because Hamilton and other cities like it stand to benefit enormously from basic income, be it a pilot project or something more permanent. With our demographic and socioeconomic challenges, basic income could literally change the trajectory of so many vulnerable citizens.

    We know this, because it did, right here in Hamilton.

    Basic income is not new. The concept has been bandied about for decades. It is not solely a child of the progressive centre and left, it actually has considerable support from conservative economists and politicians. There was a dramatic experiment in Manitoba in the ’70s, called “Mincome,” that yielded impressive results.

    In Ontario, after sustained pressure, the Wynne government finally agreed to fund a basic income pilot project in several communities — Hamilton being one. The three-year pilot saw participants receive between $17,000 and $24,000 annually.

    Along came the election that eventually turfed the Liberals. The Ford Conservatives said during the campaign that they would maintain the pilot project and were eager to see the results.

    Turns out that was just campaign blather. As with many other promises (Greenbelt, anyone?) Doug Ford broke it shortly after becoming premier, killing the project two years before its end. Too expensive, and it wasn’t working, Ford said. This in spite of not having any research or data to show whether it was working or not.

    The pilot was intended to show whether basic income could improve health, support mental well-being, facilitate education and stabilize housing. More than 1,000 Hamiltonians signed up in good faith and found their plans and hopes dashed by a government more interested in conservative ideology than facts.

    Fortunately, a group of researchers at McMaster University didn’t give up. They surveyed pilot participants and found basic income allowed participants to upgrade job skills and education, improved their housing and food security, reduced their use of the health care system (notably ER visits) and improved their state of mental health. After only a year, basic income was working.

    Hamilton’s motion alone won’t move senior governments, certainly not Ford’s. But if enough municipalities join together through representative groups like the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, they could get basic income back on the federal and provincial radar. It’s a worthy effort.

    Record wildfires and the resulting smoke pollution were on every Canadian tongue this week. But not in our seats of government.

    Oh, it came up at Queen’s Park. The Opposition NDP raised the crisis and asked the government to officially link the growing wildfire threat to climate change. Ford declined, accusing the NDP of politicizing the crisis and arguing that the fires were started by humans, not climate change.

    And in Ottawa, Pierre Poilievre was filibustering the federal budget, which he had no chance of stopping or even slowing down. Wildfires and smoke weren’t even on his radar.

    Climate change isn’t starting wildfires. It is making the season longer, making them bigger and more frequent. You would think even hard-core partisans like Ford and Poilievre could get their heads around that, but you’d be wrong.

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  • Cash Transfers Significantly Reduce Death Rates of Women

    By: Apoorva Mandavilli

    See original post here.

    Cash grants made directly to poor families or individuals have led to fewer deaths among women and young children, according to a new analysis of more than 7 million people in 37 countries.

    In countries that began making such payments, deaths among women fell by 20 percent, and deaths among children younger than 5 declined by 8 percent, researchers reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature. The impact was apparent within two years of the programs’ start and grew over time.

    The reductions in death rates were similar whether the funds came with certain conditions, such as school attendance, or whether they had no strings attached, the analysis found. Programs that covered bigger shares of the population or distributed larger amounts of cash produced even greater benefits.

    Countries with poor health care and high death rates had the biggest drop in deaths.

    In 2019, more than 8 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, subsisting on less than $2.15 per day, and about half the world on less than $6.85 per day. Poverty has insidious effects on housing stability, education, health and life expectancy.

    The pandemic drove 97 million additional people into extreme poverty in 2020, according to a World Bank estimate, prompting more countries to start cash transfer programs. Of 962 such programs worldwide, 672 were introduced during the pandemic.

    Direct cash transfers have been shown to improve school attendance, nutrition and use of health services. A few single-country studies have linked the payments to reduced death rates. But it was unclear whether those trends applied on a global scale.

    “There’s some concerns about whether these programs are sustainable, whether governments can and should pay for them,” said Harsha Thirumurthy, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-author of the analysis.

    More than 100 low- and middle-income countries have introduced cash transfer programs designed to mitigate poverty, though they differ widely in how much they pay, how often and to whom.

    The new study is the first to examine the effect of cash transfers on death rates worldwide, the researchers said. They collected information on these programs between 2000 to 2019 in 29 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, one in northern Africa, four in the Asia-Pacific region and three in Latin America and the Caribbean.

    The data included information on more than 4 million adults and nearly 3 million children. Roughly 300,000 deaths were recorded during the study. Recipients received between 6 percent and 13 percent of the per capita income in a particular country, often much less than $100.

    “These are not amounts that are anywhere near as large as some of the amounts we’re talking about in the U.S. when it comes to guaranteed income programs,” Dr. Thirumurthy said.

    Still, the findings are relevant even for high-income countries, said Audrey Pettifor, a social epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies cash transfers for H.I.V. prevention and women’s health.

    Donors often worry that beneficiaries may misuse the funds to buy alcohol, junk food or other nonessential items, but “the data just doesn’t back that up,” she said.

    The researchers could not identify the beneficiaries, so they analyzed population-level death rates. The findings suggest that cash transfers may be helpful not just to women, but to families and entire communities.

    “These social protection programs actually account for the vast majority of the income” in households in places like South Africa, Dr. Pettifor said. “One would expect these spillover effects.”

    Berk Özler, a developmental economist in the World Bank’s research division, offered an alternate explanation. Cash transfers are often accompanied by improvements to health care services or other infrastructure that helps communities, he noted.

    “Maybe it’s not the direct effect of people having more cash in their pocket,” he said.

    The study did not look at adults older than 60 or at distinct features of the programs, such as duration or frequency of the payments, whether the beneficiaries are men or women, how the money is delivered or whether it is bundled with counseling or education.

    “I do think it’s useful to look at that in future work,” Dr. Thirumurthy said.

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  • A Ballot Initiative in Oregon is Making Progress Towards Establishing a Statewide UBI

    See original post here.

    The Oregon Rebate (IP 2024-017) ballot initiative campaign has announced early success in collecting the necessary signatures to qualify for the November 2024 General Election. 

    The Oregon Rebate will establish a statewide Universal Basic Income in the form of yearly rebates valued at approximately $750. Every Oregonian, regardless of age, income, or status will be eligible to receive a yearly rebate. For example, a 4-person household will receive four rebates, or about $3,000, tax free. 

    The rebates are funded by increasing the minimum tax rate of the largest corporations doing business in Oregon. Currently, the minimum corporate tax rate for corporations with more than $25 million of annual Oregon sales is less than 1% and the Oregon Rebate proposes to increase this minimum corporate tax rate to 3%, still well below the 5-10% of personal tax rate Oregonians pay. 

    “Oregonians know that the biggest corporations are not paying their fair share, and that yearly cash rebates will help them make ends meet.” said Antonio Gisbert, chief petitioner of the Oregon Rebate. 

    The scope of the Oregon Rebate is noteworthy: Every year, approximately $3.0 billion of new revenue will be rebated among the approximately 4 million Oregonians. Using the UBI Center’s Basic Income Builder, the campaign estimates an overall reduction in poverty of approximately 15% and, specifically, a reduction in child poverty of approximately 26%. 

    “Cash is care, cash reduces poverty and provides opportunity, and cash stimulates our local economies and communities,” said Antonio Gisbert. 

    To date, among others, the Oregon Rebate campaign has been endorsed by PCUN, the Oregon Working Families Party, the Pacific Green Party, and the Oregon Progressive Party.

    The campaign has until July 2024 to collect the statutorily required 120,413 signatures to qualify for the 2024 General Election. Those interested in reading the full text of the petition, learning more, and getting involved or contributing to the Oregon Rebate campaign may do so at https://oregonrebate.org/. 

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  • Unified Basic Income: A Viable Solution for Israel and Palestine?

    By: Ahmed Elbas

    See original post here.

    While the proposition may appear daunting, the exploration of Universal Basic Income (UBI) for both Israelis and Palestinians is certainly worthwhile. Given the sustained conflicts in the region — from bombings in Gaza to raids in villages — and the current Israeli government, a unified UBI may seem implausible. 

    Nevertheless, a robust discussion on the potential benefits of a shared UBI program across troubled landscapes from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River is a necessity. Despite a history of failed negotiations and a prevailing sentiment of intractability, a UBI offers a novel approach to a perennial issue.

    Scholars like Diana Bashur, renowned for her research on the influence of UBI in conflict-ridden areas, argue for its potential to improve social cohesion, bolster peacekeeping initiatives, strengthen social contracts, and enhance the resilience of communities. As demonstrated in her most recent work on post-war Syria, UBI might not be a panacea, but it could be a crucial step toward a more equitable society. This innovative peace-building measure, detailed extensively in Bashur’s work, ought to be considered seriously by policymakers seeking to address one of the oldest conflicts of mankind.

    Imagine the application of UBI across Palestine and Israel — in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Haifa. This shared income would not discriminate between Palestinians and Israelis but rather assert a human right to live with dignity.

    Such a policy could foster a sense of shared belonging and equality, thus promoting mutual respect, regardless of religious, cultural, or ethnic differences. It would necessitate a cooperative approach from both Palestinians and Israelis, forging a partnership necessary to make UBI a success.

    A harmonious social connection, coupled with non-discriminatory policies, could enhance security and decrease instances of violence. Moreover, acknowledging the human rights associated with UBI could demonstrate to even the most radical factions the shared humanity of all residents. From an economic perspective, investments into UBI could foster development and societal contribution, provided these efforts are accompanied by comprehensive security measures and advancements in healthcare and education.

    Contrary to critics, such a program may not be prohibitively costly.

    With the successful implementation of UBI and accompanying reforms, reductions in military and security spending could be realized, thus paying for itself. The benefits of UBI in terms of lives preserved and cycles of violence broken are invaluable. Providing Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza and the occupied regions, with genuine opportunities could not only disrupt the status quo but also increase their societal contributions.

    The current situation in the region, marked by loss, radicalization, and animosity, is untenable. Desires for change resonate on both sides — the Israeli protests and the widespread dissatisfaction among Palestinians are testaments to this. Therefore, despite its potential complexities, the implementation of a shared UBI could be both economically and politically feasible.

    While this article merely introduces the concept of a unified UBI for Israel and Palestine, the technicalities of such a policy’s execution will be elaborated in forthcoming work.

    It is not asserted here that a shared UBI would be a panacea for all the region’s problems, nor that its implementation would be straightforward. The argument presented is that a unified UBI could assure the right of all residents to a life of dignity, thus breaking the cycle of violence. Once this foundation is established, politicians can convene to debate boundaries and borders in an environment free of immediate pressure.

    The post Unified Basic Income: A Viable Solution for Israel and Palestine? appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Study reveals how cash grants can generate more income

    By: Leila Patel

    See original post here.

    South Africa has one of the world’s most expansive social grant systems: 47% of the population relies on a monthly grant. Of these, 18 million are permanent beneficiaries and about 10 million receive a temporary Social Relief of Distress Grant.

    This was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic for working-age adults who do not receive formal social protection, such as unemployment insurance and for those engaged in informal work.

    The vast majority of the grants are child support grants (R500 or around $27 a month) paid to a child’s primary caregiver based on a means test.

    There is ample, global evidence that such cash transfers bring many positive outcomes. For instance, they reduce child hunger, improve school attendance and help reduce poverty.

    Although social grants are spent largely on food, there is growing evidence that they are also used for productive investments in livelihood activities. These are actions people undertake to meet their basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing. Recipients find various ways to “grow” their grants by engaging in informal work and other income-generating activities.

    But little is known about the nature and scope of these activities, or how the government and other social partners like NGOs, development agencies and corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives could support recipients’ agencies and strengthen their livelihood strategies. This is important to consider against the backdrop of South Africa’s 32.8% unemployment rate.

    To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a quantitative analysis of social grant beneficiaries’ employment status drawn from household survey data from 2008 to 2021. We wanted to get a better idea of how many grant recipients – caregivers of children, older persons, people with disabilities and unemployed adults engage – in informal work and income-generating activities.

