The modern welfare state has been criticized on economic and moral grounds from all ends of the political spectrum. Many have argued that the provision of tax-fundedservices or transfer payments
reduces the incentive for workers to seek employment, thereby reducing
the need to work, reducing the rewards of work and exacerbating poverty.
On the other hand, socialists typically criticize the welfare state as championed by social democrats as an attempt to legitimize and strengthen the capitalist economy system which conflicts with the socialist goal of replacing capitalism with a socialist economic system.
Conservative criticism
People waiting in line for relief checks in the United States during the Great Depression
In his 1912 book The Servile State, Anglo-French poet and social critic Hilaire Belloc, a devout Roman Catholic, argued that capitalism
was inherently unstable, but that attempts to amend its defects through
ever-more burdensome regulation could only lead to the rise of what he
calls the "Servile State". According to Belloc, this servile state
resembles ancient slavery in its reliance on positive law as opposed to custom or economic necessity by themselves. Austrian-born economist Friedrich Hayek mentions Belloc's Servile State favorably in his book The Road to Serfdom. Along with others such as G. K. Chesterton and Eric Gill, Belloc advocated abolishing profit-making banking in favor of credit unions and replacing capitalism with a system they called distributism which they believed would preserve private property and revive the dignity of work exemplified by the small craftsmen and property holder of the Middle Ages.
Some conservatives in the United Kingdom such as James Batholomew and Theodore Dalrymple
claim that the welfare state has produced a generation of dependents
who prefer to remain on assistance and make no real effort to find
employment, even though assistance is officially only available to those
unable to work or who are temporarily unable to find work. The welfare state in the United Kingdom
was created to provide certain people with a basic level of benefits in
order to alleviate poverty, but these conservatives believe that it has
fostered irresponsible and immature attitudes in many of its
recipients.
Some British conservatives such as Conservative Party co-chairman Sayeeda Warsi also criticize the "'something for nothing' culture" of the welfare state, claiming that the high extent of the welfare state "discourages the unemployed from finding jobs". 55% of people in England and 43% of people in Scotland believe that "benefits for unemployed people are too high and discourage them from finding jobs".
According to political scientist Alan Ryan, "[m]odern conservatives
argue that liberalism promises a degree of personal fulfillment that the
welfare state cannot deliver and that attempts to deliver it will
inevitably lead to disillusionment". Additionally, citizens' resentment
of paying taxes to create benefits for others creates "hostility between
more and less favored groups that is wholly at odds with what modern
liberals desire". Ryan also argued:
Moreover,
the welfare state must employ an extensive bureaucracy whose members
are granted discretionary powers and charged by law to use those powers
for the welfare of their clients. This means that classical liberals'
concern for the rule of law and the curtailing of arbitrary discretion
is ignored: bureaucrats are given resources to disburse to their
clients. [...] The liberation the welfare state promises – liberation
from anxiety, poverty, and the cramped circumstances of working-class
existence – is easily obtained by the educated middle class and is
impossible to achieve for most others. There is thus a grave risk of
disillusionment with liberalism in general as a result of its failure
when it overextends itself. Some writers suppose that the worldwide
popularity of conservative governments during the 1980s is explained by
this consideration.
The
government, Milton Friedman and others argued, told the poor: make more
money and we will take away your free housing, food stamps, and income
support. People are rational, Friedman said, so they will not work for
long if they get nothing or next to nothing for it. The big difference
between the Malthusian conservative critics of social insurance in the
early nineteenth century and the Chicago critics of the 1970s is that
the Chicago critics had a point: Providing public support to the
"worthy" poor, and then removing it when they began to stand on their
own feet, poisoned incentives and was unlikely to lead to good outcomes.
And so, from 1970 to 2000, a broad coalition of conservatives (who
wanted to see the government stop encouraging immorality), centrists
(who wanted government money spent effectively), and leftists (who
wanted poverty alleviated) removed the "notches" from the
social-insurance system. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George
H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and even George W. Bush and their supporters
created the current system, in which tax rates and eligibility
thresholds are not punitive disincentives to enterprise.
