Tag: basic income

Debate is brewing here on whether South Korea should introduce a universal basic income for its citizens.

The world’s first national trial of the idea, which began in Finland on Jan. 1, has boosted the discussion, which is expected to heat up in the lead-up to the presidential election this year to choose a successor to impeached President Park Geun-hye. Some liberal-minded potential presidential candidates have shown support for the basic income scheme.

Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, whose approval rating has risen sharply over the past months on the back of popularity with young voters, has called for an increase in […]

Full Post at www.koreaherald.com

The Finnish basic income experiment is being conducted among 2,000 persons between ages 25 and 58, who will receive a monthly basic income of €560 for two years. They will receive their first basic income payments from Kela today.

Those participating in the experiment will be paid a basic income from 1 January 2017 until 31 December 2018. The payments are made on the second business day of each month, with the exception of January 2017, when the payment date is 9 January 2017.

The amount of the basic income will remain the same throughout the experiment. The basic income […]

Full Post at www.kela.fi

Helsinki, Finland "We had to start from somewhere. The budget that we had at our disposal was rather limited. It meant that at best we could [cover] 2,000 persons. And we thought that the unemployed are the group that can be of interest from our perspective. If basic income is something that [encourages] people to take jobs, in this case unemployed persons are the best group to start with," Kangas, KELA’s director of research, explained.

KELA is a Finnish government agency tasked with running the country’s social security programs. The UBI initiative will see the government pay a guaranteed minimum […]

Full Post at sputniknews.com

The persistence of high inequality and the prospect of job losses owing to automation in the advanced world has led several advanced economies to consider the idea of a universal basic income (UBI) to guarantee their citizens a minimum level of income support.

The same idea seems to be gaining favour among a growing number of economists and policymakers in India, but for different reasons. One of the key themes of the economic survey this year is likely to be UBI, the chief economic advisor to the finance ministry Arvind Subramanian had said in a 29 September interview to Business […]

Full Post at m.dailyhunt.in

In low-income countries, social protection systems are truly at their infancy, and have only recently replaced decades of international humanitarian approaches, said World Bank expert

#Ugo Gentilini #NREGA #World Bank #Poverty (Photo: Arun Kumar) Most social protection systems in middle-income countries (MICs) are still relatively new, and have yet to undergo the centuries of societal struggles and bargains that cemented welfare regimes in advanced economies. But investments in social protection in MICs seem to occur at comparatively earlier levels of development, said Ugo Gentilini, senior economist, social protection and labour global practice, World Bank.

In a blog, Gentilini, said that […]

Full Post at www.governancenow.com

The total cost of providing universal basic income to all Indians would amount to 12.5% of GDP. Photo: Mint The persistence of high inequality and the prospect of job losses owing to automation in the advanced world has led several advanced economies to consider the idea of a universal basic income (UBI) to guarantee their citizens a minimum level of income support.

The same idea seems to be gaining favour among a growing number of economists and policymakers in India, but for different reasons. One of the key themes of the economic survey this year is likely to be UBI, […]

Full Post at www.livemint.com

Seth Ackerman, Mateo Alaluf, Jean-Marie Harribey, Daniel Zamora. Contre l’allocation universelle , Lux Éditeur. Kindle Edition, 2016

Review by: Pierre Madden

This is a book written by and for French intellectuals. Hegelian and Marxist notions are bandied about like so many baseball scores. Nevertheless, the message is plain and the reason for the vigorous opposition to Basic Income (BI) is clear. Some of the points inviting skepticism are well taken. Tracing the origins of BI back to Thomas More and Thomas Paine is in fact quite a stretch. The same familiar More passage is always quoted but have you ever […]

Full Post at basicincome.org

At the turn of the year, I stumbled upon an intriguing article by the columnist John Harris in The Guardian . Harris, who builds upon the ideas of historian Joseph Tainter, suggested that the underlying factor of many societies which leads to their collapse is their overwhelming complexity: societies create complex systems for economic benefits, but they eventually become overstretched and end up offering little benefit to ordinary citizens. These citizens resent and attack the system, which inevitably leads to its collapse.

Harris, quoting Tainter’s work, lists examples of societies where complexity was a major factor in their downfall: ancient […]

Full Post at ideasfortoday.org.uk

Could Finland become the first country in the world to introduce a universal basic income?

It’s quite possible: The Finnish government likes the concept, and it’s putting serious resources behind a national experiment. Starting in 2017, up to 100,000 Finns could get up to 1,000 euros a month, in lieu of other benefits. These lucky souls won’t have to work. They won’t have to prove they’re in poverty to get the money. For two years, they’ll get a fixed amount to do with what they will.

The idea of giving away public money, no strings attached, sounds crazy at first. But […]

Full Post at trueviralnews.com

Readers are probably aware that Finland has just begun an experiment to see whether paying a basic income to citizens might replace its current patchwork of welfare programs and systems. The Guardian reports : Finland has become the first country in Europe to pay its unemployed citizens an unconditional monthly sum, in a social experiment that will be watched around the world amid gathering interest in the idea of a universal basic income.

Under the two-year, nationwide pilot scheme, which began on 1 January, 2,000 unemployed Finns aged 25 to 58 will receive a guaranteed sum of €560 […]

Full Post at bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com