    We found that 31% of grant beneficiaries engage in informal work. These are jobs with no written contract and where the businesses are not registered for tax. They include care work, informal trading or self-employment. 

    In 2021, grant beneficiaries were 13% more likely to be doing informal work than formal work. There was a greater probability of child support grant beneficiaries being engaged in survival-oriented business activities (11%) followed by 9% of beneficiaries of the Social Relief of Distress grant and 4% of old-age pensioners.

    Although the study found that the proportion of self-employed social grant recipients appears to be small, this is not the case when compared to self-employment (10%) as a proportion of total employment. In this regard South Africa fairs poorer than other upper-middle-income countries such as Turkey, Brazil and Mexico.

    Second, we synthesised the findings from three qualitative studies by post-graduate students of the Centre for Social Development in Africa and the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg.

    Grant beneficiaries’ stories emerging from these studies show a strong desire to be productive – such as having a job, or starting their own business and finding ways to improve income and personal and family well-being. They also faced significant barriers in promoting livelihoods, reducing poverty and improving psychosocial well-being. These findings indicate the need to design multi-pronged poverty reduction strategies that combine grants with livelihood support services.

    Participants across all three studies articulated a strong motivation to improve their lives. Others expressed a strong desire for independence, to be active and productive.

    In all three studies, regardless of the grant received and its value, interviewees said the grant monies were insufficient to meet their needs.

    They found various ways to “grow” their grant. Some were income-generating activities like buying and selling goods, providing services such as building, painting, photography, running restaurants or taverns, renting accommodation and traditional healing. Some played fahfee (a form of betting) or engaged in community gardening, sewing, recycling and beadwork.

    Others invested in future livelihood strategies such as supporting children with their job search. Some used their grants as seed money to cover business start-up costs, buy new equipment such as a chip fryer, and beads for their craft work or expand their existing operations.

    We also found that some recipients were investing a portion of their grants, primarily through stokvels (a type of informal credit union) or savings schemes. They hoped to reinvest savings in their businesses or to use the money during an emergency. Across the three qualitative studies, beneficiaries reported that households with multiple income streams were more financially stable.

    The most common barriers identified were related to:

    • Women’s childcare responsibilities in the home.
    • The opportunity costs of working (such as high transport and childcare costs).
    • A lack of jobs.
    • Lack of capital.
    • Lack of access to affordable micro loans.
    • Competition for customers from large retailers.
    • A lack of experience, knowledge and skills in, for example, financial literacy.
    • Some expressed concerns about crime and violence in the community.

    Few grant beneficiaries were able to access formal support services from the government. Only one group of women crafters engaged in beadwork received support from a local cooperative. Most turned to their social networks, family and friends to support them, and provide guidance, advice and financial assistance. Due to a lack of access to small loans, they turned to money lenders when they needed to access cash resulting in indebtedness.

    A major barrier also relates to the precarious nature of informal work and the lack of protection for vulnerable workers.

    Informal work is a crucial livelihood strategy for grant beneficiaries who supplement their income through multiple livelihood activities. Most worked in elementary occupations, services, sales and craft-related trade. A small proportion is self-employed, running survivalist businesses. This is contrary to the view that beneficiaries are passive and disengaged from the labour market or do not desire to work.

    There is a need for greater recognition of informal work and its role in poverty reduction as a national policy objective. Moreover, social grants plus complementary livelihood supports are needed. These include access to capital, credit and small loans. The development of knowledge and skills and mentoring and coaching are also critical.

    Few government departments target beneficiaries for livelihoods support such as small-scale farming and entrepreneurship programmes. There is a need to explore innovative delivery modalities – whereby livelihood supports may be crafted onto existing government programmes. Incentives should be provided for those who wish to pursue productive activities.

    There is room to scale up livelihood support through existing governmental, NGOs, development agencies and CSI programmes. However, more research and experimental intervention research is needed to inform the design of livelihood support policies and strategies.

    About the author: Leila Patel is a Professor of Social Development Studies, University of Johannesburg. Viwe Dikoko and Jade Archer co-authored the research brief on which this article is based.

    The post Study reveals how cash grants can generate more income appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Work requirements are a policy failure: Why are they still an option?

    By: KATHERINE HEMPSTEAD

    See original post here.

    We’ve reached an inflection point in our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The unemployment rate currently stands at 3.4 percent — one of the lowest on record and far below the nearly 15 percent rate at the outset of the pandemic. But the labor force participation rate (the share of people working or seeking work) has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels. Moreover, the gold standard for an equitable economy — secure, well-paying jobs for all who need them — remains elusive. 

    Some in Congress are responding to this moment by reaching for a tired and discredited idea: work requirements for people on economic assistance programs. 

    Recent legislation passed by the House of Representatives would expand existing work requirements for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants, and add them for Medicaid beneficiaries. This would be a colossal mistake.

    Following years of careful examination of this issue, a new white paper released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation highlights the extensive research showing that work requirements do not increase employment or chart a path to self-sufficiency. Instead, they take necessities like food and healthcare away from people who can ill afford to lose them and put heavy cost burdens on states and localities. Our nation needs a thriving economy. But expanding work requirements is not the way to get there.

    Advocates of work requirements believe that people receiving economic assistance prefer government dependency over self-sufficiency. The truth is very different. Nearly 3 in 4 SNAP participants in households with working-age adults without disabilities are employed at some point within the year; for households with children, it is nearly 90 percent. More than half of non-elderly Medicaid enrollees are working — sometimes multiple jobs — and nearly three-quarters live in a family where at least one member is working. Most of the rest have caregiving responsibilities and/or health problems. 

    Sizable shares of those subject to work requirements wind up losing their benefits. The reasons vary. Some are working, but their schedules may not meet the monthly work requirements throughout the year. Others may be temporarily between jobs, face barriers to employment that do not qualify for exemptions, or are stymied by the additional administrative burdens associated with work requirements that excessively complicate their applications. 

    The consequences can be severe. Less than a year after Arkansas became the first state to institute work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries in 2018, 18,000 residents lost their health insurance. The fallout included increased medical debt and interruptions in care, such as losing access to needed medications. There was no evidence of increased employment. 

    When SNAP work requirements were reinstated in several states following a temporary suspension during the Great Recession of 2008, program participation fell significantly, with no evidence of increased employment or higher earnings. 

    A study that linked SNAP and earnings data in Virginia similarly found a reduction in enrollment coupled with no employment effect. The study authors concluded that “per dollar of public expenditure, eliminating work requirements would likely transfer more resources to low income adults than other programs targeting the same population.” 

    SNAP participants who lose eligibility are mostly poor and at risk for poor health outcomes. A Congressional Budget Office assessment reported that most people losing benefits have “few or no other sources of income and many of them are homeless.” Given SNAP’s proven connections to better health outcomes among participants, losing benefits due to an inability to meet stricter work requirements would likely have health impacts. 

    For states, the economic consequences of expanded work requirements would be catastrophic. Enrollment declines would mean a massive loss of federal funding coupled with an increase in financial hardship for individuals and families. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that as many as 21 million people are at risk of losing their Medicaid coverage if work requirements are imposed, including about 25 percent of those who gained eligibility when states expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 

    A new Congressional Budget Office analysis projects that work requirements would result in a decline of more than $100 billion in federal Medicaid expenditures over the next 10 years. States would be faced with an unenviable choice between whether to make up the 90 percent federal share with their own funds or deal with the consequences of a large increase in the uninsured population. Similarly, the loss of federal SNAP and TANF dollars would place severe pressure on state and local governments, not to mention food pantries and other charitable assistance programs. 

    Instead of hurting people who rely on these vital programs, policymakers should invest in an effective and compassionate social safety net and enact policies that help working parents and caregivers keep their jobs.

    An additional $1 billion in SNAP funding during economic downturns is associated with a $1.54 billion increase in gross domestic product and supports more than 13,000 new jobs.

    States that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the ACA have reaped economic and health benefits; the states that have not yet taken that step should do so. 

    The development of social programs in the United States to assist those in need has been stunted by chronic ambivalence. Is the objective to wage a war against poverty or a war against the poor? Policies like a higher minimum wage, paid leave and affordable child care effectively address the former. Work requirements, on the other hand, serve the latter objective and are as punitive as they are ineffective. 

    We can’t balance our budget on the backs of the poor. Nor should we try. Work requirements are the wrong answer, this time and every time.

    About the Author: Katherine Hempstead, Ph.D., is a senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Twitter: @khemp64.

    The post Work requirements are a policy failure: Why are they still an option? appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • New bill would stop SNAP recipients from buying junk food with benefits

    By: JANAE BOWENS and KONNER MCINTIRE

    See original post here.

    The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides nutrition benefits to more than 42 million Americans. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has a new bill called the Healthy SNAP Act. It would restrict what kinds of foods are allowed to be purchased with SNAP benefits with an emphasis on removing junk foods.

    By the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) own admission, unhealthy foods and beverages account for more than 20% of all SNAP spending. This is obviously bad for taxpayers, who are projected to spend $240 billion on junk food, with more than $60 billion going exclusively to soda, over the next decade. But equally important are the health consequences for those relying on a program that is meant to supplement their nutrition. After all, there is nothing ‘nutritious’ about a two-liter bottle of soda, a bag of chips, or an ice cream cake.

    Rubio is partly inspired by the most recent Department of Agriculture’s SNAP purchases study from 2016 which shows 22.6% of SNAP households’ grocery bill is spent on unhealthier foods like soda, candy, and salty snacks. The data used for the study captured only transactions completed at a specific set of retail outlets and so is not a complete representation of the whole picture.

    The study also found that non-SNAP households spend 19.7% of their grocery budget on junk food.

    SNAP can be used to buy fruits, vegetables, meat, bread and snacks like soda and candy. It cannot be used to buy alcohol, cigarettes, medicine and fast food.

    Rubio wrote an op-ed about his bill for the Wall Street Journal and several people responded to it. Opponents are calling Rubio’s proposal government overreach.

    More important, who is Mr. Rubio to be telling people what they can and can’t eat? I would rather let SNAP recipients use their accounts to buy what they want instead of empowering a group of food czars in Washington to tell them what to eat,” said one writer to the Wall Street Journal.

    Dr. Douglas Coldwell of Dallas said the proposal did not go far enough.

    “It assumes that families who are using SNAP have the ability or the help to determine a nutritional diet. This certainly isn’t the case. I suggest a wholesale revamping of the program. Have regional nutritionists develop a balanced diet, relying on food available locally, then put it into family-size packages and distribute them through grocery stores or wholesale outlets,” Coldwell said.

    A USDA spokesperson sent the following statement in response to Rubio’s op-ed:

    “USDA strongly believes in the importance of a nutritious diet, and we are committed to encouraging all Americans to make healthier decisions when it comes to diet and food consumption. We all make many healthy choices, and we all continue to fall short of the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Research confirms that the food purchases of SNAP participants are similar to those of most Americans. The Biden-Harris Administration’s National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health supports creating healthier food environments and a healthier food supply so the healthier choice is the easier choice for all American families.

    Rather than focusing on restricting choice, which would increase program costs and complexity and undermines the dignity of millions of Americans by assuming that low-income Americans are unable to make decisions that are best for themselves and their families, USDA has worked to make healthy choices more accessible and within reach for all Americans.

    A key barrier to healthy eating is a lack of access or money to buy nutritious food. USDA’s re-evaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan resulted in the first real increase in benefits in over 45 years, helping SNAP participants afford more healthy, fresh foods. Additionally, an increasing number of number of farmers markets accept SNAP benefits, expanding access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods by SNAP recipients while supporting economic opportunities for farmers and producers. USDA has also invested in programs that incentivize healthy purchases by SNAP participants.

