Guaranteed Livable Income - Blog

In May, supporters of Guaranteed Livable Income, or basic income, crowned 500 people kings and queens in Switzerland.

What do royalty have to do with basic income? Read more »

While Alaska is the only place in the world with an ongoing basic income program, they are not the only jurisdiction to have shown interest. Brazil actually has a law mandating the progressive institution of a basic income program.

The law was introduced by Senator Eduardo Suplicy of the Brazilian Workers’ Party in 2001. He had previously introduced a bill to create a Negative Income Tax model of a guaranteed livable income, but that bill failed to pass. This second bill called for a universal basic income program to be progressively instituted, beginning with those most in need. Read more »

There are those who believe that Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI) is a nice idea, but an impossible dream. They don’t know Alaska.

Alaska has had a basic income program for years. Departing Governor and conservative icon Sarah Palin is a supporter of the program. Read more »

This week’s web feature looks at the question of whether or not policy-makers can determine the ability of people with disabilities to engage in paid employment. Under our current conditional system of income support, obtaining the approval of bureaucrats is necessary to receive disability income support.

I focused mostly on the nature of disabilities themselves, but Michael asked a very good question about process. I’ll repost my answer here, but I also want to touch on another related issue, that of obtaining a diagnosis. Read more »

In Namibia, a pilot project is examining the impact of a Guaranteed Livable Income program referred to as BIG: a basic income grant. This project is being assessed every 6 months, and the 1 year evaluation has just been released.

The results are very encouraging. Building on the progress of the first six months, the community continued to see an increase in health, economic activity and self-sufficiency. Read more »

Last week, with excellent timing, the National Post published a column by Father Raymond de Souza calling for a Negative Income Tax version of guaranteed livable income on the very day Jim Mulvale, Mike McCracken and I were leading our workshop on GLI at the Canadian Social Forum. Read more »

There is a close relationship between welfare rates and food bank use, with a 10% cut in benefits leading to a 14% increase in food bank use, according to a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Similarly, a cut in the welfare caseload of 10% resulted in over a 4% increase in food bank use, negating the belief that being removed from welfare will make recipients self-sufficient by reducing “dependency.”

The study, “Understanding the Link Between Welfare Policy and the Use of Food Banks,” by Michael Goldberg and David A. Green, contains a number of such revealing yet troublesome facts about food bank use. Read more »

A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada by John Ralston Saul is a fabulous book. CPJ board member Maylanne Maybe is reviewing it for our Spring Catalyst book review supplement, and I don’t want to scoop Maylanne.

However, I can’t resist highlighting two excellent passages of this book. Ralston Saul argues at the beginning of the book that we often profoundly misunderstand and represent our origins as a Métis nation, constructed around an ethos of fairness or welfare (in its 19th century meaning – not social assistance). He then examines how our failure to recognize these fundamental truths about ourselves has left our country flailing, unable to come to grips with many of our realities as a country. He also offers a scathing indictment of Canada’s elites – political, intellectual, and business – for their leadership. Read more »

The Special Senate committee on Aging released its final report on Tuesday, Canada’s Aging Population: Seizing the Opportunity. Among the committee’s recommendations was one that the federal government “look more closely at the question of a Guaranteed Annual Income for all Canadians.” Read more »

Yesterday, I wrote of how churches are at the forefront of the basic income advocacy effort in Namibia, including the creation and direction of the basic income pilot project. In neighbouring South Africa, churches have also been active in the cause.

The South Africa BIG Coalition includes multiple church communities, including the South African Council of Churches, the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the Anglican Church of the Province of South Africa, the Diakonia Council of Churches, the Dominican Order and Missionaries of Africa in South Africa. Several of these groups have also adopted resolutions in support of basic income. Read more »