Category Archives: Basic Income Guarantee

Social Europe

Basic Income's Radical Role Social Europe This would make it easier to see how it is possible to think of basic income security in the same way as we think of services we already guarantee on the premise that doing so is enabling of individuals and of senses of basic equality and community.

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Basic Income's Radical Role - Social Europe

In a recent article for Public Discourse, Dylan Pahman, a research fellow at Acton, examines the ineffectiveness of trade protectionism and universal income guarantees. Pahman argues that regulating wages and restraining free trade will do more harm then good to the success of business. Pahman begins his critique by responding to Trumps stance on protectionism. During his inaugural address, Trump said:

One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world. . . .

We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength.

While there are certainly grains of truth in these words, Pahman points out that the loss in manufacturing jobs has largely do with automation rather than outsourcing. He says:

But as many others have pointed out, manufacturing jobs have declined in the United States largely due to automation, not international trade. This trend will not be halted through protectionism. For Trump to claim that he will bring those jobs back would be as ludicrous as if President Calvin Coolidge had promised blacksmiths that he would protect their jobs from foreign trade.

Additionally, Pahman sees basic income guarantees as problematic. He discusses both the economic and spiritual issues at play:

When income is procured through the threat system of taxation and redistribution, no wealth is created The unproductive consumers are merely a conduit for funneling what was taken back to those who produced it in the first place. It is like trying to increase your bank account by writing yourself a check. And unless the receivers are required to spend 100 percent of the BIG [Basic Income Guarantee], the result will not even be zero-sum. It will be negative-sum.

According to Christian tradition, lack of workespecially manual laborengenders acedia: a spiritual listlessness that pushes us to seek unhealthy distractions. Absent the virtues of labor, the vices of idleness multiply and erode our moral culture.

Thus, even if a BIG could successfully overcome the cannibalistic circularity outlined above and counteract income losses, we would still stand to lose in other ways by subsidizing such large-scale unemployment. People need work in order to find meaning in their lives. Work helps to socialize us and promotes more virtuous living. A BIG might be an improvement over our current safety net, but we should be cautious about expanding it beyond that function, both economically and spiritually.

Pahman concludes by stating his support for free trade:

If exchange between economically productive actors is what creates wealth, international trade should be given high priority. If a nation lacks a sufficient supply of productive market actors to sustain itself, the easiest solution would be to expand ones neighborhood to seek out such actors all over the world. Indeed, given the inherent economic problem outlined above, a BIG of such a massive scale would probably require international trade. Unfortunately, this means that in the short run our president, as well as trade opponents on the left such asVermont Senator Bernie Sanders, will only end up making us less prepared for the change to come.

To read the original article from Public Discourse, click here.

Featured Image: Free Trade and Protection from Wikimedia Commons

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A guaranteed income isn't the solution to widespread unemployment - Acton Institute (blog)

Income for All

In theory, a universal basic income (UBI) would be great. Under such a system, all citizens of a country are entitled to an unconditional amount of money on top of income they already generate through other means. It could spur productivity, improve health, alleviate poverty, reduce crime, raise education, and improve quality of life. Its also especially relevant, given the reality of automation taking over more and more jobs.

UBIs potential has prompted several nations to study and test its viability. Among the pioneers are Finland, which just started implementing a UBI program that gives 2,000 randomly selected citizens $587 tax-free per month; India, which proposed the system as a solution to job loss caused by increased automation; and Canada, which saw leaders of four political parties unanimously support the decision to establish a program that will guarantee income.

Its all going well so far, but until the trials are able to deliver definitive results showing UBIs effectiveness, we are left to ponder the many questions surrounding it.For instance, how much income should be distributed? Should it be limited to the minimum needed, similar to welfare state programs? Would a higher amount be more effective? Would UBI prompt people to lose their motivation to work? Is it enough of a response to address job displacement caused by automation? Can countries around the world afford it?

The urgency that most UBI advocates feel, given the current state of the economy and realities of job displacement, isnt shared by Bill Gates. While the co-chair of the Gates Foundation isnt exactly opposed to the concept, he doesnt think the program is ready for public implementation just yet.