    Our growing incentive toolbox includes the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentives Program, Healthy Fluid Milk Incentives, incentive waivers, and the Electronic Healthy Incentives Project. Finally, USDA has strengthened our SNAP Nutrition Education program to better deliver evidence-based nutrition education to help all Americans make healthier choices.

    Congress has talked about restricting SNAP benefits for some time now. Back in 2017, the House Committee on Agriculture held a hearing called “Pros and Cons of Restricting SNAP Purchases.”

    The Food Marketing Institute’s president and CEO, Leslie G. Sarasin, said during the hearing that more restrictions would hurt the bottom line for food retailers with the changes possibly leading to slower checkouts for customers.

    I would respectfully suggest that if our goal with SNAP is to provide needy Americans a short-term lifeline to allow them to get and keep a job so they earn enough to support their families without government benefits, the unilateral limitation of any specific product is unlikely to help accomplish that goal. It is worth noting that doing so will also increase the need for additional USDA staff to make and encode these determinations for an estimated 20,000 new products.

    Rubio also addressed retail in his op-ed, saying, “Such a commonsense reform would promote healthier diets at no additional cost to the American people and, in the long run, reduce medical expenses. It would also begin to address the problem of food deserts in low-income neighborhoods. If soft drinks and sweets are no longer SNAP-eligible, corner stores and supermarkets will have more of an incentive to stock healthier foods.

    In January, the USDA announced a $25 million investment for three states to run an incentive program for SNAP participants in their states. It encourages recipients to purchase healthy foods by providing a coupon, discount, gift card, bonus food items, or extra funds when they purchase specific foods like fruits and vegetables.

    This program has been done before. The USDA says research shows SNAP participants who received incentives consumed 26% more fruits and vegetables per day than nonparticipants.

    Some, like Rubio, would say that doesn’t go far enough.

    The post New bill would stop SNAP recipients from buying junk food with benefits appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Food banks are taking over from the welfare state, warns Gordon Brown

    Food banks are increasingly “taking over from the welfare state”, former Labour PM Gordon Brown has warned, amid growing concerns that lack of state support is forcing them into a permanent role in fighting poverty.

    With food banks increasingly warning that even working people are seeking help, a new “multibank” model is now emerging to help families with everything from hygiene products to furniture. However, concerns are growing within the food aid movement that their services are becoming so widespread that they are now a crucial fixture, rather than a last resort.

    Writing in the Observer last Sunday, Brown, who works with a multibank in Fife, calls on companies to donate their surplus goods and produce more items at cost price as he warns of “rising deprivation among those without money or power”. He also warns food banks are filling the growing hole in support.

    “As charities take over from the welfare state as our national safety net and the food bank, not the social security system, becomes the last line of defence against destitution, it is difficult not to fear for the future,” he writes.

    The Trussell Trust, which works to fight hunger in the UK, distributed a record 3m food parcels in 2022-23, and recent research suggests that basic state benefits given to low-income households are at least £140 a month below the real cost of food, energy and everyday basics.

    Keely Dalfen, head of the Brick By Brick multibank in Wigan, said she had thought “long and hard” before deciding to go ahead with the project. “We need to be having these difficult conversations about food banks,” she said.

    “Charities like us are becoming more and more an extension of the welfare state. That does worry me a lot, because we don’t have the resources to do it. We’ve got to do the multibank, because we’re seeing so many people that are in absolute destitution. But it’s also something that I don’t want to be doing for ever.”

    A huge number of academics and charities wrote to the Observer earlier this year warning that a “growing reliance” on food banks risked discouraging proper state policies to deal with poverty. There are more than 2,500 food banks now operating in the UK.

    “Food bank volunteers cannot go on strike but they can call out the paradox that means they’re endlessly filling an ever-increasing gap that simply won’t close,” said Sabine Goodwin, co-ordinator of the Independent Food Aid Network. “It’s important to imagine a time when food bank teams’ compassion, kindness and resilience could help people in so many other ways. Providing an adequate safety net that ensures people can afford food is the responsibility of government, not of an army of volunteers and charities increasingly supported by corporate interests.”

    Helen Barnard, director of policy, research and impact at the Trussell Trust, said it was “undoubtedly the case” that recent years had seen “more and more people finding themselves with no option but to turn to charitable food aid”. She added:

    “It is clearly unacceptable that as a society, we’re becoming dependent on charitable, volunteer-run organisations to help people survive. That is not what was ever intended. Food banks were supposed to provide short-term support to people in an emergency. They were never supposed to be a lasting solution to poverty.”

    Sir Michael Marmot, who led a pioneering work into health inequalities in 2010, said that it was a “grim picture” that food banks were now so widespread. “I wouldn’t close a single food bank, there is a fire raging and we do have to put it out,” he said. “I’m full of admiration for the organisations and individuals who do it. But it’s not a long-term solution. In my 2010 report, I recommended that everyone should have at least the minimum income necessary for a healthy life. We’ve been retreating from that.”

    The government said: “We are committed to helping the most vulnerable and that’s why we have provided an extra £1bn to the household support fund to help with essential costs including food, clothing and utilities. We are providing record levels of direct financial support to help vulnerable families with the cost of living – £1,200 last year and a further £1,350 in 2023-24 – and we have also recently uprated benefits by 10.1% and made an unprecedented increase to the national living wage.”

    The post Food banks are taking over from the welfare state, warns Gordon Brown appeared first on Basic Income Today.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Fear-mongering critique of basic income research based on misinformation

    By: ASGHAR ADELZADEH

    See original post here.

    Daan Steenkamp, Hylton Hollander and Roy Havemann’s article criticising the recent IEJ-ADRS research on Basic Income Grant (BIG) pathway scenarios refers (“When BIG is neither bigger nor better”, March 14). 

    As the person responsible for the ADRS (Applied Development Research Solutions) modelling input and someone familiar with the BIG debate, I will respond by first fact-checking their article. Unfortunately, it begins with an exaggerated account of the cost of the IEJ-ADRS scenarios. The authors assert that IEJ-ADRS proposes three BIG scenarios at a cost of R275bn, R375bn and R500n a year [sic]. This is simply incorrect. They then focus solely on figures for the High Ambition scenario, and only on the estimated cost for 2030, the last year of the forecast. 

    Deliberate misrepresentations 

    The deliberateness of this misrepresentation is further apparent in their comments on the funding strategy for the scenarios, focusing again solely on the High Ambition scenario. They say the proposed funding for this scenario “would require a 1% annual wealth tax and a 4% social security tax, which amounts to a huge increase in the amount of tax for the average taxpayer”. This is also incorrect. The IEJ-ADRS presentation does indeed discuss the financing needs of each scenario and how they can be met. This includes an introduction of a 0.5% (Low Ambition scenario) and 1% (Medium and High Ambition scenarios) annual wealth tax on the top quintile. The authors disregard this important feature of the proposed wealth tax, then go on to deliberately and wrongly conclude that the average teacher or nurse “would face additional tax on any wealth they might have accumulated” when we all know that “the average teacher or nurse” is not in the top quintile. Fear-mongering, anyone?   

    Their assertion that the full cost of the BIG scenario will fall on taxpayers through a ‘huge increase in the amount of tax for the average taxpayer’ is simply false. 

    Despite our presentation to the contrary, the authors of the article make no mention that the IEJ-ADRS proposed Social Security Tax (SST) is unnecessary in the Low Ambition scenario, and will be 3% and 4% for the Medium and High Ambition scenarios respectively, only from 2028. They want their audience to believe that the proposed tax would be implemented from 2023, the first year of the scenario. Moreover, they assert that the High Ambition scenario “would require a 1% wealth tax and a 4% social security tax, which amounts to a huge increase in the amount of tax for the average taxpayer”. Again, contrary to their unfounded comments, the “average taxpayer” is not in the top quintile and would not pay wealth tax.  

    Finally, in keeping with the rest of their comments, the writers fail to recognise that more than a third of the required funding for the scenario is attained through increases in VAT revenue from the positive impact of the scenario on the Gross Domestic Expenditure (GDE). Their assertion that the full cost of the BIG scenario will fall on taxpayers through a “huge increase in the amount of tax for the average taxpayer” is simply false. 

    They state that government sufficiently prioritises social grants by spending more than 10% of expenditure on grants. Actually, despite the extent of poverty, unemployment and inequality in SA, government spending on social benefits, including social grants, relative to GDP has significantly and consistently lagged behind peer countries during the last 25 years.    

    Cultivating opposition through misinformation

    These misrepresentations of facts appear to be less of an attempt to accurately inform the public and more of an attempt to cultivate opposition to BIG through misinformation. Beyond their biased depiction of cost and finances in the IEJ-ADRS BIG scenarios, the authors dismiss the scenarios’ dynamic impacts, which expand both aggregate demand and aggregate supply. Moreover, the scenarios yield three important findings: (1) BIG is undoubtedly a pro-poor social policy programme; (2) the scenarios have tangible positive impacts on growth and employment; and (3) the combination of a relatively small wealth tax and social security tax can provide the necessary complementary resources that enable government to introduce and sustain the programme over time.  

    There is no excuse for a team of economists claiming strong numerical skills to intentionally misrepresent and/or obfuscate economic data. 

    Though these are significant findings, rather than engage with them the authors of the article fixate on their own conclusion that a BIG policy “would ultimately lead to job losses and lower growth, because it would require higher taxes and debt”, as previously voiced for the Treasury. Their opinion is typical of economic thinking that emanates from Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) modelling. They lament that researchers who are involved in the BIG debate have not acknowledged their use of DSGE modelling to examine BIG for the Treasury.  

    The public’s lack of interest may reflect the view that “DSGE has nothing useful to say” as Robert Solow, 1987 Nobel laureate in economics, said. Solow went on to explain “why it has failed and is bound to fail”. 

    “I don’t think that the currently popular DSGE models … pass the smell test. They take it for granted that the whole economy can be thought of as if it were a single, consistent person or dynasty carrying out a rationally designed, long-term plan, occasionally disturbed by unexpected shocks, but adapting to them in a rational, consistent way … And the protagonists of this idea make a claim to respectability by asserting that it is founded on what we know about microeconomic behaviour; but I really think that this claim is generally phoney. The advocates believe what they say, there is no doubt, but they seem to have stopped sniffing or to have lost their sense of smell altogether.” (Solow, 2010.

    There is no excuse for a team of economists claiming strong numerical skills to intentionally misrepresent and/or obfuscate economic data. It seems that their overzealous pursuit to reject any BIG programme for SA got the better of them. BIG is a means of enabling limited redistribution to the poorest. It should be no surprise that the richer citizens will need to pay their fair share. What is surprising is that the misinterpretation of the so-called analysis belies the collection of years of economic training among the authors.  

    About the Author:

    Dr Adelzadeh is director and chief economic modeller at Applied Development Research Solutions. 

  • Forensic psychiatrist calls for universal basic income in response to transit violence in Canada

    See original post here.

    A rise in violence on Toronto’s transit system signals an urgent need to better support people struggling with homelessness, mental illness and addiction, says a forensic psychiatrist with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

    “It’s that combination that is giving rise to this (violence),” said Dr. Sandy Simpson, chair in forensic psychiatry at CAMH and the University of Toronto,

    “It’s really impossible to know how much each of those things is to blame. But it’s not a single issue,” he said.

    More information is needed about the suspects accused in recent attacks against Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) passengers and employees to make that determination, he said.

    But Simpson said drug addiction is likely a factor in some cases, especially crystal meth and crack. Unlike opioids, those drugs can be associated with violent acts.

    Lack of social support for people who are living in poverty and who are homeless, as well as poor access to mental-health services for the people who need it most, are also big underlying problems that need to be addressed, Simpson said.

    “Frankly, my top solution would be universal basic income,” he said.

    “That would make a dramatic difference to the struggles that desperate people get into,” Simpson said.

    Mental illness, drug use a factor

    People “are sleeping on the TTC because there’s nowhere else to sleep and becoming intoxicated or irritable or in conflict with other people on the TTC because they have nowhere else to go and they’re feeling that the world is structured against them,” he said.