Certain American libertarians criticize the welfare state because they believe welfare
programs do not work to reduce poverty, improve education, or improve
health or retirement. According to them, welfare programs also increase
out-of-wedlock births and decrease the incentive to work. Moreover, they
believe welfare programs reduce freedom by reducing the opportunity of
individuals to manage their own lives.
Socialist criticism
A Swedish Sami boy getting oats and beans from the government's food relief program
Critiques of the welfare state and of social welfare
programs have come from various socialists perspectives, ranging from
Marxists to anarchists. In these perspectives, criticism of the welfare
state often goes alongside criticism of the structural issues of capitalism and the inability for social welfare measures to solve fundamental economic issues which Marxists consider inherent to the capitalist mode of production. Initially, social insurance schemes were promoted by liberals and conservatives to appeal to working class voters to undercut the appeal of socialism.
While some socialist parties tolerated social insurance, socialists
often viewed advocacy of such programs as antithetical to their goal of
replacing capitalism with socialism.
Marxian
socialists argue that modern social democratic welfare policies are
unable to solve the fundamental and structural issues of capitalism such
as cyclical fluctuations, exploitation and alienation.
Accordingly, social democratic programs intended to ameliorate the
issues of capitalism—such as unemployment benefits and taxation on
profits—create further contradictions in capitalism by limiting the
efficiency of the capitalist system by reducing incentives for
capitalists to invest in further production. As a result, the welfare
state only serves to legitimize and prolong the exploitative and
contradiction-laden system of capitalism to society's detriment.
Democratic socialists such as the American philosopher and mathematician David Schweickart
contrast social democracy with democratic socialism by defining the
former as an attempt to strengthen the welfare state and the latter as a
political movement seeking to create an alternative to capitalism.
According to Schweickart, the democratic socialist critique of social
democracy is that capitalism can never be sufficiently "humanized" and
any attempt to suppress the economic contradictions of capitalism would
only cause them to emerge elsewhere. For example, attempts to reduce
unemployment too much would result in inflation while too much job
security would erode labor discipline. As socialists, democratic
socialists aim to create an alternative to capitalism. In contrast to social democracy, democratic socialists advocate a post-capitalisteconomic system based either on market socialism combined with worker self-management, or on some form of participatory-economic planning.
Market socialism
is also critical of and contrasted with social democratic welfare
states. While one common goal of both systems is to achieve greater social and economic equality,
market socialism does so by changes in enterprise ownership and
management whereas social democracy attempts to do so by
government-imposed taxes and subsidies on privately owned enterprises to
finance welfare programs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt III and David Belkin criticize social democracy for maintaining a property-owning capitalist class
which has an active interest in reversing social democratic welfare
policies and a disproportionate amount of power as a class to influence
governmental policy.
Karl Marx famously critiqued the basic institutions of the welfare state in his Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League by warning against the programs advanced by liberal democrats. While Marx proclaimed that the communists had to support the bourgeoisie wherever it acted as a revolutionary, progressive class because "bourgeois liberties had first to be conquered and then criticised",
he specifically argued that measures designed to increase wages,
improve working conditions and provide welfare payments would be used to
dissuade the working class away from socialism and the revolutionary
consciousness he believed was necessary to achieve a socialist economy
and would therefore be a threat to genuine structural changes to
society by making the conditions of workers in capitalism more tolerable
through welfare schemes.
Eduard Bernstein, a reformistsocial democrat,
was skeptical of the welfare state and social welfare legislation.
While Bernstein viewed it as something helpful for the working class, he
feared that state aid to the poor might sanction a new form of pauperism.
Ultimately, Bernstein believed that any such policies should be of
secondary concern to the main social democratic concern of tackling
capitalism as the source of poverty and inequality.
The most extreme criticism of states and governments is made by anarchists, who advocate for the abolition of all social hierarchies, including the state. Despite the anti-state and anti-market views of social anarchism,
most anarchists ultimately advocate for the strengthening of the
welfare state, arguing that social safety nets are short-term goals for
the working class. According to Noam Chomsky,
"social democrats and anarchists always agreed, fairly generally, on
so-called 'welfare state measures'" and "[a]narchists propose other
measures to deal with these problems, without recourse to state
authority". Some anarchists believe in stopping welfare programs only if it means abolishing both government and capitalism.
