Category: Basic Income

Written by Bonno Pel & Julia Backhaus

On Saturday October 1st 2016, the Basic Income Earth Network celebrated its 30th anniversary at the Catholic University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). The picture shows the founding meeting in 1986, but is also quite applicable to BIEN 30 years later. The conference was held at the same location and many of the founders and their fellow militants met in good atmosphere to commemorate the early beginnings of the network. Together with other scholars and generally interested people, they discussed current developments in science and policy and ‘the way forward’ for the basic […]

Full Post at basicincome.org

Fortunately the idea does seem to be gaining traction. It was recently reported that in Canada, Ontario will do a test run of basic income in some areas, and some of the local politicians on the west coast are discussing it too.
Now all we have to do is see if the corporate sector approves or disapproves. Hey, its more money for people to buy their shit with, and it means they can further automate and outsource with less backlash from the people losing their jobs.

Which kind of casts UBI in a negative light, maybe, but I see it […]

Full Post at forum.nationstates.net

I was saving this until the whitepaper was ready for human consumption.
But @dantheman just posted an excellent article on the concept of a coin intended to
produce a universal basic income
So I felt now would be a good time talk about what we’ve been working on for the past couple of years with the VIVA project.
To understand VIVA you need to understand its history. VIVA attempts to answer the question, How do you provide for everyone in a world where the only thing scarce are jobs? As our technology and automation increase, the cost of production […]

Full Post at 212.47.254.10

But it has pragmatic advocates (including me) who believe that a UBI offers a better compro- mise than do other income-support programs among the mutually incompatible criteria of effectiveness in reducing poverty, mainte- nance of work incentives, administrative effi- ciency and accurate targeting.

The most encouraging sign is that the live- liest debates over a UBI today are taking place within, rather than between, the main ideo- logical camps. At a time when macroeco- nomic forces and the politics of big money are leading to ever-greater inequality, perhaps America is still capable of finding common ground for a pragmatic antipoverty effort. m

Full Post at assets1b.milkeninstitute.org

A properly constructed UBI would be based on the idea that the resources that weren’t created by human labor – the land, the airwaves, our public spaces, the skies, and even money itself – belong to everyone. And therefore, if you want exclusive access to any of these resources either to live or to start a business, you should have to compensate the rest of humanity for their reduced access. These economic “rents” already exist in the form of property taxes, licenses, and interest payments. But instead of sharing this wealth (that no human being created) with everyone, the wealthy elites appropriate it all to themselves. This is what must change.

Full Post at chrisagnos.com

But all of these schemes are ultimately trying to address the same underlying problem: if a household doesn’t earn enough, it won’t be able to afford accommodation. The solution, therefore, is to ensure that – regardless of how low non-housing income is – every household in Ireland can access good quality accommodation.

Full Post at www.independent.ie

Eight, a charitable organization based in Belgium, is preparing to run a basic income pilot in Uganda (as previously announced in Basic Income News ). The two-year pilot is set to launch in January 2017, and will form the basis for a documentary.

Eight does not only plan to publish the results of the pilot study in journals. In addition, it will create a cinematic documentary, Village One, which will trace the story of the introduction of the basic income and its effects on the community over the course of the study.

Full Post at basicincome.org

We have our own evidence of a basic income working in practice in New Zealand. Just look at universal superannuation: a government policy that has successfully reduced New Zealand’s rates of poverty in the over 65s to equal rates to those in Scandinavian countries. We saw a vulnerable group and a need and we implemented a successful policy based on the idea of providing a basic income.

We should be proud of that. While some argue that superannuation is a ‘return for tax paid’ the reality is that the tax paid by older people is long spent by the time they get to 65 on the basics like roads and schools and their healthcare. We should not minimise superannuation by calling it a return on payments made. Rather super is something we do as a ‘Good Society’; we use taxpayer dollars to support a segment of our population during what can be a vulnerable period of their lives.

Full Post at morganfoundation.org.nz

Johannesburg – Calls for a basic income grant (BIG) are gaining momentum again, with Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini saying it should be included in the country’s comprehensive social security plan, which is currently been drawn up by government.

Isobel Frye, who heads up the Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute, has said before that had the basic income grant of R100, which was opposed by the government and former president Thabo Mbeki as being too expensive, been implemented in 2004, the poverty gap would have been reduced by more than 70 percent.

Full Post at www.iol.co.za