    Untreated mental illness, drug use or both can confuse vulnerable people and make them perceive others as a threat, Simpson said.

    Right now, the wait time for people in Toronto with serious mental illness to be treated by an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team is 10 to 12 months, he said.

    Gord Tanner, general manager of shelter, support and housing for the City of Toronto, said more outreach workers are being hired to offer services to homeless people identified at certain TTC stations in the city.

    Six employees wearing red winter coats bearing a Streets to Homes logo on the front and Outreach on the back are currently approaching people on trains, buses and streetcars to help them access a shelter bed, other housing or services such as applying for income support and identification, he said.

    A feeling of hopelessness

    Plans are underway to employ a total of 20 people by May to provide services 24 hours an day, seven days a week from funding in the city’s current budget, Tanner said.

    “There’s been a couple of stations where we’ve seen people bedding down, and that is Union Station and Spadina Station, but there’s parts of the system that have had more people visibly sheltering over the course of the winter,” he said.

    “Folks are just having a very hard time making ends meet and so access to income supports and to affordable housing is probably something we hear most often from individuals we work with throughout the shelter system and folks who might be on the street or using the transit system,” Tanner said.

    “It’s a feeling of hopelessness that the staff relay to me with respect to the folks that they’re working with.”

    Tanner said that since Jan. 1, outreach workers have connected and referred 226 people to shelters from various parts of the transit system but that long-term housing is needed.

    “It’s not meant to be a panacea or the solution to the tragic incidents,” he said of the project.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Biden revives hopes for the monthly child tax credit

    See original post here.

    The last year has been a difficult one financially for 44-year-old Rocky Harper. Inflation, especially, has eaten into his paychecks that support his family of four.

    “I had to switch careers last year to become a truck driver, because my old job could not pay my bills anymore. Now I have to spend all this time away from my family just to pay the bills,” the Arizona resident told Yahoo Finance while on the road in South Dakota. “My wife is at home basically as a single parent with two kids, and I’m out here just making money and living in the truck.”

    Another factor that’s compounded Harper’s money struggles in the last year: No more monthly Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments.

    “The credit helped me start catching up again and then it disappeared and inflation went up,” he said.

    The enhanced credit — which increased the amount of the tax benefit and doled out half the credit in advance in monthly installments in 2021 — expired at the start of 2022 with little political muscle to make the pandemic-era changes permanent. That could change after President Biden included the CTC in his annual budget released this month.

    While the budget itself has little chance of becoming law with the GOP in control of the House of Representatives, the CTC’s inclusion may rekindle debates over its merits, especially as inflation continues to erode more budgets, credit card delinquencies start to rise, and government food aid shrinks.

    “Those expansions were really exciting to see being revived in the president’s budget. All the pieces are critical – monthly payments and giving families more money, also making those credits refundable so that our lowest-income families can access them,” Joanna Ain, associate director of policy at Prosperity Now, told Yahoo Finance. “That would be huge.”

    How the expanded Child Tax Credit worked

    The temporary expansion of the Child Tax Credit enacted under the American Rescue Plan in March 2021 broadened the benefit in several key ways that helped many of the economically vulnerable.

    First, the maximum credit amount was raised from $2,000 to $3,000 for each child between 6 and 17 and $3,600 for children under 6. The age limit was also increased to 17 for the first time. Before, the maximum age limit was 16.

    Lawmakers also made the CTC fully refundable, meaning if you didn’t owe taxes, you still qualified for the entire credit. Before, only $1,400 of the $2,000 credit was refundable. The American Rescue Act eliminated the minimum income requirement — which before was $2,500 — allowing those without jobs to qualify for the first time.

    “The other thing that happened is we also delivered half of the credit in advance of filing your tax return,” Elaine Maag, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, previously told Yahoo Finance. “Almost all families with children started getting payments in July, and they received a monthly payment from July to December [2021].”

    Roughly 35 million taxpayers with 60 million children received half of the credit in monthly installments from the Internal Revenue Service in 2021. Meanwhile, families that had opted out of getting the advanced payments could claim the full credit on their 2021 tax return.

    “The monthly CTC was extraordinarily flexible and helped parents and children in ways other government programs couldn’t dream of,” Greg Nasif, director of public affairs at Humanity Forward, told Yahoo Finance. “You can’t subsidize child care in rural Montana towns that don’t have daycare centers. But by reverting the CTC to monthly payments, you can shift resources toward family budgets and let parents figure out what their families need.”

    CTC offered ‘the opportunity to invest in children’

    The expanded Child Tax Credit appeared to have an almost immediate, positive impact.

    By December 2021, the monthly tax credits were keeping 3.7 million children from experiencing poverty, the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University found, up from 3 million when the credits first rolled out. The payments also reduced the monthly child poverty rate by 30%.

    Several studies also showed that the monthly payments helped safeguard family finances during the pandemic. During the fall of 2021, American households consistently reported using the CTC to cover basic needs such as food, rent or mortgage, and utilities, according to the Census Bureau.

    That was the case for Zebulon Newton, a North Carolina resident, who received his last CTC payment of $550 for his daughters, ages 4 and 7, in December 2021.

    “For six months, childhood life got better,” the 40-year old father told Yahoo Finance last year, noting that he used the money for child care and to put healthier food on the table.

    “Maybe the credit amounts weren’t necessarily life-altering for some, but they gave the lowest-income families who historically have been shut out of these programs the opportunity to invest in children,” Christopher Wimer, co-director of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, told Yahoo Finance. “For the first time, many were able to just get through the day a little easier.”

    Rising inflation poses new challenges

    Those benefits began to disappear after the last payments went out in December 2021 and as inflation began to rage. Over a year later, inflation has eased some, but prices for food, rent, and utilities still remain high.

    “Lower-income households experienced above-average inflation because of their higher proportional spending on food and housing,” the New York Federal Reserve said in a blog post.

    Since June of last year, around 40% of adults surveyed by the Census Bureau have reported some difficulty with paying regular household expenses. To offset some of the financial blow, a rising share of Americans have been relying on credit cards — with balances hitting a record high in the fourth quarter and missed payments starting to increase.

    The percentage of adults who reported food scarcity has also increased, ticking above 11% in April 2022 and remaining there. When the CTC payments were disbursed, the share had dropped as low as 7.8% in August 2021.

    “We know what it’s like to be hungry,” Harper said. “We didn’t eat for days, but [our children] did. They are eating, but not nearly as nutritious as before.”

    Food insecurity could grow even more now that the pandemic-era Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits also expired at the end of February 2023 for households in 35 states. The other 15 states already ended the extra help earlier.

    On top of that, tax refunds — often a lifeline for those who earn the least — are coming in smaller than last year because so many COVID-19 enhancements including the CTC expired.

    “Tax refunds are going down, the SNAP benefits are expiring and inflation is just punching a hammer, blowing into these families again and again,” Ain said. “That acknowledgement in the budget to have the opportunity to reboot, put these [CTC] expansions back into place is good. We’re going to keep pushing and work with Congress to get them back.”

    New CTC expansion probably won’t look like the 2021 version

    As Congress possibly revisits an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, it’s likely that any new version won’t look like its pandemic predecessor in order to garner bipartisan support. Some Republicans have expressed concerns that the CTC would be inflationary and that one version without work requirements would disincentivize work.

    One potential compromise would be to adopt provisions from the Republican-led Family Security Act 2.0, introduced by Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Richard Burr (R-NC). The proposal calls to increase the maximum value of the CTC to $4,200 per child under the age of 6 and $3,000 for those between 6 and 17.

    Unlike the enhanced CTC from the American Rescue Act, Romney’s proposal requires families to earn a minimum of $10,000 to receive the full credit. Part of the funding would also come from financial cuts to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the elimination of the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, which would impact low- to moderate-income households the most, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities.

    “The proposal has a lot of limitations,” Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, director of the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy at Brandeis University, told Yahoo Finance. “If you’re proposing to improve the Child Tax Credit, what you’re trying to do is reduce child poverty. Some of the ideas are in the right direction, but it also does a couple of things that are actually detrimental to children in poverty and would exclude some children.”

    For Harper, he’s still hoping some compromise can happen on Capitol Hill that revives the credit. The sooner, the better.

    “I don’t want to seem like I’m complaining, but I know how everyone’s having a tough time,” he said. “Congress has got to pull their thumb out of their ass and do something about it. We care about paying our electric bills.”

  • Working-class folks are now food-bank clients

    See original post here.

    Canadians have a long history of volunteering and giving back to the community — it’s woven into our cultural fabric.

    At The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto, we operate multiple programs with 200 plus volunteers donating their most valuable resource — their time. As a non-profit, we rely on the goodness of citizens to help us deliver more than 80,000 meals and over 10,000 food hampers per year to the community.

    In 2022, our volunteers have donated and worked 16,000 hours, which, if paid the living wage in Toronto ($23.15/hour), would cost The Stop more than $370,000 in payroll and benefits.

    It makes me wonder if the Canadian government is taking advantage of this “desire to give back.” Instead of providing sufficient social supports to non-profits, it has passed the buck to charities and volunteers to feed their communities and patch up a crumbling social safety net.

    When I started volunteering at The Stop in January 2021, I was recently unemployed and looking to give back to my community, help people and gain skills. The Stop’s mission to “increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds health and community, and challenges inequality” resonated with me.

    Initially, I thought I would be helping the most marginalized in our city — unemployed, under housed people, and perhaps those experiencing severe health issues, or problems with addiction.

    In reality, I am serving working-class folks who are struggling to make ends meet.

    In 2021, more than 5.8 million Canadians, including 1.4 million children, lived in food-insecure households.

    Food banks were originally set up as temporary solutions. Now they are a permanent fixture on the Canadian social assistance landscape.

    Since the pandemic started in 2020, food bank usage has increased year over year.

    The Stop has seen growing numbers of employed people accessing our services and food bank.

    Inflation, inadequate social assistance payments and rising food costs (almost weekly it seems), are eroding the Canadian social-safety net. People on social assistance are losing the battle to maintain a dignified life.

    This in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

    There are solutions including increasing government supports to non-profits, implementing a living wage for all Canadians, increasing social assistance rates to be in line with the cost of living, and ensuring affordable housing and stable rent.

    A universal basic income would allow everyone to live with dignity and afford food, a basic human right.

    Political will is not keeping pace with reality. When will our governments take responsibility for providing adequate, livable social assistance in Canada and implement change?

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Evictions have returned to — or exceeded — pre-pandemic levels

    See original post here.

    The rate of eviction filings has returned to or exceeded pre-pandemic levels in many U.S. cities in recent months, amid the historically high cost of housing and other basic necessities.

    • That’s according to data from the Eviction Lab — a Princeton University project aiming to fill an “information hole in the center of the evictions crisis” by collecting data from court filings and other sources, research specialist Jacob Haas told Axios.

    Driving the news: Sweeping local and national eviction moratoriums helped keep many families in their homes through the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    • With those moratoriums long since over, many Americans are once again exposed to the threat of displacement — especially as high rent costs have renters spending a record share of their paychecks on their monthly housing bills.
    • The eviction crisis tends to disproportionately affect minority groups — particularly Black women, says Haas.

    Zoom in: In the Twin Cities, for example, an average of nearly 300 evictions per week have been filed over the last four weeks. That’s compared to 20 per week while moratoriums were in effect

    What they’re saying: “We’ve seen a return to or beyond pre-pandemic averages in a large number of areas where we’ve been tracking [eviction] data,” says Haas.

    • “To return to that is disappointing given all of the initiatives that were taken to prevent housing instability.”

    The big picture: Some cities, such as Philadelphia and Cleveland, have recently launched or expanded programs meant to help tenants access financial relief, stay in their homes amid eviction disputes, or mediate disputes between renters and landlords.

