Category: Basic Income

Students could receive a guaranteed income of £8000 a year

STUDENTS would receive a guaranteed minimum income of more than £8,000a year under a radical shake-up of education funding recommended to Scottish Ministers.

The sum is based on the pay of workers receiving the Scottish Government ‘s living wage of £8.45 per hour.

Students at universities and further education colleges would be eligible for the cash.A group tasked by the Scottish Government to look at improving student support will unveil the proposals tomorrow. It is chaired by Jayne-Anne Gadhia, chief executive of Virgin Money, with university management, student representatives and trade unions also sitting on the body.The call for minimum student […]

What Is Universal Basic Income, and Can It Help Black America?

A German startup is doing something quite revolutionary: It’s giving 85 people enough money to live decently off of for one year—with no strings attached.

The startup is called My Basic Income. Its founder is a proponent of Universal Basic Income (UBI); the idea that the government should provide all people a sufficient level of income to meet their basic needs, whether they already have a means of income or a job.

Phys.org interviewed the founder of My Basic Income, Michael Bohmeyer. He called his startup a “social experiment.”Bohmeyer turned to crowdfunding to come up with the money needed to provide […]

UK state pension scheme must be overhauled, think-tank says

UK state pension scheme must be overhauled, think-tank says

Politicians have been urged to show “moral and political” leadership by overhauling the current “unsustainable” UK state pension scheme.

A report by the Reform Scotland think-tank said population projections, which show a significant increase in the number of pensioners over the next 25 years, should serve as a “reality check” to all parties.

The organisation has highlighted its own proposal – the Pensions Guarantee – ahead of the publication of the Budget on Wednesday.Official statistics show the number of people over state pension age in the UK is expected to grow by a third between 2017 and 2042, from 12.4 million […]

What is the Universal Basic Income? Is it Even Viable?

What is the Universal Basic Income? Is it Even Viable?

Few people had heard of it until this year. Now, several governments are running small-scale trials into the viability of Universal Basic Income, typically with the unemployed. The most notable trial is in Finland where residents receive the equivalent of £560 per month to do with as they see fit. A similar trial later began in Ontario, Canada. But what is it and what purpose does it serve? What is Universal Basic Income

It is simply what it sounds like – giving money to people with no strings attached, to spend as they please. The Finnish trial is specifically […]

The New York Times acknowledges the Basic Income worldwide movement

The New York Times acknowledges the Basic Income worldwide movement

Peter S. Goodman , a veteran economics journalist, wrote a comprehensive piece about the recent Basic Income developments for the New York Times . In this piece, Goodman refers to the main motivations behind the idea of Basic Income as including the current wage stagnation, the lack of jobs to support the middle class and the threat of automation. The idea, Goodman says, is “gaining traction in many countries as a proposal to soften the edges of capitalism.” Basic Income can be use to insure “food and shelter for all, while removing the stigma of public support.”

The article also […]

Letter to the editor

Letter to the editor

Looming jobs

apocalypse

We are facing an extremely serious inevitable labor catastrophe that almost no one is addressing: the steady unyielding advancement of artificial intelligence/robotics (AI) which soon will take your job.Now, this revolution will be totally unlike all past automation when people lost jobs only to find new work in operating the new machines. With AI the robots themselves will be taking your jobs so those displaced will not be hired because no new jobs will be created.And AI will be stronger, smarter, cheaper, faster and more reliable than you and can work 168 hours a week! Think of it […]

Sweden basic income

Although the proposal as such is relationships are effects of UBI, the basic principles of Sweden and German’s welfare regime profit from UBI. PDF · Lessons from Sweden: Solidarity, the Welfare State, and Basic Income Basic income was debated in Sweden in the 1970s and 1980s, mostly thanks to influences from abroad, such as Milton Friedman and Guaranteed minimum income (GMI), also called minimum income, is a system of social welfare While most modern countries have some form of GMI, a basic income is rare. Photograph: Guenter Artinger/EPA. While the Prospects for a Universal Basic Income in New Zealand […]

The Highest Sustainable Basic Income

The Highest Sustainable Basic Income

2.1 A Radical Suggestion

1. Real freedom is the freedom to do whatever one might want to do. People like Hayek argue against this concept of freedom because once we leave behind their more narrow account of freedom, they think we end up equating wealth with freedom. This suggests that real freedom requires us to leximin people’s purchasing power, subject to respecting everyone’s formal freedom. Parijs says, “Put bluntly, our ideal requires us to raise the lowest incomes as much as is compatible with a ban on forced labour” (33).

2. Real freedom is not just about choosing between sets […]

The largest basic income experiment ever has just launched

The largest basic income experiment ever has just launched

A charity is beginning a basic income experiment in Kenya, but is not paying everyone the same amount. Explore the latest strategic trends, research and analysis A groundbreaking social experiment will begin in Kenya in roughly one month.

The charity GiveDirectly will begin giving people in 200 villages free sums of money, no strings attached.

It’ll be the largest, most comprehensive test ever conducted of a radical form of wealth distribution known as "basic income" or "universal basic income."Initially proposed in the 1960s, basic income’s main goal is to reduce poverty by guaranteeing everyone a minimum salary just for being alive.A […]

Hot Take: Income tax is a bad tax regardless of political alignment

In light of Seattle’s upcoming court case on income tax, and the national fights over increasingly arcane components of income tax policy it’s time for a a hot take! (*Pending replacement with a cool new term I can make my own*)

Income tax is bad tax policy regardless of your political beliefs.

Conservative Philosophically it’s bad – its a tax on the fruits of own labors and those working to contribute more to soceity end up paying more Liberal Philosophically it’s bad – income is primarily associated with the lower classes and not the owning classes that have much more ability […]