In economics, a negative income tax (NIT)
is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for
incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level
pay money to the state while earners below it receive money, as shown by
the blue arrows in the diagram. NIT was proposed by Juliet Rhys-Williams while working on the Beveridge Report in the early 1940s and popularized by Milton Friedman
in the 1960s as a system in which the state makes payments to the poor
when their income falls below a threshold, while taxing them on income
above that threshold. Together with Friedman, supporters of NIT also
included James Tobin, Joseph A. Pechman, and Peter M. Mieszkowski, and even then-President Richard Nixon, who suggested implementation of modified NIT in his Family Assistance Plan.
After the increase in popularity of NIT, an experiment sponsored by the
US government was conducted between 1968 and 1982 on effects of NIT on
labour supply, income, and substitution effects.
Generic negative income tax
The view that the state should supplement the income of the poor has a long history (see UBI§History). Such payments are seen as benefits
if they are limited to those who lack other income, or are conditional
on specific needs (such as number of children), but are seen as negative
taxes if they continue to be received as a supplement by workers who
have income from other sources. The withdrawal of benefits when the
recipient ceases to satisfy a firm eligibility criterion is often seen
as giving rise to the welfare trap.
The level of support provided to the poor by a negative tax is
thought of as parametrically adjustable according to the opposing claims
of economic efficiency and distributional justice. Friedman's NIT lacks
this adjustability owing to the constraint that other benefits would be
largely discontinued; hence a wage subsidy is more representative of generic negative income tax than is Friedman's specific Negative Income Tax.
In 1975 the United States implemented a negative income tax for the working poor through the earned income tax credit.
A 1995 survey found that 78% of American economists supported (with or
without provisos) the incorporation of a negative income tax into the
welfare system.
Income redistribution expressed equivalently as a negative income tax or as a basic income
Theoretical discussion of negative taxation began with Vilfredo Pareto,
who first made a formal distinction between allocative efficiency (i.e.
the market's ability to give people what they want subject to their
incomes) and distributive justice (i.e. the question of whether these
incomes are fair in the first place). He sought to show that market
economies allocated resources optimally within the income distributions
they give rise to, but accepted that there was nothing optimal about
these distributions themselves. He concluded that if society wished to
maximise wellbeing, it should let market forces govern production and
exchange and then correct the result by 'a second distribution...
performed in conformity with the workings of free competition'.
His argument was that a direct transfer obtained a given redistributive
effect with the least possible reduction of economic efficiency, and
was preferable to government interference is the market (as happens in
modern economies through the minimum wage) which damages efficiency by introducing distortions.
Abram Bergson and Paul Samuelson (drawing on earlier work by Oscar Lange) gave a more formal statement to Pareto's claims.
They showed that the optimum of efficiency associated with market
competition fell short of maximum wellbeing as reflected by a social welfare function
only through distributional effects, and that a true optimum could be
obtained if the state were to transfer income through 'lump sum taxes or
bounties', where 'bounties' are negative taxes and 'lump sum' is
Samuelson's term for a hypothetical redistribution with no distortionary
consequences.
It follows from the Bergson/Samuelson analysis that any proposed
measure (including the proposal to leave things as they are) can be
assessed according to the balance it achieves between three factors: (i)
the improvement in overall well being from a more equitable
distribution; (ii) the loss in economic efficiency due to the
distortions introduced; and (iii) the administrative costs. The first of
these cannot easily be equated to a sum of money; the last is unlikely
to be a dominant factor. Hence redistribution should be pursued up to
the point at which any further (non-monetary) benefits from a more equal
distribution would be offset by the resulting monetary loss of economic
efficiency.
The Bergson/Samuelson theory was developed in a broadly utilitarian
framework. A fourth factor could be added in the form of a moral claim
derived from present ownership or legitimate earning. Considerable
weight was placed on this during the Enlightenment but Hume and the Utilitarians rejected it. It is seldom mentioned nowadays but cannot be dismissed a priori as a relevant consideration.