    • “Good cause” bills, meanwhile, aim to restrict evictions to cases where tenants violate their lease agreements, as well as limit major rent increases.
    • Housing issues and homelessness are shaping up to be especially potent issues in local elections nationwide, Axios Local authors John Frank, Jessica Boehm and Kim Bojórquez report.

    Of note: The Eviction Lab’s data set doesn’t capture illegal evictions, nor does it include cases where renters are effectively forced out by large rent hikes.

    The bottom line: The Eviction Lab’s data set, which includes 34 cities, is the closest thing available to a nationwide evictions database.

    • While the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is working on new data-collection efforts, “there’s still no government database nationwide with full coverage,” says Haas.
    • That data void makes it all but impossible to adequately track — and therefore address — the problem at scale.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Opinion: Support for basic income not yet universal but getting there

    See original post here.

    There was a time when the concept of a universal basic income (UBI) was dismissed out of hand by most political and economic opinion. 

    Too costly, too dodgy in that it would encourage indigent people to remove themselves from the workforce. 

    Those tropes were constantly trotted out whenever the idea was mooted. Not any more. The evolution of thinking on the issue, along with the kind of reflection brought on by the fall-out form the pandemic, has ensured that UBI is now a concept that is receiving some serious consideration.

    A universal basic income is defined as an unconditional payment that is made regularly, is sufficient to live on, is not means tested and carries on work requirements. Pilot projects have been carried out in various countries, and currently a major one is afoot here involving a UBI for artists.

    The move was ostensibly in response to the particular challenges that artists faced during the pandemic. A taskforce recommended that a basic income be awarded to artists independent of whatever income they earn. The income was set at €325 per week.

    Over 9,000 applied for the 2,000 places on the scheme, with the lucky recipients selected randomly. Arts Minister Catherine Martin said of the scheme that it had the “potential to fundamentally transform how we support the arts and creativity”.

    “Ireland could lead the way on a new model to support people active in the sector, recognising its importance to all people,” she said. 

    For some, however, UBI is a concept that could make huge chances in society in general, above and beyond the arts sector.

    Social Justice Ireland has long campaigned for a UBI — along with Basic Income Ireland — on the basis that it would be a highly effective tool in tackling poverty. 

    But despite that, the Commission on Taxation and Welfare, the body charged with providing a blueprint on how best and equitable to organise taxes and welfare, has rejected it.

    The commission’s report, published last September, stated it “does not support the development of a UBI in Ireland”.

    Before the Oireachtas budgetary oversight committee, Social Justice Ireland (SJI) points out what it perceives as flaws in the commission’s analysis. 

    The commission, for instance, reported that a UBI would require a tax rate of 65%, a figure taken from an ESRI report in 1994. SJI says this figure is “inappropriate, misleading and erroneous”.

    The commission ignores that this figure was reduced in a subsequent report by the ESRI to 51% and that the Department of Finance has actually suggested the tax rate to accommodate a UBI would be 47.6%.

    The commission also suggests the cost of any UBI would be prohibitive but SJI points out its own analysis and that of other experts has been done on the basis it could be cost neutral.

    A third aspect of the commission report on UBI that has raised eyebrows is the contention that “the income distribution effect of the proposal did not benefit many low-income families”. 

    Considering that those who advocate loudest for UBI are doing so on the basis of tackling poverty, this contention has been highly controversial.

    “These mistakes alone render the commission’s conclusions fundamentally flawed,” SJI director Fr Sean Healy claims.

    SJI told the Oireachtas committee that a green paper from the Government on basic income concluded that 70% of households in the lowest socioeconomic brackets would benefit from a UBI.

    The flaws in the commission’s analysis all appear to be rooted in historical data, much of it originating with bodies like the ESRI. Yet the most recent study by the ESRI, published last December, appears to reflect the evolution in thinking around the concept. Among the benefits set out in that study are:

    It’s not all wine and roses. There are other aspects of a UBI system which would have to be addressed.

    These pros and cons should be examined further and read in conjunction with the analysis produced by SJI and Basic Income Ireland. In this respect, the appearance of SJI before the Oireachtas committee should provide further food for thought on the concept.

    What is now obvious is that a UBI has entered mainstream thought as one of the innovative measures that will have to be addressed in the new paradigm in which the world now exists. 

    The old way of doing things, of letting the market decide to the greatest extent, with intervention largely confined to attempting to alleviate poverty, is looking increasingly out of date. 

    Structural inequality in some societies, the advancement of climate change and an increasingly insecure world all suggest new ways of living will be required. 

    A system of universal basic income needs to be examined in that context, not through data and attitudes from the past when things were so much different, and arguably, simpler.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • A survey on Basic Income in Catalonia with results to take into consideration

    See original post here.

    This survey on various aspects of Basic Income among the population aged 16 and over living in Catalonia offers very interesting data that have not been asked about in previous surveys on Basic Income.

    A few technical details of this survey. The first wave was carried out from 25 to 28 September 2022 and the second wave from 11 to 18 November. The sample was 3,098 people and the interview duration was 20-25 minutes.

    The survey illustrates many issues of which only a few are highlighted here. Given the dates of the interview, they are very topical.

    Some of the most salient results are as follows.

    85% of those surveyed agree with having a BR in Catalonia, and 50% within this group strongly agree. Fifteen percent disagreed and within this group, 7% strongly disagreed.

    Once the BR was defined to the respondents, according to the definition used by the Pilot Plan Office, which is the one usually used at the international level, only 8.8% of the respondents thought that the BR was different from what they had previously believed. Thus, knowing the details of BR, 79% would approve of its implementation.

    By gender, there was no difference in the rating, which was 6.6; by age group, the most favourable group was between 16 and 29 years old with 7, and the most unfavourable group was between 20 and 49 years old with 6.2.

    By employment status, the least favourable group was the one in an ERTE with 4.6, and the most favourable group was the one not in employment with 7. By level of education, there were no major differences, the highest score being 6.9 for the group with ESO or equivalent.

    Perhaps of particular interest is the level of acceptance of BR by groups according to sympathy for political parties. From lowest to highest: Vox (4.4), Partido Popular (4.9), Ciudadanos (5.3), PSC (6.7), Junts (6.7), ERC (7.1), ECP (7.8) and CUP (8.2). Literally from extreme right to extreme left, from least to most popular. There were other response options such as “No party” (5.8) and “Other parties to be specified” (6.1).

    The highest reasons for valuing BR were “Fighting poverty” (19%) and “Greater solidarity” (18.7%). By far the highest reason for rejection was “Disincentive to seek to earn a living” (16.8%).

    Interesting is also the section on what respondents think would change their life with BR. Between “a little”, “quite a lot” and “a lot”, 72.3% of respondents said “a little”, “quite a lot” and “a lot”. “Not at all” 27.7%.

    As far as studies are concerned, 76% of those who are studying were of the opinion that they would continue their education with a BR, and among those who are not studying, 41% considered that they might reprimand their studies.

    One area where it is perceived that BR could change lives is in time management. Participation in organisations or associations on an unpaid basis would increase by 51%, 72% would devote more time to the family and 71% would devote more time to culture, sports, tourism, etc.

    22% would start their own business.

    As for the employment situation, 68.6% would not make any changes and would maintain their working hours and conditions; 20.1% would continue with their current occupation, but would reduce their working hours; 3.7% would stop working as salaried employees.

    The “day-to-day economy” would be the main destination of the BR money from the age of 30 onwards. Only 16-29-year-olds prioritise other expenses such as “Housing” and “Financial management” which, despite remaining in the top positions, lose weight as age increases.

    The perception of what the future would be like 5 years after the implementation of the BR: 24% of people consider that they would be “Calmer”, 21% that they would be “The same” and 20% that they would be “Happier”.

    Agreement with paying more tax decreases as income increases and among people who consider themselves politically on the centre right.

    On the amount of 800 euros that the Pilot Plan envisaged: 66% consider it adequate, 21% high, and 13% low.

    On the need to carry out a test as envisaged in the Pilot Plan: 76% in favour and 24% against.

    This has been a certain summary, but the advice is to go directly to the survey just published, there is a lot of information to take into account.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Opinion: Universal Basic Income for a Just Transition to Net Zero

    By: Jonathan Williams

    See original post here.

    It is impossible for anyone to predict the precise series of events that will follow such a rise in planetary temperatures. We know that large parts of coastal cities and towns will become uninhabitable, from Shanghai to Cardiff, California to Barry. We know that desertification from soaring temperatures in countries such as Pakistan and Kenya will leave those parts of the world uninhabitable.

    Consequently, billions of people will be left displaced from their homes and be searching for pastures new. All through no fault of their own. Those to blame will mainly be Western countries. Over the past 200 years, they have polluted the planet seemingly beyond repair.

    How quickly the aforementioned events will come to pass as temperatures begin to rise above catastrophic levels is anyone’s guess. But if it is sudden and uncontrollable, then it is not hyperbolic to suggest that civilisation as we know it could collapse shortly after the worst impacts of climate change appear.

    That is why all of us must implore our elected politicians and those running organisations responsible for climate change to change their ways and transition to cleaner economies and societies.

    Universal basic income and climate change

    To its credit the Welsh Government has made some positive steps in this respect. Its decision following the recent road review, to shift away from new road-building schemes towards more sustainable policies, was a bold decision. And the right one, in my view. But it must be backed up by investments in alternatives so that the transition is fair and just for those who rely on road travel.

    In the same vein, transitioning workers out of polluting heavy industries must be fair. The Welsh economy is still heavily reliant on these types of jobs. We cannot have a repeat of what happened 40 years ago, when Prime Minister Thatcher smashed the unions, closed our mines, and left communities across Wales destitute.

    Those communities are still suffering today. For many, the only thing they will inherit is intergenerational poverty. But history doesn’t have to repeat itself. That’s why the UBI Lab Cymru and others have campaigned for the Welsh Government to include heavy industry workers in the ongoing care leavers basic income pilot in Wales.

    A just Net Zero transition

    For those who are new to the concept, a basic income is a regular, unconditional income paid directly to everyone regardless of their income, wealth, or employment status. How much is paid as an income is open to debate, and studies by think tanks such as Compass and Autonomy have considered this in detail.

    We know from trials across the world that universal basic income significantly improves physical and mental well-being, educational attainment, productivity, entrepreneurship, and trust in government, among many other benefits. It saves money on the health system and invests in future generations, who may not have the opportunity to pursue higher education without basic income.

    What we don’t know is whether universal basic income will assist with our transition towards a net zero economy. I’m betting it will.

    The Welsh Government and a significant majority in the Senedd backed Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Jane Dodds’s motion calling for heavy industry workers to be included on the universal basic income trial. They now need to follow through.

    In 2019, around 2,300 people were employed in the mining and quarrying industry in Wales. All of those workers will be worried about their future employment. They are told that we must stop extracting fossil fuels as soon as possible if we are to prevent the worst of climate change.

    But we will not bring them onboard with the necessary changes unless we show them that they will not be left behind as we transition to a net zero economy. They have families to feed and bills to pay like the rest of us.

    The Welsh Government is currently fighting a legal battle with Coal Action Network on the decision to extend a mining licence in Aberpergwm. If the Welsh Government succeeds, the mine will continue to operate until 2035. In that time, 100 tonnes of CO2 and 30 tonnes of methane will be released into the atmosphere.

    A win-win-win scenario

    Rather than fight this legal battle, the Welsh Government could refuse to extend the licence, close the mine, and add the approximately 130 workers onto the basic income trial. The move would be ground-breaking in that it would be the first time any government considered how a basic income could be used a tool for a just transition.

    We could see these workers thrive, not just survive. They can set up businesses, become mature students, care for their loved ones, and take up volunteering opportunities in their local communities.

    Of course, it is not just miners who face the prospect of losing their roles. A recent announcement by Liberty Steel will result in around 150 job losses at its Newport and Torfaen sites. The Welsh Government could step in and turn a bad news story into a good one by including these workers on the trial.