Over time, countries will be rich enough to do this. However, we still have a lot of work that should be done helping older people, helping kids with special needs, having more adults helping in education, said Gates during a recent AMA on Reddit.

While others worry about impending employee displacement in the age of automation, Gates believes that technology will open more opportunities for countries, allowing them to raise money that could be used to finance sectors that need people in the jobs he mentioned. Governments can use this added income as an opportunity to train the unemployed to fill new roles in the job market.

Gatesalso added during his AMA that countries arent financially equipped to finance a stable UBI program. Even the U.S. isnt rich enough to allow people not to work. Someday we will be, but until then, things like the Earned Income Tax Credit will help increase the demand for labor.

The Microsoft co-foundercould be right and now may not be the right time for a UBI, but thanks to the countries giving it a shot, we should know for sure rather soon.

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Bill Gates: The World Isn't Ready for Universal Basic Income - Futurism

Universal basic income -- or #UBI -- has been gaining traction in recent years as a utopian alternative to the punitive, stigmatising and declining welfare state in neo-liberal societies. The confluence of increased automation, declining wages and under-employment has been seized by the Left as a powerful reason for the establishment of a basic income (although interestingly, the UBI has always had supporters on the Right who want to do away with big government).

For women as mothers, however, the UBI opens up the possibility of a hitherto unseen equality that includes freedom from dependence on a male wage.

A basic income is a sum of money sufficient to live on, paid to all citizens unconditionally by the government. Basic income scholar Phillipe Van Parijs defines it as "an income paid by a political community to all its members on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement".

There are other definitions, including a basic income that operates as a supplement but is insufficient to live on, also called a 'non-liveable basic income'; a negative income tax whereby all those who earn below a minimum threshold are reimbursed by the government (up to a minimum standard); and basic capital, sometimes referred to as stakeholding, which is a lump sum paid at the onset of adulthood.

I am concerned here with the first definition -- that is a regular income paid to all citizens without conditions at a frugal but functional standard. This is also referred to as a Basic Income Guarantee or BIG.

UBI research and commentary has gained momentum over the past decade with an increasing focus on the social problems associated with declining employment resulting from automation and digitisation (think tram conductors and bank tellers); the declining welfare state resulting from neoliberal austerity policies -- the so-called 'welfare to workfare' regimes; and as a result of increasing income disparity in late capitalism.

For example, in Australia over the past 15 years, incomes of the top 10 percent have grown 13 percent higher than the bottom 90 percent, while incomes of the top 1 percent have grown 42 per cent higher.

Former Greek finance minister and economics professor, Yanis Varoufakis argues, somewhat polemically, that 'capitalism died in 2008' and was replaced with what he calls 'bankruptocracy'-- a system in which financialisation trumps labour deflating wages and undermines extant systems of social welfare (or, in other words, the conventional forms of redistributing income).

He notes that the original bargain struck between capital and labour altered after the financial crisis of 2008 and that the working class -- a broad term that ultimately includes anyone who works for wages -- no longer has the capacity to insure itself, producing a situation of deep economic precarity.

Wage-labourers have to increasingly accept the parsimonious terms of capitalism, generating the well-known situation of falling wages (relative to profits),less job-security and a widening income gap. As political theorist Kathi Weeks says, "Today's 'jobless recovery' is perhaps the most obvious sign that the wage system is not working." While profits are increasing, jobs and wages are not keeping apace and are indeed falling.

This divergence, also referred to as the 'productivity wedge', shows the growing gap between productivity and wages (or GDP and wages) and, in turn, the monopolisation of profits by the 10 percent and, more still, by the 1 percent. Indeed, one of the defining characteristics of the neo-liberal era has been the divergence between real wages growth and productivity growth.

Automation and digitisation will greatly exacerbate this process in the coming decades leading to further massive job losses.

Australia is no exception to this pattern. According to the Committee for Economic Development Australia (CEDA)'s 2015 research report, Australia's Future Workforce -- somewhat ominously titled with a question mark -- we are on the cusp of a 'very different industrial revolution'.

Indeed, according to CEDA's Chief Executive Professor Stephen Martin, "More than five million jobs, almost 40 percent of jobs that exist today, have a moderate to high likelihood of disappearing in the next 10 to 15 years". While "...in some parts of rural and regional Australia there is a high likelihood of job losses being over 60 percent".