The theoretical study of the trade-off between equity and efficiency was initiated by James Mirrlees in 1971. Eytan Sheshinski summarised:
In various examples calculated by Mirrlees, the optimal
income-tax schedule appears to be approximately linear with a negative
tax at low incomes.
Friedman's NIT
Rose and Milton Friedman
"Negative Income Tax" became prominent in the United States as a result of advocacy by Milton and Rose Friedman, who first put forward a concrete proposal in 1962 in a brief section of their book Capitalism and Freedom. Their system is equivalent in its operation to most forms of Universal basic income (UBI) (qv., particularly the section Fundamental Principles for the equivalence).
In the aforementioned work, Friedman provides five benefits of
the negative income tax. Firstly, Friedman argues that it provides cash
which the individual sees as the best possible way of support. Secondly,
it targets poverty directly through income rather than through general
old-age benefits or farm programs. Thirdly, negative income tax could in
his opinion replace all supporting programs present at that time and
provide one universal program. Fourthly, in theory the cost of negative
income tax can be lower than the cost of existing programs mainly due to
lower administrative costs. Lastly, the program should not distort the
market in the way minimum wage laws or tariffs do.
Friedman envisioned the NIT followingly in an interview in 1968.
Considering family A of four with income $4000 and Family B of four with
income $2000. If the break-even income would be $3000, after filing the
tax report, family A would pay the tax on $1000 while family B would be
entitled to receive, assuming the 50% NIT rate, $500. Meaning half of
the difference between what they earn and the break-even income.
Therefore, a family with $0 income would be entitled to receive $1500 in
subsidy. Friedman argued NIT would not destroy the incentive to work,
as compared to guaranteed income programmes (GIP) with 100% tax rate. As
with the GIP workers lose $1 of subsidy for each $1 increase in wage.
In his 1966 "View from the Right" paper Milton Friedman remarked that his proposal...
has been greeted with considerable (though far from
unanimous) enthusiasm on the left and with considerable (though again
far from unanimous) hostility on the right. Yet, in my opinion, the
negative income tax is more compatible with the philosophy and aims of
the proponents of limited government and maximum individual freedom than
with the philosophy and aims of the proponents of the welfare state and
greater government control of the economy.
Friedman
also elaborated and provided two reasons for the hostility from the
right. Firstly, he mentions that the right is frightened due to the
introduction of a guaranteed minimum income
the poor would have a disincentive to improve their well-being.
Secondly, the right is not certain about the political outcomes of the
NIT, as there exist threats that there will be an upward pressure on the
break-even incomes among politicians.
The Friedmans together promoted the idea to a wider audience in 1980 in their book and television series Free to Choose. It has often been discussed (and endorsed) by economists but never fully implemented. Advantages claimed for it include:
The alleviation of poverty was mentioned in Capitalism and Freedom
where Friedman argued that in 1961 the US government spent around 33
billion on welfare payments e.g. old age assistance, social security
benefit payments, public housing, etc. excluding mainly veterans´
benefits and other allowances. Friedman recalculated the spending
between 57 million consumers in 1961 and came to the conclusion that it
would have financed 6000 dollars per consumer to the poorest 10% or 3000
dollars to the poorest 20%. Friedman also found out that a program
raising incomes of the poorest 20% to the lowest income of the rest
would cost the US government less that half of the amount spent in 1961.
The Friedmans' writings were influential for a period with the American political right, and in 1969 President Richard Nixon proposed a Family Assistance Program
which had points in common with UBI. Milton Friedman originally
supported Nixon's proposal but eventually testified against it on
account of its perverse labor incentive effects.
Friedman was mainly opposed to the idea that Nixon's program would be
combined with existing programs at that time, rather than replacing the
existing programs as Friedman originally proposed.