    The Welsh Government has the support of a majority in the Senedd and the foundations of a trial already in place to make a significant contribution to the global fight against climate change. And it can show the world that universal basic income, UBI, is the ideal mechanism for ensuring workers can justly transition from heavy industry jobs.

    It’s time they seized that opportunity.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Calls for basic income grant in South Africa grow as food price inflation rises to 13.4%

    By: Yogashen Pillay

    See original post here.

    Durban – Civil society groups have called for a permanent basic income grant for the unemployed following figures from Stats SA indicating that food price inflation has risen to 13.4%, the highest since April 2009.

    In his State of the Nation Address last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the extension of the social relief of distress grant and said the government would ensure that existing social grants were increased to cushion the poor against rising inflation.

    He added that “work is under way to develop a mechanism for targeted basic income support for the most vulnerable”.

    Mervyn Abrahams, programme co-ordinator at the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group, said it was the poor who felt the impact of food inflation.

    “I do think there is a need for a basic income grant, especially with the increase in food inflation. Remember the social relief distress grant was started in 2020 with an amount of R350, which is still the same. The issue is that with all the increases, there needs to be an increase in this.”

    He said a basic income grant of R2 500 would be a liveable amount.

    “However, we can’t have this basic income grant forever. The issue is that food inflation is going up and we need to find ways to grow the economy. We can’t simply have a basic income grant.

    “There needs to be a way where members of the public can use the grant to generate more income, whether it’s buying and selling or any other way to make additional income. The government needs to create jobs.”

    Professor Bonke Dumisa, an independent economic analyst, said the latest South African Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation figures showed that the CPI decreased from 7.2% in December 2022 to 6.9% last month.

    However, he noted that national food inflation increased by 13.4% last month, which is the highest food inflation in 14 years since 2009.

    Nonhle Mbuthuma, the spokesperson for Amadiba Crisis Committee, said there needed to be at least a R1  000 social grant for the unemployed.

    “The R350 social distress grant was welcomed, however it is not enough and this amount was set three years ago, things have gone up since then.”

    Mbuthuma added that there needed to be significant increases in pension and child support grants.

    “Giving an increase of R20 is just simply not enough for single parents and the elderly. The child support grant needs to be increased to at least R600 for a child that is under 18 – this would help mothers. We want mothers to be able to survive with the grant that they are receiving. Even the pension grant needs to be increased to help our elderly folks.”

    Dick Forslund, of the Alternative Information and Development Centre, said we might well see a basic income grant introduced.

    “The R350 grant that was introduced in 2020 is much lower in value now and there is definitely a need for something more permanent. In reality, we need to have a basic income grant that is in line with food inflation. The issue is that government increases in grants are not in line with food inflation, and that needs to be looked at, and not just consumer inflation.”

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Review of “The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism”

    See original post here.

    Martin Wolf is right. Capitalism is delivering rampant inequality, leading democracy to generate populist demagogues appealing to economically excluded voters. Wolf’s core argument is powerful and could have better been stated more succinctly. Instead, he has produced a very long book, with frequent repetition, strings of indigestible facts and unchallenged assertions. Journalists inevitably write with headlines, sound bites, and short sharp provocative assertions, but a book full of this style lacks deeper more nuanced development of the argument. Wolf spreads his attention extremely widely, and therefore too thinly. He repeats simplistic claims such as that the 1970’s OPEC-led stagflation ‘discredited Keynesian macroeconomics’ (p57, p120), when it did no such thing.

    This becomes particularly evident in his summary dismissal of proposals such as basic income, which he calls a ‘delusion’ (p278). Stating that a UK basic income of £11,200 per adult would cost £580 billion or about 25% of GDP, and is therefore unaffordable and that ‘that is all there is to say about this idea’ (p283) is superficial and trivial. He equally dismisses his colleague Martin Sandbu’s more refined proposal. In static analysis, writers like Malcolm Torry and Stewart Lansley have shown that basic income schemes can be revenue neutral and achieve progressive redistribution. The further dynamic case that automation reduces labour income per unit of output, requiring increased non-labour income is equally ignored. Recent macroeconomic modelling by Cambridge Econometrics has demonstrated the stability of a basic income proposal funded by debt-free sovereign money. Nor does Wolf cover the inadequacies of targeted benefits whose means-testing is intrusive and humiliating, and whose withdrawal tapers lead to infamous unemployment and poverty traps, as well as low take-up rates.

    Wolf calls for ‘new ideas’ (p218), and then summarily dismisses them.  He does the same to Jason Hickel whose views, Wolf claims, will lead to tyranny (p222). He is scathing proposals for a happiness or well-being index to replace GDP but then uses the concept approvingly on the next page (p228-9). He admits that his analysis of immigration is ‘a crude analysis’, and yet he considers it sufficient to denounce the idea that the free movement of people is like free trade in goods and services as ‘nonsense’ (p263).

    Wolf is a member of the elites he eschews. He is a Davos man and a Bilderberg member. His book’s credits and acknowledgements list the great and the good. He is very influential. His book will sell well and is already an Amazon best seller. It is therefore disappointing that he uses this power to dismiss others who have no such access, or right of reply. It contradicts a core part of his own message on the concentration of power (he proposes ‘ending special privileges for the few’, p289 which ‘threaten democracy, p290). It crushes the debate we so desperately need. It would be more consistent to his ideals for Wolf to arrange a symposium and invite contributions from those whose views he rejects.

    Wolf points out that immense household debt has funded consumption (p99). Real incomes have stagnated or fallen (p102). He shares a view with his colleague Martin Sandbu that economic inequities have driven political disenchantment (chapter 4). He suggests that technological innovations enhancing productivity were one-offs, but he fails to explain why there is a constant stream of such one-offs (p123). He claims that restaurant waiters can’t be automated, ignoring the QR code ordering spreading quickly in the sector (p126). He acknowledges ‘the problem of structurally deficient demand’ (p145), and the ‘overhang of excess debt’ (p147), citing his friend Lawrence Summers (p240).

    Wolf’s corrective proposals when they come are vague. For the economy, he proposes competition (although he regrets its impact on his own sector of the media, p298), education, technology, political engagement, and localism (p219)! He skates over the potential for direct money creation to fund government expenditure (p242) failing to note that it is already the de facto case when central banks buy huge swathes of government debt whilst being themselves government-owned, rendering a zero net debt position. He says we need ‘good jobs’ (p264) even though automation makes them much less available. Work, as Wolf says, ‘may cease to be a reliable source of satisfactory incomes for most people’ (p270). It’s only on page 301 that Wolf joins the urgent twin needs to ‘ensure everyone a decent income’, and curtail public debt. His answers are to prevent tax evasion (p305), and introduce a carbon tax, which is ‘a no brainer’ (p306), whilst a wealth tax ‘might be worthwhile’ (p307). ‘It’s reasonable to be of two minds on the tax deductibility of gifts’ (p309). A rejoinder to all this would be that a basic income proposal funded by direct monetary financing is the credible best solution, but Wolf allows neither. 

    His discussion of democratic change fails to lead to any resolution of the choices between first-past-the-post and PR, between referenda and representative democracy, but recommends the creation of various levels of citizen institutions, and a ban on anonymous comments and posts on social media! (p243). He recommends patriotism as the shared value of the national community (p373), but this begs the question of the values any country embraces. Better to embrace virtue itself.

    Many of us will agree with the motivation of Wolf’s diagnostic and proposal but would prefer a more open-minded debate.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • New experiments show the power of giving cash right before extreme weather strikes

    By: Sigal Samuel

    If you’re reading this, you probably care about fighting climate change. But what does that actually mean to you?

    Chances are, you take it to mean supporting climate change mitigation: reducing the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.

    But there’s another aspect to the fight against climate change: adaptation. Adapting to life in a more dangerous climate involves building resilience to weather shocks — for example, by constructing a seawall or planting crops that can withstand droughts and floods.

    Mitigation is vastly more popular than adaptation. Of all the funding directed toward fighting climate change globally, over 90 percent goes into the mitigation bucket. And I can’t claim to be surprised: For years, I’ve mostly focused on that bucket, too. I saw mitigation as the way to solve climate change, while adaptation seemed like putting a Band-Aid on one of the world’s biggest problems.

    And yet, who determines the time scale of our response to that problem?

    For many people — especially poorer people in poorer countries — the problem is now. Climate change is already flooding their homes and causing them heatstroke. It would be unjust for richer countries that disproportionately created the problem to say “we get to determine the time scale of the problem, not you, and we’re deciding to frame the problem as a future event to be mitigated.” Climate change is also a present event, so solving it also means addressing the problem as it exists today.

    “If you look at some river that’s started flooding now, no matter what we do in even the next 100 years, these rivers are going to continue flooding,” said Miriam Laker-Oketta, a Uganda-based research director at GiveDirectly, a nonprofit helping the world’s poorest.

    She was referring to the fact that it will take decades to decarbonize the world’s energy supply, and meanwhile all the carbon we’ve emitted and keep emitting will continue to warm the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Money spent to mitigate emissions will pay off over the long term but do little to protect a country from climate change right now.

    “We need to increase the amount that’s dedicated to helping people adapt,” she told me.

    One approach to adaptation is to direct funding to governments so they can build up the infrastructure — whether that’s a seawall or a new irrigation system — to reduce the impacts of shocks. These big public goods are definitely important, and they should get a larger share of climate financing than they do today. But implementing major projects like these can take time. If you’re, say, a smallholder farmer whose food and income source is about to be wiped away by a climate change-enhanced cyclone, you don’t have that time.

    So a nascent approach to adaptation aims to help vulnerable people by giving them just-in-time cash transfers. That means free money, no strings attached, that recipients can use to improve their resilience in the days or weeks before extreme weather hits. Researchers can pinpoint when and where it’ll hit thanks to advances in data availability and predictive analytics. Recent experiments show how successful this approach is, making the case that anticipatory cash transfers should play a bigger role in climate adaptation.

    How just-in-time climate cash transfers work

    Humanitarian relief organizations are used to doing two things: helping people out after disaster has already struck, and helping them out by giving them stuff. A hurricane strikes, and in comes the Red Cross or the United Way with water and tarps for victims.

    Just-in-time climate cash transfers turn that model on its head.

    First, they offer people support before the shock hits, making them more resilient and limiting the economic and human damage when it comes. Second, they give straight-up cash. Not food. Not Super Bowl merchandise from the team that didn’t win the Super Bowl. Money.

    We know from research on poverty alleviation that cash is preferable because it gives people the agency to buy the things they really need, as opposed to what outsiders think they need. And it can be disseminated much faster than goods, thanks to cellphone-based banking. Cash is now considered the baseline standard for challenges like poverty alleviation, with other interventions judged on whether they’re superior to cash.

    And in the past few years, evidence is mounting that cash works very well for climate adaptation, too. Let’s look at three examples.

    In July 2020, data-driven forecasts of river levels in Bangladesh showed that many households were about to experience severe flooding. The World Food Programme sent 23,434 households around $53 each a few days prior to and during the floods.

    The preemptive action turned out to be a great bet. Those floods ended up being some of the worst and longest in decades: Over a million households were inundated, and food markets and health services were disrupted.

    Compared to households that didn’t get a cash transfer, households that did were 36 percent less likely to go a day without eating, 12 percent more likely to evacuate household members, and 17 percent more likely to evacuate their livestock.

    And the impacts were surprisingly durable. As the study authors write, “Three months after the flood, households that had received the transfer reported significantly higher child and adult food consumption and wellbeing. They also experienced lower asset loss, engaged in less costly borrowing after the flood, and reported higher earning potential.”

    Soon after, the World Food Programme also tried anticipatory cash transfers in Somalia and Ethiopia, with similarly positive results: The cash infusions protected communities’ food security and livelihoods from the worst impacts of a forecasted drought.

