Category: Basic Income

UBI as Public Money for Public Purpose

UBI as Public Money for Public Purpose

By: Mary Mellor

Interest in a basic income seems to be growing, and there are many examples of exploratory experiments. The question is, is a basic income a route to a more socially just and ecologically sustainable society? Accoring to Guy Standing’s opener , “a modest unconditional basic income” is “a necessary pillar of the reimagining of work and economic security.” A basic income would help free people from unnecessary, exploitative, and environmentally destructive work. It would create an independent income for home-based women and provide an enhanced capacity for “care, craft, and community work.”

Would a basic income scheme […]

Annexus Retirement Solutions Launches to Address In-Plan Guaranteed Income

Annexus has announced the launch of a venture called “Annexus Retirement Solutions,” a new division that will focus on “re-engineering” the target-date fund (TDF) structure to better enable guaranteed lifetime income as part of defined contribution (DC) plans.

In conversation with PLANSPONSOR, Dave Paulsen, former president of individual solutions and chief distribution officer of Transamerica, and Charles Millard, former director of the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), said they are pleased to have been brought onto this project as advisers. Paulsen confirmed that the new venture intends to debut its first retirement solution in early 2021, to be followed […]

Bank chief proposes far-out crypto idea ‘that should be next Nobel Prize’

Bank chief proposes far-out crypto idea ‘that should be next Nobel Prize’

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Brian Brooks, America’s top banking regulator, has an idea to help close the wealth gap between developing and developed world. He calls the concept “country coin.”

What the generic-sounding proposal lacks in catchy branding it makes up for in substance. The crux of the plan is to promote education and economic growth worldwide, says Brooks, the U.S. Acting Comptroller of the Currency. Since higher literacy rates correlate to higher “gross domestic product,” then incentivizing people to continue their […]

Pope Francis has endorsed a universal basic income. Covid-19 could make it a reality in Europe.

Pope Francis has endorsed a universal basic income. Covid-19 could make it a reality in Europe.

In August volunteers unload a van of food donations to a local food bank in the town of Penicuik, in Midlothian, Scotland. iStock In 2017, British Prime Minister Theresa May, faced with demands to increase nurses’ stagnant wages, famously denied the existence of any “ magic money tree .” Ms. May’s Conservative Party predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, had asserted that the U.K. government had no money of its own; only what it raised from the populace by taxation or borrowing. Most people probably thought this orthodoxy prudent. A budget deficit was a sign of bad governance, strenuously to be avoided.

Such […]

“Fighting the Pandemic” vs. “Saving the Economy” Is a False Choice

“Fighting the Pandemic” vs. “Saving the Economy” Is a False Choice

President-elect Joe Biden delivers a Thanksgiving address at the Queen Theatre on November 25, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Mark Makela / Getty Images) For the past year, politics in the United States has been shuffled into a zero-sum game of either wrangling the coronavirus pandemic or keeping the economy healthy and strong. Almost as the virus began raging, various pundits and officials started weighing up exactly how much mass death they’d be willing to accept for the sake of continued profit. By November, voters had cleaved themselves into two camps based on these two seemingly separate ambitions, with each […]

Twitter founder giving mayors $15 million to fund ‘basic income’ projects in their cities

Twitter founder giving mayors $15 million to fund ‘basic income’ projects in their cities

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is working with a group of mayors around the United States to help guarantee income for people in nearly 30 cities.

On Dec. 8, Dorsey gave a $15 million grant to Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, an initiative to eliminate poverty and help bridge the financial gap people experience during times of financial crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Dorsey previously donated $3 million to the new organization in July 2020.

The idea of a basic or guaranteed income “is a monthly, cash payment given directly to individuals. It is unconditional, with no strings attached and no work […]

Universal Basic Income has been a ‘lifesaver’ to families during coronavirus pandemic: California mayor

Universal Basic Income has been a ‘lifesaver’ to families during coronavirus pandemic: California mayor

Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs talks during an interview in Stockton, Calif. Tubbs is one of the youngest mayors in the country and was the city’s first Black mayor. He garnered national attention with his universal basic income program that fights poverty by paying people $500 a month. Universal basic income (UBI) has been a “lifesaver” for households participating in UBI pilot programs, Mayor Michael Tubbs told Yahoo Finance.

The Stockton, Calif. mayor is the founder of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income , a program that provides $500 a month to families in dozens of cities around the United States and […]

Guaranteed Income, Private Equity Coming Soon to a TDF Near You

The strategic incorporation of lifetime income products and alternative investments in target-date funds (TDFs) could potentially help providers deliver superior long-term outcomes for plan participants and differentiate themselves in a market dominated by a handful of low-cost providers, according to the December issue of “Cerulli Edge—U.S. Asset and Wealth Management Edition.”

Momentum for including income products in TDFs has been building since 2014, when the IRS issued guidance providing that plan sponsors can include deferred income annuities in TDFs used as qualified default investment alternatives (QDIAs) in a manner that complies with plan qualification rules. A significant barrier to plan […]

Yang jumps into Hill debate to press for stimulus checks

Yang jumps into Hill debate to press for stimulus checks

Democratic presidential candidate businessman Andrew Yang speaks during an event. | Mary Altaffer/AP Photo

By EUGENE DANIELS

12/14/2020 12:00 PM ESTThe Yang Gang is making its first foray onto the Hill.As Congress remains at an impasse over Covid-19 relief, onetime presidential hopeful Andrew Yang and his nonprofit Humanity Forward are lobbying more than 60 lawmakers in the House and Senate to give Americans stimulus checks. Already, he’s paired with two lawmakers who introduced a stand-alone bill in the House based on Yang’s drive for stimulus.His effort might not get far in Congress, but it builds upon the tech entrepreneur’s push […]

Managers Expect Annuity Allocations to be Incorporated Into TDFs

The strategic incorporation of lifetime income products and alternative investments in target-date funds (TDFs) could potentially help providers deliver superior long-term outcomes for plan participants and differentiate themselves in a market dominated by a handful of low-cost providers, according to the December issue of “Cerulli Edge—U.S. Asset and Wealth Management Edition.”

Momentum for including income products in TDFs has been building since 2014, when the IRS issued guidance providing that plan sponsors can include deferred income annuities in TDFs used as qualified default investment alternatives (QDIAs) in a manner that complies with plan qualification rules. A significant barrier to plan […]