UBI is proposed as a utopian alternative to this confluence of technological, economic and social change because it offers a viable alternative for the redistribution of wealth; something the nexus of capitalism, waged labour and the (declining) welfare state is no longer achieving.

Basic income has become a very hot topic over the past year with a number of pilot programs being developed in Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, and California, a referendum in Switzerland, a lengthy parliamentary debate on the topic in France (resulting in this recent report), a parliamentary report in Australia as well as a discussion paper by Australian think-tank the Greens Institute. In a 2016 report, the Australian Productivity Commission stated: "While Australia's tax and transfer system will continue to play a role in redistributing income, in the longer term, governments may need to evaluate the merits of more radical policies, including policies such as a universal basic income."

What I find interesting immersing myself in the basic income literature -- including academic and journalistic articles alike -- is the assumption that this precarious access to employment is something new.

Certainly, on a mass scale it is for most (though not all) men and the spectre of middle class professionals losing their jobs -- something already happening in fields such as journalism and academia and likely in the health sector next -- a very significant social and economic change; but for all but the most privileged women this economic precarity is the historical and contemporaneous norm.

While a full-time, well-paid job over a lifetime is the route to economic security, notwithstanding the rhetoric of gender equality, very few women have ever had such jobs.

So, my argument isn't just that basic income is the only viable macro-economic answer to increasing economic inequality -- specifically, the decline of full-time, secure jobs -- but that it is a crucial answer to the as yet unresolved issue of gender justice under capitalism.

While I support a UBI for everyone -- that is, I support the 'U' in 'UBI' -- why, you may ask, am I singling out mothers in particular?

I think it is important to identify the specificity of mothers in this debate, given both the tendency to ignore the centrality of gender justice and the extent to which gender is centred around motherhood. My view is we need to make the socio-economic impact of becoming a mother and of mothering work explicit.

But first, a word on the 'standard female biography': one of the reasons a 'matricentric feminism' -- to use Andrea O'Reilly's excellent term -- is required is that we can no longer conflate the categories of mother and woman given delayed and declining fertility, and the increasing numbers of childless women.

Women who are not mothers, not-yet mothers, or long past actively mothering dependent children are all in quite different socio-economic positions (although of course the structural effects of mothering last a lifetime). It's not that gender doesn't matter; it's just that motherhood matters more.

We can look at this more demographically variegated landscape by looking at the gender pay gap, and then looking at how motherhood impacts this.

In Australia as of March 2016, women's full-time wages were 82.8 percent of men's, with a wage gap of 17.2 percent. The gender pay gap has grown over the past decade from 14.9 percent in 2004, to a record high of 18.8 percent in February 2015 before falling slightly again in 2016.

As a result, women are earning less on average compared to men than they were 20 years ago.

However, this figure is calculated without including overtime and bonuses, which substantially increase men's wages, or part-time, which substantially decreases women's wages. In other words, '83 cents in the dollar' substantially overstates wage parity.

When this difference is factored in, the pay gap widens to just over 30 percent. And in the 'prime childrearing years' between ages 35-44, this gap widens to nearly 40 percent.

A more realistic figure is gained by looking at full-time versus part-time earnings, as well as average male and female earnings directly. Here we see the pay gap more clearly.

For example, in 2016, average weekly earnings were $1,727.40 for male employees and $1,010.20 for female employees (a difference of close to $720 per week). However, most mothers work part-time which exacerbates this pay gap yet again.

If we consider full-time and part-time work, the wage disparity widens further: average weekly full-time earnings were $1,727.40 for full-time male employees and $633.60 for part-time female employees; now we have a gap of over $1100 per week!

Close to half of all Australian women worked part-time in 2015-16 -- 44 percent (double the OECD average). However, this figure rises to 62 percent for mothers with a child under 5, and almost 84 percent for those with a child under 2.

Close to 40 percent of all mothers worked part-time regardless of the age of the child, while only 25 percent worked full-time.

The remainder, it needs to be remembered, were out of the workforce altogether. As the ABS put it:

"Reflecting the age when women are likely to be having children (and taking a major role in child care), women aged 25-44 years are more than two and a half times as likely as men their age to be out of the labour force."