    In 2021, the government of Niger kicked off its own anticipatory cash transfer program for responding to water scarcity. The pilot program detects droughts early by using the satellite-based Water Requirement Satisfaction Index. When the index shows that water has fallen 10 percent below its median at the end of the agricultural season, it automatically triggers the unconditional cash transfers to be sent out.

    The trigger was activated for the first time in November 2021, and since March 2022, emergency transfers have been sent to 15,400 drought-affected households. These transfers have allowed farmers to get help three to five months earlier than they would if they were just relying on traditional humanitarian aid. And receiving the support earlier meant they were less likely to have to resort to coping responses with costly social effects like reducing food consumption or pulling kids out of school.

    The nonprofit GiveDirectly, a big believer in unconditional cash transfers, launched a climate adaptation program last year in Malawi. The extremely low-income country — where nearly three-quarters of the population lives on less than $1.90 a day — has already been hit with climate-related storms, with more expected to come.

    Knowing how climate-vulnerable Malawi is, GiveDirectly gave 5,000 farmers in the Balaka region two payments of $400, one in April and one in October, to coincide with key moments in their agricultural schedule. October is also the beginning of the wet season, when 95 percent of precipitation falls, meaning it’s when cyclones and extreme weather are most likely to occur.

    Simultaneously, a group called United Purpose gave the farmers trainings on climate-smart agriculture, irrigation practices, and soil conservation. GiveDirectly and United Purpose had coordinated on timing, but they didn’t inform the farmers of the connection because they didn’t want to make the farmers feel they were expected to spend the cash on building climate resilience. They wanted the cash to be truly unconditional.

    The results so far are promising. More farmers are using better seeds (which are drought- and flood-resistant), more are intercropping (which improves fertility), and fewer are going hungry (specifically, there was about a 60 percent drop in the proportion of recipients who went a whole day without eating).

    For Laker-Oketta, the research director at GiveDirectly, it’s clear that anticipatory cash transfers for climate adaptation are a good idea. “The cash we give is not sufficient to put up a seawall — that’s something governments have to do,” she said. “But the lowest-hanging fruit is actually giving people agency to make certain decisions they need to make now. The question is not, ‘Does cash work?’ but, ‘What is the right amount, frequency, and timing?’”

    Now, GiveDirectly is planning to experiment with the timing. They want to see if getting cash to people mere days before a weather shock, as opposed to weeks before, improves resilience more. So they’re launching a pilot with the government of Mozambique to give out just-in-time transfers, sending people around $225 just three or four days before the next flood strikes.

    In January, they began pre-enrolling individuals in vulnerable villages, which are selected by overlaying poverty maps, population data, and flood risk maps. That way, people will be able to get fast payments directly ahead of likely storms during the rainy season in March and April.

    “The best adaptation is to be rich”

    Climate mitigation and climate adaptation, along with poverty alleviation, are all absolutely crucial if we want a safe and just world. They’re also expensive, with mitigation projects alone slated to cost trillions over the next decade. How should the world divide funding between them?

    When it comes to climate financing, the United Nations has called for a 50/50 split on mitigation and adaptation. But what we see so far is still more like 90/10 in mitigation’s favor — a sore point at last year’s COP27 climate conference in Egypt. And instead of giving poorer nations additional money for adaptation, some rich nations have diverted development aid — which is already insufficient — to fund more mitigation projects.

    Charles Kenny, an economist and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, thinks that’s a terrible idea. As he’s written, foreign aid would be a drop in the bucket if it’s diverted to mitigation projects. But it can have a meaningful impact on countries with small economies by reducing poverty and fostering development (including infrastructure, health, and education). And development is a vital adaptation defense for these countries because it makes them less vulnerable to climate change.

    “The best adaptation is to be rich,” Kenny told me. “Take the same size earthquake or cyclone or hurricane, and the number of people who die is considerably smaller in richer countries and even richer neighborhoods of countries.”

    In other words, climate adaptation and reducing poverty go hand in hand.

    That’s part of why Laker-Oketta, the GiveDirectly research director, said her organization didn’t worry about whether recipients would spend their unconditional cash on building climate resilience or on something else. “If someone makes the decision to spend the money on something else, it means that was their priority at that time,” she told me.

    For Laker-Oketta personally, climate resilience was very much the priority the day we spoke. It’s currently supposed to be the dry season in Uganda, where she lives, and yet it was raining. Just hours before our call, her office flooded.

    “I believe a lot of people who want most of the funding to be focused on mitigation are people who are not being directly affected by climate change right now,” she said. “Their only worry is, ‘If the climate gets worse, then I’ll be affected as well, so can we put as much as is necessary into preventing me from being part of those people who are affected?’ But if you’re living in a place where it’s flooding right now, then you’re going to think differently. Right now, what I need is a way to stop the rain from coming in!”

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Hundreds march in South Africa to demand a Permanent Basic Income Grant

    By: Chris Gilili

    See original post here.

    Ahead of the upcoming State of the Nation Address (SONA), over 400 people, including members of civil society organisations, unemployed citizens and recipients of the Social Relief of Distress Grant (SRD), marched to the head offices of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Thursday.

    Government introduced the SRD grant in May 2020 during the Covid pandemic. Since then the grant has been repeatedly extended and is now due to expire next month. The marchers want President Cyril Ramaphosa to clearly lay out the state’s plans for a basic income grant at SONA on 9 February.

    Thabisile Miya, from Amandla.mobi, said, “We have been working with communities especially R350 recipients since it started … Food is going up every day, and people don’t have any source of income.”

    A memorandum of demands for SASSA included that the SRD be increased to R1,447, and that SASSA work with the Department of Social Development to fix numerous issues with grant payments.

    “From unfair regulations to means testing with an unfair qualifying threshold, and poor communication, many have lost hope in this grant, in SASSA and the government as a whole,” the memo reads.

    Acting SASSA CEO Abraham Mahlangu received the memo.

    In a memo to the President, marchers said they want social grants increased, higher taxes on those earning more than R1-million a year, and a net wealth tax introduced.

    “We also appeal to the President to hold the Department of Social Development accountable for their failures in administering the R350 grant,” the memorandum read.

    “We urge for the glitches to be fixed,” said Nosipho Bilankulu, an unemployed single mother. She said her grant money cannot keep pace with the rising cost of maize meal and cooking oil. Her child’s crèche fees are R400 alone, more than the SRD grant. Although she has the grant, there are months when the money doesn’t appear.

    Presidency official Phil Mahlangu promised a response within seven days.

    Community Organizing Working Group, Voices of the Concerned Citizens of Soweto, Sukuma Soweto Sinqobe, and Sisonke Revolutionary Movement all joined the march.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • People aren’t feeling engaged with their work

    By: Andrea Hsu

    When Tanvi Sinha first got into accounting 17 years ago, she worked from the office every day, even Saturdays in the busy season.

    She enjoyed lunches out with colleagues and opportunities to learn just by listening and watching others. She grew professionally, aspiring to leadership roles.

    Now that her company has made working from the office optional, Sinha wonders if newcomers to the field will ever feel as connected to their work as she has been.

    “I’m pretty sure that their engagement would be affected,” says Sinha, now an audit manager with the accounting firm Matthews, Carter & Boyce in Fairfax, Virginia.

    A new report from Gallup finds that large numbers of workers, especially Gen Zers and young millennials, are not engaged with their jobs. And that could make their climb up the career ladder harder, as well as hurt companies’ overall performance.

    Employee engagement has fallen since 2020

    The Gallup survey of roughly 67,000 people in 2022 found only 32% of workers are engaged with their work compared with 36% in 2020.

    The share of workers found to be “actively disengaged” has risen since 2020, while the share of those in the middle — those considered “not engaged” — has remained about the same.

    Engagement had been rising in the decade before the pandemic, following the Great Recession, but started to fall in 2021.

    Younger workers have seen a bigger drop in engagement than older ones. Those under 35 reported feeling less heard and less cared about at work. Fewer Gen Zers and young millennials reported having someone at work who encourages their development and fewer opportunities to learn and grow.

    “There’s a growing disconnect between employee [and] employer. You could almost equate it to employees becoming a little bit more like gig workers,” says Jim Harter, chief workplace scientist at Gallup and author of the new report.

    Gig work by its nature doesn’t lend itself to loyalty or long-term relationships between employees and employers. Workers may feel less motivated to put their best selves forward.

    “In the context of high-performance customer service, retaining your best people, that’s a problem,” Harter says.

    Having actively disengaged workers can be highly detrimental to companies. Employees who aren’t getting most of their workplace needs met often share their negativity with other people, Harter says. That could bring down company morale.

    Engagement is lacking among onsite, hybrid and fully-remote employees

    Gallup measures a worker’s level of engagement based on a series of questions such as: Does the employee understand what is expected of them at work? Do their opinions seem to count? Do they have opportunities to do what they do best? Do they have a best friend at work?

    While engagement dipped across a wide swath of workers, the biggest declines were among what Gallup calls “remote-ready onsite workers” — those who could do their jobs from home but are working from the office.

    But Harter says there are troubling findings among those who are fully remote too.

    More of them are falling into the middle category — somewhere between engaged and actively disengaged — which Harter equates to quiet quitting.

    Meanwhile, workers across different categories — onsite, hybrid, and fully-remote — all saw declines in feeling connected to the mission or purpose of their organizations. Clarity of expectations was also lower across the groups.

    And the share of workers who said their company cares about their overall wellbeing has fallen dramatically, from about 50% early in the pandemic, when many companies rolled out all kinds of accommodations for employees, to half that today.

    Some companies are recognizing the importance of mental wellness

    With elevated levels of quiet quitting and real quitting, Stephanie Frias believes companies are having a reckoning.

    “I think companies are realizing that this is key — for people to feel engaged and connected at work,” says Frias, who is chief people officer at Lyra Health. “It’s not just about the work that people are doing. It is: how do you instill meaning in that work?”

    Her company provides mental health services to other companies, focusing on individuals as well as organizations overall, and training managers to notice and respond to acute situations.

    With all the disruptions of the pandemic, what worked in the past isn’t necessarily going to work now, and there really isn’t a playbook, Frias says. Workers today want to engage with work, but in a way that’s convenient and palatable to their lifestyles.

    “It will be a journey and a ride,” she says.

    Finding a balance when remote work is highly prized

    As a manager at her accounting firm, Sinha has been trying to find the right balance.

    She likes working from home and knows others do too. But she makes a point of being in the office two or three times a week, sometimes just for a few hours, and encourages her teams to find times when they can be in together, too.

    “Pick a few days, come to work, mingle with people, talk to people,” she says.

    It’s not just about being social. It’s about exposure to other parts of the business.

    Sinha says audit teams used to sit in conference rooms together and go to client sites together, so everyone on the team knew every aspect of the audit. Now you may only work on your one part.

    “That’s not a holistic picture,” she says.

    Technology can help, Sinha says, and she does use video meetings to keep in daily contact with her team members. But there are pitfalls to not seeing people face-to-face, especially for those who have never worked in the office regularly.

    “Some people who were hired during COVID — I mean, I went to work after a long time, and I couldn’t even recognize that this is the person,” Sinha recalls with a laugh, noting that was bad on her part.

    Gallup scientist Harter says the the role of managers has gone up significantly in the pandemic. They’re the ones who can make sure employees know what’s expected of them and help employees feel cared for.

    “Managers will figure out the idiosyncrasies of each person they manage,” he says. “They’re the only one that’s close enough to do that.”

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • This isn’t trivial’: Applying for welfare benefits is too difficult, low-income Americans say

    By: Claire Thornton

    Low-income Americans are struggling to obtain help from state governments when they most need it, facing long delays and sometimes insurmountable hurdles when applying for social safety net programs such as food assistance, welfare benefits and health insurance, according to a new report.

    The findings come as poverty rates, while nowhere near historic highs, have climbed in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing financial crisis. 

    CONTEXT: Social safety nets such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) help keep tens of millions of people out of poverty each year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But people must provide many personal documents, complete lengthy, confusing applications correctly, prove they’re eligible, and regularly update their information.