Meanwhile, support for negative income tax was increasing among the political left. Paul Samuelson argued in Newsweek
that it was an idea whose time had come, and more than 1,200 academic
economists signed a petition in support of it. Friedman withheld his
signature, possibly on the grounds that the petition didn't explicitly
describe the new measure as a replacement rather than a supplement to
existing programs.
As civic disorder diminished in the US, support for negative
income tax waned among the American right. Instead the doctrine came to
be particularly associated with the political left, generally under the
name "basic income" or derivatives. It received further impetus in
Europe with the founding of the Basic Income Earth Network
(BIEN) in 1986. Asked in 2000 how he viewed a basic income "compared to
the alternative of a negative income tax", Friedman replied that the
measures were not alternatives and that basic income was "simply another
way to introduce a negative income tax", giving a numerical example of
their equivalence.
Experiments on the effect of NIT on the labour supply
The
experiments on NIT have been conducted in the US between years 1968 and
1982 and the expenditures were 225 million recalculated for the 1984
value. The first results have been that the husbands reduced labour
supply by about the equivalent of two weeks of full-time employment. On
the other hand, Wives and single female heads reduced it by three weeks
and the youth reduced the labour supply by four weeks.
The experiments were conducted in the following states:
New Jersey (1968-1972), which was the first of the four
experiments, observing 1357 families for the period of 3 years testing
the guarantee levels from 0.5 to 1.25 of the poverty line and tax rates
from 0.3 to 0.7. Followed by rural Iowa and Carolina experiment
(1969-1973) involving 809 families for the period of 3 years testing
guarantee levels from 0.5 to 1.00 and tax rates from 0.3 to 0.7. Next
was Gary urban experiment lasting 3 years (1971-1974) observing 1780
families testing guarantee levels from 0.75 to 1.00 and tax rates from
0.4 to 0.6. The last experiment was the biggest one conducted in
Seattle-Denver (1971-1982) and containing three lengths of treatments
i.e.,3,5,10 years and testing guarantee levels from 0.95 to 1.40 and a
nonconstant tax rate. It has been concluded that the most relevant
sample size is from the Seattle-Denver experiment, and the experiment
should yield the most precise estimates. Importantly, the results may
vary not only due to sample sizes but also due to different design,
methods of analysis or operations.
Results of the individual experiments
The
individual results were districted into four categories: husbands,
wives, single female heads, the youth. Firstly, it was noted that there
is an unambiguous decrease in labour supply as a result of NIT and that
there exists a pattern among each of the groups. The results show that
husbands are the least responsive to NIT in terms of withdrawal from
labour force while the youth is the most responsive. Moreover, the
percentage responses are from 5-25% equalling 1–5 weeks of full-time
work. The employment rate ranges from 1 to 10% .
It is however important to note that while on one hand the youth was
the most responsive to NIT, on the other hand the decrease in labour
supply was equalled by increase in school attendance. Moreover, the
chances of completing school education also rose notably in New Jersey
by 5% and in Seattle-Denver by 11%.
Considering results from the Seattle-Denver experiment, it can be
shown that the two-parent families that received $2,700 decreased their
earnings by almost $1,800. Therefore, spending $2,700 on transfers to
two-parent families in Seattle-Denver increased their income by only
$900. This raised the question whether taxpayers would be willing to pay
$3 in order to increase the income of aforementioned families by $1.
Implications to the real world
An
attempt was made to synthesise the results and provide a nation-wide
estimate of the effects of NIT in the US using two plans, one with 75%
and the other with 100% guarantee and 50% and 70% tax rates. The
corresponding programmes would cost between 6.7 and 16.3 billions of
dollars, (-5.3) to 4.5 billions of dollars, 55.5 to 61.1 billions of
dollars and 15.4 to 25.7 billions of dollars (value expressed in 1985
dollars) respectively. These are net costs, meaning how much more would
the NIT cost relative to the welfare programmes in effect at the time.
For the latter two options, i.e. 100% guarantee with either 50% or 70%
tax rate, it would represent an increase in spending equal to 1.5
percent of the gross national product
(GNP) and 0.4-0.6 percent of GNP. The net increase could be financed by
increase in federal taxes from 2 to 4 percent. While the cost of
eliminating poverty seemed attainable, the issue of decreased earnings
and self-support among families remained prevalent.