Age of youngest child is a key predictor of women's labour force participation, although it has almost no bearing on men's labour force participation and when it does it is in the opposite direction: fathers of younger children typically undertake more paid work.

Moreover, a quarter of all female employees work casually and their average weekly earnings were just $471.40.

Think about that -- a quarter of all working women earn less than $500 a week! These days that barely covers the rent, let alone food, bills, educational and commuting costs.

Occupational segregation and motherhood wage penalties also kick into this mix. If we look at labour force participation we see that coupled mothers have higher rates of participation than single mothers given the additional support they receive with childcare and income.

As the government report, 'Parenting, Work and the Gender Pay Gap' points out:

"Economists have reported that raising children accounts for a 17 percent loss in lifetime wages for women. Many women move into 'mother-friendly' occupations when they have children. These occupations may be lower-paid than the work a mother may have done prior to having a child, and often do not reflect the woman's abilities, education level or work experience ('human capital')."

Given the average full-time male wage is significantly higher than the average female wage and, moreover, that women carry the overwhelming share of unpaid care and domestic work and thus typically work part-time in their key childrearing years -- and, we should add, fully a quarter do not work at all -- this is not simply a matter of two incomes being better than one (which is of course true), it is that access to a share of male monopolised wealth -- that is, to put in in stark terms, access to a husband -- is essential for mothers to avoid poverty.

I'm not talking about the small number of high-earning, professional mothers, but the great majority of women. In broad terms, the closer we are to mothering dependent children, including especially infants and pre-schoolers, and the further we are from access to a male wage, the poorer we are as women.

Never married single mothers with dependent children are the worst off and it moves progressively from there with young, educated, urban, never-married, childless women in fact outstripping average male wages. This contrast gives us a sense of the variegated nature of women's socio-economic position and again highlights that mothers are a distinct group and, more fundamentally, that the life course transitions of marriage and motherhood continue to negatively affect women's (independent) socio-economic status.

As a recent government report, Parenting, Work and the Gender Pay Gap put it:

"Women's disjointed career trajectories are mirrored in the way the gender pay gap changes over the life course.

The gender pay gap exists from first entry to the workforce and increases substantially during the years of childbirth and childrearing, a time when many women have reduced their engagement with paid employment to take on family care work.

The gap then stabilises and narrows slightly from mid-life, when many women increase their paid work and sometimes develop new careers after their children have grown up. The pay gap narrows further in the years leading up to retirement with a substantial drop during retirement when men's income is usually reduced."

So, often when we're talking about women's lower labour force participation and lower earnings, we're actually talking about mothers' lower labour force participation and lower earnings and, more specifically again, we're talking about mothers with dependent children; although the lasting effects of caring labour means women across the spectrum have reduced earnings, assets and retirement savings if they have mothered.

To highlight this point, Australian sociologist and time use scholar Professor Lyn Craig has shown that many of the socio-economic disadvantages affecting women are, in fact, specific to mothers. As she says:

"An implication of this is that the marker of the most extreme difference in life opportunities between men and women may not be gender itself, but gender combined with parenthood. That is, childless women may experience less inequity than women who become mothers."

Another important reason we need to differentiate mothers from women is that over the past 40 years, the standard female biography has changed significantly. Whereas once adulthood was by and large synonymous with marriage and motherhood for women, on average women now have a long stretch of adulthood -- from the late teens to around age 30 -- before they have a first child.

For educated and/or unpartnered women, the birth of a first child is often later again into the 30s, and sometimes up to age 40. Moreover, while only around 10 percent of women did not become mothers in the mid and later twentieth century, this has now risen to 24 percent. So, not all women are mothers, and many women experience a large chunk of adulthood before they become mothers and after they are actively mothering dependent children.

So, to clarify my point, there are structural and individual injustices that are specific to mothering dependent children including an unequal division of domestic labour, unequal access to jobs given the unpaid work load at home, employment built on an implicit breadwinner model that is incompatible with parenting (including school hours, school holidays, sick kids and the like), discrimination in the workplace and, in the event of unemployment and/or divorce, an increasingly punitive welfare state and a high risk of poverty.