    The report from the Urban Institute found most single adults earning up to $51,520 and most families with one child earning up to $87,840 applied for or received a social safety net program in 2021. 

    The report, which is based on a survey in December 2021, analyzed a nationally representative sample of more than 5,000 adults ages 18 to 64 making below four times the federal poverty level. 

    Where do people experience the most problems?

    Respondents said they had the most problems enrolling for unemployment insurance, SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, known as TANF or more commonly as welfare benefits.

    More than 40% of people who applied for or received one of the programs said they had trouble proving eligibility or getting benefits when they needed them.

    “We’re not talking about four in 10 people reporting difficulty enrolling in their yoga class,” said Marla McDaniel, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and lead author of the report. “We’re talking about food for their families. This isn’t trivial, what people are seeking.”

    WHY IT MATTERS: Social safety net programs are supposed to help eligible people, who often face great financial instability. But a high percentage of people who sought benefits told researchers they did not receive help as soon as they needed it.

    The finding that more than 4 in 10 people who sought help meeting basic needs faced problems is “quite disconcerting,” said Neeraj Kaushal, a professor of social policy at Columbia University in New York.

    The report’s other finding that 55% of surveyed adults sought benefits shows how much people are hurting, said Luke Shaefer, a leading expert on social safety nets and professor at the University of Michigan.

    “The best indicator we have of whether or not families are struggling to make ends meet is when they seek out help,” he said.

    Which programs help the most people?

    SNAP and Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are two of the largest government safety nets, according to the report.

    Among adults surveyed, 39% applied for Medicaid/CHIP and 29% applied for SNAP in 2021.

    Medicaid/CHIP was associated with lower levels of enrollment problems. That could be because the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 worked to “streamline” access and eliminate certain requirements, the report says.

    Food stamp eligibility headaches are common

    In the survey, respondents regularly expressed confusion about why they were denied SNAP dollars.

    SNAP beneficiaries can also be afraid of making mistakes on their paperwork because providing false income information can result in staggering fines and lengthy jail sentences, according to the report. 

    “I won’t even apply for food stamps or Medicaid because I’m scared that they may say they overcharge me,” said one survey respondent who had to pay back SNAP dollars after being overpaid. “‘You have to pay this back or we’re going to lock you up for this.’ That’s how I feel about them. It’s scary.”

    It’s easy for recipients to “feel harassed” because they have to jump through so many hoops just to get money for basic needs, Kaushal said.

    In a statement to USA TODAY, the Department of Agriculture said it “remains committed to looking for ways to remove barriers to access and make it easier for anyone who qualifies for federal food assistance to get the support they need, regardless of their background.”

    Latino applicants, people with disabilities report more problems

    Families with annual incomes closer to or below the 2021 federal poverty line of $21,960 (for a family of three) were more likely to apply or participate in a social safety net program.

    Latino adults were more likely than white and Black adults to report enrollment difficulties with Medicaid/CHIP and SNAP, probably because of language barriers and different eligibility rules for noncitizens, McDaniel said.

    Adults with disabilities were also more likely than those without disabilities to report that Medicaid/CHIP program staff never or only sometimes treated them with courtesy or respect and to report not getting Medicaid/CHIP benefits as soon as needed.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Opinion: I’m a copywriter. I’m pretty sure artificial intelligence is going to take my job

    By: Henry Williams

    “Write an article on ‘What is payment gateway?’” I recently typed into a ChatGPT window. ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered writing generator, quickly obliged.

    The result was impressive. Sure, the tone was inhuman and the structure as sophisticated as a college essay, but the key points, the grammar and the syntax were all spot on. After a bit of a punch-up, it was perfectly passable as a sponsored content article designed to drum up business leads for a software provider – an article like the one that I, a professional copywriter, had just spent hours writing.

    My amusement quickly turned to horror: it had taken ChatGPT roughly 30 seconds to create, for free, an article that I charged £500 for. The artificial intelligence software is by no means perfect – yet. For businesses that rely on churning out reams of fresh copy, however, it’s a no-brainer, isn’t it?

    For those unfamiliar with ChatGPT, let me explain. Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence-based chatbot that’s been trained to interact with users in a natural, conversational way. Unlike traditional language models, ChatGPT can learn to generate responses without explicit instructions on what the correct answer is. Users can make any request – from Tell me about Watergate to Write an opinion piece about ChatGPT taking someone’s job – and ChatGPT will produce a response. If you run it through a plagiarism checker, you’ll discover that that content is 100% unique.

    I instructed ChatGPT to write a version of this article. Here’s how it opened:

    As a copywriter, I’ve spent years honing my craft and perfecting my ability to craft compelling and persuasive copy. But now, it seems that my job is at risk of being taken over by ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI.

    The developers admit that the software still has limitations. It tends towards the verbose and repetitive (“honing my craft and perfecting my ability to craft”), and minor changes to question phrasing can be the difference between an amazing response and no response at all. The more we use it, however, the better it will become. As ChatGPT told me, it can already “replicate the writing styles of different authors” and “even be trained to mimic the tone and voice of a particular brand or organization”.

    I don’t claim any superior insight, just a realization that if a company can improve its bottom line by cutting costs in its supply chain, it will. Any sentimental attachment to human-created content is sure to be quickly overridden, I suspect, by the economic argument. After all, AI is super-fast labor that doesn’t eat, sleep, complain or take holidays.

    In the near term, writers and editors will still be needed, but fewer of them. A human will prompt AI to generate mountains of copy, only intervening again to fact-check, amend and approve. But how long before the model learns to spot commercial opportunities, generate ideas and put perfect content live without any human involvement?

    What does this mean for you? PriceWaterhouseCooper predicts that AI will produce a $15tn boost to GDP by 2030. Fantastic, but it also predicts that 3% of jobs are already at risk from AI. By the mid-2030s, this proportion will jump to 30% – 44% among workers with low education. That’s a lot of people who will need to “upskill”, retrain or drop out of the workforce.

    History has shown that, when technology has replaced humans, we’ve created new purposes for ourselves. But in its eternal quest for self-improvement, is there a danger that AI will continually outpace us by making us redundant more quickly than we can redefine our roles? To take the creative industries as one example, AI is already replacing movie extras, songwriters and audiobook narrators.

    Some observers have suggested that the introduction of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) – paid for by AI-generated wealth – is the best bet for the future. In his essay “Moore’s Law for Everything”, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, claimed that AI could drive enough economic output to pay every adult in the US $13,500 a year, while dramatically driving down the cost of goods and services.

    But work isn’t just income. For many, it’s meaning. Far from the tyrannical robots and human batteries seen in sci-fi, the real problem we might have to contend with is an epidemic of purposelessness. Even when not twinned with deprivation, a lack of purpose can contribute to depression, anxiety and addiction.

    Governments are already developing strategies to deal with this seismic shift in the labor market, but I’d urge individuals to do the same. I certainly will be. As with any revolutionary technology, there’s much debate over how exactly AI will reshape our lives in the coming decades, and not enough space to do every perspective justice here. But one thing is for certain: change is coming, and those who embrace it and adapt will be best placed to thrive.

    Or as ChatGPT would say:

    The key is to find the right balance between using technology and honing the human touch. Copywriting is an art and it requires creativity, empathy and understanding of the target audience. So, ChatGPT will not take my job, but it will be my partner to create more impactful and persuasive copy.

    But it would say that, wouldn’t it?

    • Henry Williams is a freelance writer from London who writes about culture, society and small businesses

    The year is 2033. Elon Musk is no longer one of the richest people in the world, having haemorrhaged away his fortune trying to make Twitter profitable. Which, alas, hasn’t worked out too well: only 420 people are left on the platform. Everyone else was banned for not laughing at Musk’s increasingly desperate jokes. 

    In other news, Pete Davidson is now dating Martha Stewart. Donald Trump is still threatening to run for president. And British tabloids are still churning out 100 articles a day about whether Meghan Markle eating lunch is an outrageous snub to the royal family.

    Obviously I have no idea what the world is going to look like in a decade. But here’s one prediction I feel very confident making: without a free and fearless press the future will be bleak. Without independent journalism, democracy is doomed. Without journalists who hold power to account, the future will be entirely shaped by the whims and wants of the 1%.

    A lot of the 1% are not big fans of the Guardian, by the way. Donald Trump once praised a Montana congressman who body-slammed a Guardian reporter. Musk, meanwhile, has described the Guardian, as “the most insufferable newspaper on planet Earth.” I’m not sure there is any greater compliment.

    I am proud to write for the Guardian. But ethics can be expensive. Not having a paywall means that the Guardian has to regularly ask our readers to chip in. If you are able, please do consider supporting us. Only with your help can we continue to get on Elon Musk’s nerves.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.

  • Opinion: We cannot prioritize both the environment and economic growth

    By: Shelton Bowman

    Jobs! Growth! The economy! Despite a divided political landscape, it is a relief to know that there is something, anything, that everyone can agree on. We need better jobs, more jobs, higher paying jobs and jobs with better benefits. While the two parties may disagree on how to achieve this goal, the desire for growth is a uniting force. “We need to stimulate the economy” is one of the only political statements that can be safely uttered at Thanksgiving without starting an argument between Mom, Grandma and Uncle Steve.

    However, I choose to go against the grain. I argue that the economy needs to stop growing; in fact, I think it should shrink. The future of our environment depends on all of us consuming and working a lot less.

    A nation’s gross domestic product is the monetary value of all the goods and services produced in a given year. It’s a measure of production, but also one of consumption. In the United States, GDP grows at an average rate of 3% per year. If this growth slows or stagnates, a recession ensues, causing businesses to fail, rates of unemployment to rise and poverty rates to increase.

    A growth rate of 3% per year may not sound like a lot. However, this means doubling our gross domestic product every 25 years. This is unsustainable, especially when we consider the fact that the average American lifestyle is putting great strain on the planet. We cannot afford to double the amount we produce and consume. We will eventually run out of resources. Instead, we need to radically reshape our relationship to work, consumption and production.

    It may be a relief to know that the solution to the world’s problems means producing, and therefore working, less. How often is it that we have a problem that can be solved by working less hard, not more? Less work means more time spent with family, friends and pursuing hobbies.

    However, we cannot radically change our consumption patterns without creating a society that can accommodate it. In its current form, the American economy relies on growth. If consumption were to significantly slow and GDP were to shrink, millions would lose their jobs and their ability to support themselves. Resource extraction might be killing the planet, but there are still very few people who don’t rely on the production of goods and services to put food on the table.

    This is why individual action, while crucial, will not be enough to create the country we need. We can’t expect individuals to consume less without creating an economic system that can adjust to this change. We must advocate for a new system, one that prioritizes individual flourishing over economic growth. While this may seem like an abstract concept, there are real policy suggestions that could push us in the right direction.

    Universal basic income, for instance, would allow individuals to work less or not at all without compromising their ability to provide for themselves. Providing everyone with food, healthcare and housing is also a crucial step. This will move us away from a system that prioritizes near constant growth and towards one that will benefit both individuals and the environment.

    To some this idea is horrifying. Why would people work if they could survive without doing so? Wouldn’t society collapse? Americans have an aversion to giving money, food and housing to people who “haven’t earned it.” However, we have reached a point where advancements in technology mean that not everyone needs to work. In fact, it would be better for the planet if the majority of us worked less.

    There’s also no reason to believe that everyone would suddenly stop working entirely. Many people enjoy their jobs and the sense of purpose they get from them. There are a lot of people who want to make more money than the bare minimum that they need to survive.

    We can create a future that encourages both human and ecological flourishing. In order to do so we must look toward policy changes that would allow for us all to work and consume less. Rather than prioritizing economic growth, we must slow production if we wish to avoid an ecological catastrophe. It will be hard to realize all the changes that must be made. However, I believe it is possible to create a better, kinder world for both humans and the environment.

    This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.