Tag: Universal Basic Income

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The solution to poverty, give people money

I’m convinced the solution to the social ills of our society is a universal basic income, and a peer reviewed study in Canada confirms my instinct.

Vox

The study, conducted by the charity Foundations for Social Change in partnership with the University of British Columbia, gave fifty homeless people in the Vancouver area a lump sum of $7,500 and tracked what they did with the money.

As part of the study researchers also asked eleven-hundred people to predict how the money would be spent. Most thought recipients would waste it on “temptation goods” like alcohol, drugs, and tobacco.

They were wrong. Recipients of the cash increased spending on essentials like food, clothes, and rent. They also managed to save money to help with the year ahead.

Ask anyone who is or has been poor and they’ll confirm what Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregman has been saying for years.

Poverty isn’t a lack of character. It’s a lack of cash.

Rutger Bregman – The Correspondent 2020

For me the Foundations for Social Change study blows to smithereens the right-wing narrative that poverty is a choice, or that poor people are lazy, or “bad at rational decision-making and self-control”.

Poverty isn’t a lifestyle choice, something that can be changed at will, it’s a consequence of our profoundly stratified society. Millions trapped in low wage jobs because they lack the familial wealth to ensure a decent education. Millions more held back because they lack the nepotistic connections to advance. More still hobbled because they reject the ruthless instincts so prized by a society that revels in the binary of winners and losers. And what of those made sick by the toxic conditions of a society that demands participation in the unending grind?

Poverty is a mountain and escaping it is like trying to dig out from under it with a plastic spoon.

As we hurtle towards ecological collapse, the ensuing chaos will hit the poorest hardest. We’re already seeing hundreds of thousands fleeing social and ecological collapse. Also consider the rise in the use of artificial intelligence. Technologies created to remove the need for and cost of workers are not new, but this iteration feels altogether more final. Perhaps because it coincides with environmental collapse. It will make hundreds of millions, billions, surplus to requirements. What happens to all but the few billionaires able to buy a valley in New Zealand with a fresh water supply?

We the poor are not responsible for these problems or advances, but I have no doubt we will be the ones to pay. As things worsen, and without a universal basic income, will we be abandoned on a hillside as carrion?

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Universal Basic Income

I agree with Neal Lawson in his Labour List article, that “the aftermath of Brexit must be the creation of a 21st-century system of social security with BI at its beating heart”.

Labour List

But Universal Basic Income is not the entire solution. There are two key areas that need attention if basic income is to work. The first is housing. The second is transport.

Housing in this country is an expensive mess. If private landlords are the model we use to house those unable to buy, then we need controls on the renting market. We need a register of landlords, so unscrupulous landlords can be identified and barred from letting property. We need long term leases, five or ten year, so tenants have the security they need to plan a future. Finally, and most importantly, we need a ceiling on how much rent a tenant can be charged. We need to move away from a “market” led system, that has turned average incomes into poverty wages, we need a system based on incomes. Rents should be capped, set at say thirty per cent of a tenants take-home. Policies like this are the only way to make rents affordable.

The second issue that needs attention is transport. Public transport is expensive. The price of a season ticket rises as fast as service standards fall. Bus services are streamlined as sure as fares go up. Public transport needs to be cheap, and plentiful. That way it would become the affordable choice for most people.

A secondary benefit of cheaper housing and transport is spending power. If people weren’t made poor by housing and transport costs, they’d have more money to spend in the wider economy.

Finally, we shouldn’t see Universal Basic Income as an expense, it should be seen as an investment, a way to stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit in people. The reason many people do not start their own business is the crippling consequences of failure. If you mitigate the consequences with a basic income, people would be much more likely to make creative choices.

The idea of a basic income isn’t new, the richest families have been using the system for centuries. Rich parents routinely fund their children, at the very least offering a cushion that breaks the fall of failure. You’re much more likely to take a risk if your failure is mitigated by family wealth.

A basic income would offer a cushion to the many not just the few. It would free people to be creative, entrepreneurial, and much more productive.