Single mothers and their children make up the bulk of those under the poverty line in the western world. In Australia, of all family groups, single parents constitute the largest single group of those living in poverty (proportionally).

Marriage is no longer the safety net (or gilded cage) it once was, with just over 30 percent of marriages ending in divorce in Australia and predicted to rise to 45 percent in the coming decades.

Additionally fewer people are entering into marriages and cohabiting relationships have even higher rate of relational breakdown than marriages.

This means a large and growing number of women who are mothering children -- the next generation no less -- are caught in this literal economic no-man's land without adequate access to waged employment, a breadwinner husband or welfare. I am not suggesting that access to a husband is a right; I am suggesting that the liberal dissolution of the institution of marriage has not been followed with any viable economic alternatives.

Mothers undertake the bulk of unpaid care work, without which our society would cease to function. To turn this around: is it acceptable that as a society we free-load on this care?

Mothers' economic autonomy -- that is the very foundation of their citizenship and their liberty -- is undermined by the extant intersection of the institutions of marriage, employment and welfare. It is on this basis that I am identifying mothers, and more still single mothers, as a specific socio-economic and political group in urgent need of basic income. This is a human rights crisis given that lone parent families are one of the fastest growing family forms in western societies and, moreover, that women head 80-90 percent of these families.

Unlike the contemporary issues put forward for basic income -- namely, mass unemployment from automation and digitisation -- the issues facing mothers are not new.

Indeed they have been with us since the very inception of capitalism and the waged-labour system. Moreover, they are among the most compelling given that women and their dependents comprise the majority of the poor.

With the liberalisation of markets and marriage, a large and growing body of women and children are being left out of the social contract. Basic income is the critical policy answer to this problem.

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This blog first appeared here.

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Australia Needs A Universal Basic Income, And We Should Start ... - Huffington Post Australia

Sandhya Anantharaman, data scientist and co-director of the Universal Income Project, spoke on basic income at the tenth annual Meeting of the Minds summit.

In a 10-minute talk, Anantharaman argues that the United States needs a new social contract in the form of a basic income.

Setting out the problem, she explains that increases in productivity over the past half-century have not been matched by increases in income for the majority of Americans. Income inequality has risen, and a growing number of people are juggling part-time and contract jobs.

According to Anantharaman, the best solution is to guarantee all Americans an income floor sufficient to meet their basic needs. She contends that the economic security provided by a basic income would, for example, allow individuals to develop the skills and training needed to pursue new careers, promote entrepreneurship, and allow scientists to carry out research for its own sake, without worrying about how to commercialize it. It would, moreover, permit people to devote their time to caregiving, parenting, volunteer work, and other endeavors not traditionally compensated with wages.

Following Anantharamans presentation, the host of the event issued a prediction that the accompanying video (posted below) was one of the most likely to go viral.

Meeting of the Minds 2016 was held October 25-27, 2016 in Richmond, California. The event brought together 480 participants from the public and private sectors, non-profit organizations, and academia, with 23 countries represented.

The Meeting of the Minds network states that its mission is to bring together a carefully chosen set of key urban sustainability and technology stakeholders and gather them around a common platform in ways that help build lasting alliances.

Reviewed byMadhumitha Madhavan.

Cover photo: Still from YouTube video.

Kate McFarland has written 366 articles.

Kate began reporting for Basic Income News in March 2016, joined BIEN's Executive Committee in July 2016, and was appointed Secretary of BIEN's US affiliate (USBIG) in November 2016. She has received funding from the Economic Security Project and Patreon for her work for as a basic income news reporter.

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VIDEO: Basic Income presentation at Meeting of the Minds Summit - Basic Income News

CommonSpace

Ben Wray: Why both the right to work and the right not to work can set us free CommonSpace In a world where the idea of robots taking over our jobs is no longer in the realm of sci-fi, basic income is usually proposed as an alternative to the guarantee of employment. The logic of this is simple: the guarantee of an income replaces the ...

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Ben Wray: Why both the right to work and the right not to work can set us free - CommonSpace

Basic Income and Jobs

The debate about the effectiveness of a universal basic income (UBI) program has been fueled by concerns over job displacement due to increased automation. Several studies have shown that a number of jobs from several industries including transportation, manufacturing, finance, law, and even ITare going to be affected by this trend. This has generated support for UBI from a number of economic experts and tech industry giants, including Elon Musk.

Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) proponents also see UBI as a better alternative to current social welfare programs. Brad Voracek, who holds a degree in Applied Mathematics in Economics and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a masters in Economic Theory and Policy from the Levy Institute at Bard College, shared his thoughts on how proponents of BIG and Job Guarantee (JG) shouldnt be at odds with one another.

Supporters of either of these policies should be working together to get either one implemented and we can debate adding the other later,Voracek writes in The Minskys.Today, we need to move beyond our current disjointed welfare system to one that will help Americans, and either policy (or both!) seems like a step in the right direction.

In the article, Voracek also tackles several of the arguments against UBI.

Contrary to what some critics say, he doesnt seeUBI as incentivizing not having ajob. I havent seen any proof an income stops people from working, he writes. Its all speculation. He also points out that many of the jobs that are available to those who qualify for the current welfare system arent beneficial to society.

We have to keep abject poverty as a social option so that people keep working at McDonalds making the McObese, and keep stocking the Wal-Mart shelves so that Wal-Mart can pay starvation wages which allow people to be eligible for the [welfare] in the first place, says Voracek. Im not really sure those are the jobs that need to be done.

Voracek has a plan on how we should pay for a new system as well. He argues that the total cost of the welfare programs currently in place is higher than the potential cost of UBI, so we could get rid of all of those programs (with the exception of the complicated Medicaid) and apply all of that money to a singular UBI program.

At the moment, its all about trying it out. Lets see what happens when everyone has some cash on hand, Voracek writes. BIG and JG proponents, lets not quibble. Were on the same side. Theres work to be done. Get organized. Make it happen.

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Expert: We Can Have Universal Basic Income and Jobs - Futurism - Futurism

In January, Apolitical published an exclusive interview with two leaders behind the planning of a pilot study of a basic income guarantee program in Ontario, Canada: Helena Jaczek, Ontarios Minister of Community and Social Services, and project advisor Hugh Segal.

Earlier this month, the interview was republished in the official blog of the World Economic Forum, the Switzerland-based organization responsible for the prestigious annual Davos meeting (which this year held a panel discussion and debate on basic income: dream or delusion).

In the interview, Jaczek and Segal explain the reasons for their interest in and optimism about basic income. Jaczek sees the program as a means to provide economic security to allow individuals to contribute to society. Segal supports basic income as a way to avoid the poverty trap that occurs when poor individuals lose benefits after taking a job, as well as a way to empower the poor to make decisions on their own behalf.

The Government of Ontario has recently completed public consultation hearings on an initial proposal for the pilot study, and will release its final plan in Spring 2017. As proposed, the pilot will consist of both a randomized control study in a large metropolitan area (in which randomly selected individuals receive the basic income guarantee) and several saturation studies (in which all members of a small city receive the basic income guarantee). If Segals initial recommendations are followed, subjects will be eligible to receive an unconditional cash transfer of up to 1,320 CAD (about 1,000 USD) per month, gradually tapered off with additional earnings, which would replace existing unemployment programs in the province.

Read more:

Exclusive: Inside Canadas new basic income project, Apolitical, January 4, 2017.

Canadas basic income experiment will it work? World Economic Forum blog, February 2, 2017.

Reviewed by Danny Pearlberg

Photo (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) CC BY 2.0Brian Burke

Kate McFarland has written 358 articles.

Kate began reporting for Basic Income News in March 2016, joined BIEN's Executive Committee in July 2016, and was appointed Secretary of BIEN's US affiliate (USBIG) in November 2016. She has received funding from the Economic Security Project and Patreon for her work for as a basic income news reporter.

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World Economic Forum blog: Canada's basic income experiment will it work? - Basic Income News

Tuesday, February 14, 2017 Regional | by Claire McCormack

Queens Park looks at a pilot project, which is supported by the Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force.

The Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force supports the Ontario Government's pilot project of a basic income guarantee, but says the province needs to realize poverty isn't just an urban issue.

Task Force Co-ordinator Jill Umbach says the idea is to provide a government subsidy for low income people that would go right to them in a similar way to the Ontario Seniors' Benefit Program.

