‘My heart tells me this is a fantastic solution’: Ontario Minister on Basic Income

‘My heart tells me this is a fantastic solution’: Ontario Minister on Basic Income

Chris Ballard, Minister of Housing and Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy for Ontario Chris Ballard, the Minister of Housing and Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy for Ontario, says he is hopeful the province’s Basic Income pilot will “put to rest” any doubts people have about how positive a minimum income strategy could be.

Ballard, who is overseeing the Basic Income pilot project initiated by Canada’s largest province, says some of the key things they want to look at from studying the pilot will be Basic Income’s impact on community health, individuals’ health, education, general quality of […]

Ontario’s Austerity Government Sets Basic Income Trap

Ontario’s Austerity Government Sets Basic Income Trap

The Ontario Government’s Adviser on Basic Income (BI), Hugh Segal, has released his much heralded discussion paper, “ Finding a Better Way ,” that sets out his proposals for a lengthy BI pilot project. If the experiment he advocates is put into effect, it will run parallel to the deliberations of a Security Reform Working Group that will be considering changes to the present social assistance system in the province, rather than replacement to it.

Segal’s proposal is being put forward in an international context of considerably enhanced interest in the notion of Basic Income (BI). The Ontario Coalition Against […]

A New Initiative In Canada Trials Universal Basic Income

A New Initiative In Canada Trials Universal Basic Income

The policy will provide an unconditional salary for citizens living below the poverty line The policy will provide an unconditional salary for citizens living below the poverty line

The Canadian province of Ontario will be testing universal basic income in 2017, making it the first government in North America in decades to test the policy that many feel is a panacea to growing levels of income inequality. The province’s most impoverished residents will be given a guaranteed minimum income with the hopes of raising their quality of life and saving the government money.

Longtime advocate of basic income, conservative political strategist […]

The U.S. Could Adopt Universal Basic Income in Less Than 20 Years

Scott Santens is a writer and advocate of universal basic income for all. He is the moderator of the Basic Income community on Reddit and Founder of the BIG Patreon Creator Pledge. His writing has been featured in the Atlantic and Huffington Post.

Daniel Araya: Scott, everyone seems to be talking about universal basic income as a way to resolve technological unemployment. How do you define basic income? How did you come to embrace the idea of basic income?

Scott Santens: I define basic income as a universal income floor set above the poverty level. It’s essentially a […]

The Universal Basic Income Edition

The Universal Basic Income Edition

The Universal Basic Income Edition My good friend, Jason Michael McCann, has taken on this difficult topic and says this on his blog, The Random Public Journal –

A Universal Basic Income is in the pipeline for a trial in Fife. People, regardless of how much they earn, will get an annual basic sum in cash to spend as they please. Experiments over the past forty years have shown that it works. Lucky Fife.

We’re all getting poorer. As it is the economy pretty much everywhere is structured in a way that benefits a tiny minority of the […]

Stanford, The White House, And Tech Bigwigs Will Host A Summit On Poverty

Stanford, The White House, And Tech Bigwigs Will Host A Summit On Poverty

President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg in 2011 President Obama and Mark Zuckerberg in 2011

Tomorrow, the White House will partner with Stanford University and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — a limited liability corporation launched by the CEO of Facebook and his wife — to co-host the Summit on Poverty and Opportunity, a two-day, invite-only event held on the school’s campus. It will focus on using technology and innovation to address issues like poverty, inequality, and economic immobility. The event will include an interactive demo by Palantir, the secretive Peter Thiel-backed analytics company, on how a real-time data platform can […]

How desirable is establishing basic income in our modern capitalist societies?

How desirable is establishing basic income in our modern capitalist societies?

Basic income actually helps solidify capitalism believe or not. These capitalists supporters are embarrassing under equipped on their own economic system. In fact every capitalist should be cheering it on, especially if they are Malthusian and Keynesian. So how does basic income help solidify Capitalism, and shouldn’t ever be associated with such Socialist thought?

Basic income isn’t supposed to be thought as payment from a vacuum, it works exactly like the capitalist system only that the recipients are expanded. In fact many capitalists and liberal thinkers do want to support it. Why is that, is it because of this automation […]

German MP proposes ‘free basic income’ for parents

German MP proposes 'free basic income' for parents

A member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union wants parents in Germany to receive a basic income regardless of their means. But this shouldn’t be confused with universal basic income, she said. It wouldn’t be the first progressive idea to be taken on by conservatives. A group of Bundestag members in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have proposed offering parents a basic state income – independent of their own financial situation.

The fixed monthly payment, the exact amount of which was not mentioned, would be tied to child care costs and would be subject to social insurance contributions.

The payment, part […]

Why a Citizen’s Basic Income experiment is vital

Why a Citizen's Basic Income experiment is vital

Citizen’s Basic Income Network logo One of the most exciting developments of the last year has been the creation of a Citizen’s Basic Income Network ( CBIN ) in Scotland. Bringing together a wide range of people who have an interest, and who have done work on citizen’s income, the group has been working on how to promote the idea of a citizen’s income, universal income or basic income. It builds on the excellent work of Guy Standing, and of the RSA’s Anthony Painter . And in Scotland on the work of Professor Ailsa Mackay, Annie Miller, Willie Sullivan, […]

Ben Simmons: BBC Scotland’s equality week – health and gender but no basic income?

Ben Simmons: BBC Scotland’s equality week - health and gender but no basic income?

Ahead of the launch of a new organisation in Scotland, campaigner Ben Simmons says a basic income would have a positive knock-on effect in the economy and society

LAST WEEK, BBC Scotland ran a series of articles on #unequalscotland, which is of course good to see, including an interview with Professor David Bell who has written about basic income previously .

When I first heard about basic income I thought about it as a fairly narrow idea around reforming benefits to make them simpler , but it actually makes more sense to me to think of it as a […]