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Universal Basic Income test next year: FM

Universal Basic Income test next year: FM

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today hoped that the Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme mooted by the Economic Survey will be implemented over the next one year in some parts of the country at least on experimental basis. The Economic Survey, authored by Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, had suggested that the Centre may come out with UBI scheme under which the government should provide a minimum cash amount to poor people to meet their basic needs.
Speaking at a function to release the book ‘India 2047 Voices of the Young’, Jaitley said under the proposed system UBI […]

Janet Street-Porter: What happens when robots take over nurses’ jobs

Images of trolleys laden with suffering people in corridors, old people hooked up to drips on beds in cupboards — not pictures emerging from Syria, but the latest crisis to hit the NHS.

Waiting times in A&E are unacceptable, with hospitals operating at full capacity; dozens of beds are occupied by people who have nowhere else to go.

When even the Health Secretary — the normally unflappable Mr Positive, Jeremy Hunt — admits things are problematic, it’s probably not the best time to publish a report claiming that robots could take over nurses’ jobs.According to experts at the independent think tank […]

Before Universal Basic Income, We Must First Get Social Spending Basics Right -Anjana Thampi and Ishan Anand

-TheWire.in

The Economic Survey 2016-17 devotes a chapter to the provision of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), describing it as a “raging new idea,” a “radical new vision” and “the shortest path to eliminating poverty”. While warning that the UBI “should not become the Trojan horse that usurps the fiscal space for a well-functioning state,” the survey says a de facto UBI can be instituted in the existing “fiscal space”. It argues that winding up existing subsidies and welfare schemes could generate enough resources to institute UBI. To make this argument, the survey includes a table which lists the subsidies […]

Automation can revitalize the U.S. workforce

Automation can revitalize the U.S. workforce

In the face of growing workplace automation, a number of commentators have painted a grim future for American workers. But most human capital leaders see a much brighter future— one where automation helps revitalize U.S. manufacturing and increases the demand for skilled workers.

According to global talent management firm Randstad Sourceright’s survey of over 400 corporate HR leaders, automation and robotics are likely to have a positive impact on U.S. business growth in 2017, and will be one of the driving forces behind new hiring trends over the next several years.

Regardless of how you feel about robots, the move toward […]

How being replaced by a machine turned this graphic artist into an activist

How being replaced by a machine turned this graphic artist into an activist

Enlarge / Robots are coming for your job. Rog01 – Flickr Maybe we shouldnt allow robots to be used right away in industries whose workers are not ready to be replaced right away.
If for example a trucking company intends to replace it’s drivers, theer should be a waiting period of five years so that the truck drivers can transition to another industry and that is with assistance since once the robots come in, the company is going to save a lot of money anyway.
As for driverless cars for private use only and not commercial use, then let […]

A Billionaire Is Helping Fund a Massive Universal Basic Income Project

Techpreneurs Love UBI

Tesla and SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk and Y Combinator president Sam Altman have already come out in support of universal basic income (UBI), and now another tech billionaire is joining their ranks: eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

His philanthropic investment firm, the Omidyar Network, is stepping up its support of UBI by funding a basic income experiment in Kenya. The experiment is being implemented by charity organization GiveDirectly, which is currently running the small pilot project in a few Kenyan villages. When the program lunches fully in a few months, it’ll be the largest UBI experiment […]

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is financing a universal basic income experiment

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is financing a universal basic income experiment

The idea of a universal basic income, a guaranteed minimum payment for all citizens, is gaining momentum as a potential solution for an increasingly stratified society—one in which technology and other forms of progress generate enormous wealth for some and unemployment and economic despair for others.

Despite trials in the 1960s and 1970s in the US, Canada, and India, we still don’t know if it reduces poverty while enhancing the quality of life. The earlier experiments, although promising, were incomplete and inconclusive.

The latest benefactor to invest in proving out the idea is eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. On Feb. 7, the […]

Before Universal Basic Income, We Must First Get Social Spending Basics Right

Before Universal Basic Income, We Must First Get Social Spending Basics Right

Providing a UBI in place of existing schemes will not change the fundamentally unequal income distribution in the country. The way to resolve the crisis is a redistribution from the rich to the poor.

Representative image. Credit: Reuters The Economic Survey 2016-17 devotes a chapter to the provision of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), describing it as a “raging new idea,” a “radical new vision” and “the shortest path to eliminating poverty”. While warning that the UBI “should not become the Trojan horse that usurps the fiscal space for a well-functioning state,” the survey says a de facto UBI […]

Universal Basic Income: What Would Mahatma Gandhi Do?

Universal Basic Income: What Would Mahatma Gandhi Do?

India’s Ministry of Finance recently released a whopper of an annual Economic Survey . Don’t let the boring title fool you: this is a magnum opus on contemporary development. (Full disclosure: the lead author is Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian , a friend and senior fellow on leave from CGD.) The Survey contains the usual detailed analysis of the Indian economy. Yet the parts of most interest to developmentistas are likely to be the special chapters on demonetization, low-skill manufacturing, fertility puzzles, urbanization, and more.

“Universal Basic Income: A Conversation With and Within the Mahatma” (Chapter 9) is the one […]

Conservative Carbon Dividend Proposal is a Welcome Development for Introduction of Partial Basic Income

Conservative Carbon Dividend Proposal is a Welcome Development for Introduction of Partial Basic Income

The Climate Leadership Council just put forth a proposal for a carbon fee and dividend , as a key policy to combat climate change. The authors are conservatives, including Republican former Secretaries of State James Baker and George Schultz, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and two Chairs from the Council of Economic Advisors in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. While there are some aspects of the proposal to question, progressives should get behind the main idea: a steadily rising carbon fee and dividend.

First, the proposal is a very welcome development for the effort to fight climate change, and […]