Umbach says the plan is to have income information go to the government at tax time and if someone qualifies, the rest would be automatic.

The Task Force likes the idea of enabling low income people to receive the money they need in a more dignified way without being micro-managed by the province and regularly required provide documentation about how much money they've made.

The program began to take shape in June 2016 with a discussion paper from the province called Finding a Better Way: A Basic Income. Consultation sessions followed and the Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force attended a number of them.

Umbach says they made sure the rural perspective was clearly conveyed to others during the consultations which all took place in urban centres.

She notes rural issues cannot be ignored, and believes more robust economic development and local investment will reverse the rise of precarious work, loss of benefits to families and out-migration of young people and families from the community.

Umbach says the pilot would be rolled out in just a few communities within the province for a span of three years. It would replace Ontario Works subsidies in those instances.

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Guaranteed basic income proposed. - Bayshore Broadcasting News Centre

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Following a devastating election cycle where the American voting public sent a sharp rebuke to the status quo and policies of the Obama Administration, the left is now preparing to push for a universal basic income (UBI).

Left-leaning Americans are largely opposed to President Donald Trumps cabinet picks, all the way from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to the presidents pick to lead the Department of Labor: fast food executive Andy Puzder. (RELATED: Big Labor Curtails Spending As It Braces For Trump Presidency)

Labor unions have blasted Puzder for past comments about the future of low-wage workers in the fast food industry. Puzderwarned that the fight for a $15 minimum wage will hurt low-wage workers more than it can help, arguing that a better policy would be to encourage the private sector to create more middle class jobs.

Professors Mark Paul and William Darity, Jr. from Duke University, along with Darrick Hamilton from the Milano School of International Affairs, argued that the country needs a federal jobs guarantee in an article published recently in Jacobin Magazine, a self-proclaimed leading voice of the American left.

Supporters of a UBI argue that a government-subsidized wage guarantee to all citizens would stave off job loss from automation and advancements in technology.

Why We Need a Federal Job Guarantee, theorizes that giving everyone a job is the best way to democratize the economy and give workers leverage in the workplace.

Paul, Darity, and Hamilton argue that a UBI could successfully cover workers who have lost their jobs due to technological advancements. Existing social insurance programs are insufficient, the professors write. They offer five reasons in support a federal jobs guarantee, including the notion of preempting the problem before it is widespread. Robots havent taken over yet, they write, suggesting that getting ahead of the problem will reduce the number of poor Americans.

A UBI would redefine the relationship between individuals and the state by giving government the role of provider, said Orin Cass, domestic policy director for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romneys 2012 presidential campaign, inJune, 2016.It would make work optional and render self-reliance moot, he continued.

An underclass dependent on government handouts would no longer be one of societys greatest challenges but instead would be recast as one of its proudest achievements, Cass warned in a piece published by the National Review.

Labor experts seriously question free cash as sound economic policy, but some experts, including those who do not identify left, are not completely opposed to a jobs program.

Giving people cash is not the solution to improving opportunity, Aparna Mathur, a labor policy expert with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told The Daily Caller News Foundation. Mathur did not rule out the idea of a federal jobs program but warned against unconditional handouts.

If cash transfers are conditional on work or job training, they are much more likely to be effective in improving mobility than if we simply give everybody an unconditional cash transfer, she told TheDCNF, refusing to rule out the idea of a federal jobs guarantee completely.

The professors said that a federal jobs guarantee could build an inclusive economy, and that it could provide socially useful goods and services.

The language fails to take into consideration the additional benefits that may compel a company to install automation for certain jobs.

Some jobs dont produce enough economic value to bear the increase [minimum wage], Puzder said to theWall Street Journalin 2014.

In the long-run encouraging people to work or acquire skills and training and education is the only way to help people move up in life, Mathur explained, a statement that could comport with a federal jobs program.

If we gave people the money without making it conditional on work, it might reduce their incentive to work, Mathur concluded.

Finland experimented with a UBI, with some unemployed Finnish citizens taking home a salary regardless of whether or not they are working.

The nations largest labor union, The Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), said that the policy might reduce the labor force. SAK also asserted that aUBI makes it easier for potential prospects to turn down unpleasant jobs, opting to just take the government handout instead.

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