Hence, the issues likely caused the decrease in interest in
implementation of NIT, as the work of donor is a bit higher than the
work of the recipient and can potentially lead to free riding which
would destroy the entire framework.
In 2013, eight million 5-cent coins (one per inhabitant) were dumped on the Bundesplatz, Bern to support the 2016 Swiss referendum for a basic income (which was rejected, 77%–23%).
Universal basic income (UBI) is a sociopolitical financial transfer concept in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a legally stipulated and equal financial grant paid by the government without a means test.
A basic income can be implemented nationally, regionally, or locally.
If the level is sufficient to meet a person's basic needs (i.e., at or
above the poverty line), it is sometimes called a full basic income; if it is less than that amount, it may be called a partial basic income. Some have labelled UBI as utopian due to its historical origin.
There are several welfare arrangements that can be viewed as
related to basic income. Many countries have something like a basic
income for children. Pension may be partly similar to basic income. There are also quasi-basic income systems, like Bolsa Familia
in Brazil, which is conditional and concentrated on the poor, or the
Thamarat Program in Sudan, which was introduced by the transitional
government to ease the effects of the economic crisis inherited from the
Bashir regime. The Alaska Permanent Fund is essentially a partial basic income, which averages $1,600 annually per resident (in 2019 currency). The negative income tax
(NIT) can be viewed as a basic income in which citizens receive less
and less money until this effect is reversed the more a person earns.
Several political discussions are related to the basic income debate, including those regarding automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and the future of the necessity of work. A key issue in these debates is whether automation and AI will significantly reduce the number of available jobs
and whether a basic income could help prevent or alleviate such
problems by allowing everyone to benefit from a society's wealth, as
well as whether a UBI could be a stepping stone to a resource-based or post-scarcity economy. The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted some countries to send direct payments to citizens.
In an early example, Trajan, emperor of Rome from 98–117 AD, personally gave 650 denarii (equivalent to perhaps US$260 in 2002) to all common Roman citizens who applied.
16th to 18th century
In his Utopia (1516), English statesman and philosopher Sir Thomas More depicts a society in which every person receives a guaranteed income. In this book, the UBI is proposed as an answer to the statement "No penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it’s their only way of getting food." as follow:
"instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it
would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of
livelihood, so that nobody’s under the frightful necessity of becoming
first a thief, and then a corpse."
Spanish scholar Johannes Ludovicus Vives
(1492–1540) proposed that the municipal government should be
responsible for securing a subsistence minimum to all its residents "not
on the grounds of justice but for the sake of a more effective exercise
of morally required charity." Vives also argued that to qualify for
poor relief, the recipient must "deserve the help he or she gets by
proving his or her willingness to work." In the late 18th century, English RadicalThomas Spence and English-born American philosopher Thomas Paine both had ideas in the same direction.
Paine authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution.
He is also the author of Agrarian Justice, published in 1797. In it, he
proposed concrete reforms to abolish poverty. In particular, he
proposed a universal social insurance system comprising old-age pensions
and disability support and universal stakeholder grants for young
adults, funded by a 10% inheritance tax focused on land.
Early 20th century
Around 1920, support for basic income started growing, primarily in England.
Bertrand Russell
(1872–1970) argued for a new social model that combined the advantages
of socialism and anarchism, and that basic income should be a vital
component in that new society.
Dennis and Mabel Milner, a Quaker married couple of the Labour
Party, published a short pamphlet entitled "Scheme for a State Bonus"
(1918) that argued for the "introduction of an income paid
unconditionally on a weekly basis to all citizens of the United
Kingdom." They considered it a moral right for everyone to have the
means to subsistence, and thus it should not be conditional on work or
willingness to work.
C. H. Douglas
was an engineer who became concerned that most British citizens could
not afford to buy the goods that were produced, despite the rising
productivity in British industry. His solution to this paradox was a new
social system he called social credit, a combination of monetary reform and basic income.
In 1944 and 1945, the Beveridge Committee, led by the British economist William Beveridge,
developed a proposal for a comprehensive new welfare system of social
insurance, means-tested benefits, and unconditional allowances for
children. Committee member Lady Rhys-Williams argued that the incomes
for adults should be more like a basic income. She was also the first to
develop the negative income tax model.
Her son Brandon Rhys Williams proposed a basic income to a
parliamentary committee in 1982, and soon after that in 1984, the Basic
Income Research Group, now the Citizen's Basic Income Trust, began to
conduct and disseminate research on basic income.
Late 20th century
In his 1964 State of the Union address, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced legislation to fight the "war on poverty".
Johnson believed in expanding the federal government's roles in
education and health care as poverty reduction strategies. In this
political climate the idea of a guaranteed income for every American
also took root. Notably, a document, signed by 1200 economists, called
for a guaranteed income for every American. Six ambitious basic income
experiments started up on the related concept of negative income tax.
Succeeding President Richard Nixon explained its purpose as "to provide both a safety net for the poor and a financial incentive for welfare recipients to work." Congress eventually approved a guaranteed minimum income for the elderly and the disabled.
In the mid-1970s the main competitor to basic income and negative income tax, the Earned income tax credit
(EITC), or its advocates, won over enough legislators for the US
Congress to pass laws on that policy. In 1986, the Basic Income European
Network, later renamed to Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), was founded, with academic conferences every second year. Other advocates included the green political movement, as well as activists and some groups of unemployed people.
In the latter part of the 20th century, discussions were held
around automatization and jobless growth, the possibility of combining
economic growth with ecological sustainable development, and how to
reform the welfare state bureaucracy. Basic income was interwoven in
these and many other debates. During the BIEN academic conferences there
were papers about basic income from a wide variety of perspectives,
including economics, sociology, and human right approaches.
21st century
In recent years the idea has come to the forefront more than before. The Swiss referendum about basic income in Switzerland 2016 was covered in media worldwide, despite its rejection. Famous business people like Elon Musk and Andrew Yang have lent their support, as have high-profile politicians like Jeremy Corbyn. (For a list of popular supporters and proponents of UBI, see List of advocates of basic income.)
In the US Democratic Party primaries, a newcomer, Andrew Yang, touted basic income as his core policy. His policy, referred to as a "Freedom Dividend", would have provided American citizens US$1000 a month.
Response to COVID-19
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic impact, basic income and similar proposals such as helicopter money and cash transfers were increasingly discussed across the world.
Most countries have implemented forms of partial unemployment schemes,
which effectively subsidized workers' incomes without work requirement.
Some countries like the United States, Spain, Hong Kong and Japan
introduced direct cash transfers to citizens.
In Europe, a petition calling for an "emergency basic income" gathered more than 200,000 signatures, and polls suggested widespread support in public opinion for it.
Unlike the various stimulus packages of the US administration, the EU's
stimulus plans did not include any form of income-support policies.
Two
ways of looking at basic income when combined with a flat income tax,
both of which result in the same net income (orange line). 1. (red)
stipend with conventional tax for income above the stipend. 2. (blue)
Negative tax for low-income people and conventional tax for high-income
people.
The diagram shows a basic income/negative tax system combined with flat income tax (the same percentage in tax for every income level).
Y is here the pre-tax salary given by the employer and y' is the net income.
Negative income tax
For low earnings there is no income tax in the negative income
tax system. They receive money, in the form of a negative income tax,
but they don't pay any tax. Then, as their labour income increases, this
benefit, this money from the state, gradually decreases. That decrease
is to be seen as a mechanism for the poor, instead of the poor paying
tax.
Basic income
That is however not the case in the corresponding basic income
system in the diagram. There everyone typically pays income taxes. But
on the other hand everyone also gets the same amount in basic income.
But the net income is the same
But, as the orange line in the diagram shows, the net income is
anyway the same. No matter how much or how little one earns, the amount
of money one gets in one's pocket is the same, regardless of which of
these two systems is used.
Basic income and negative income tax are generally seen to be similar in economic net effects, but there are some differences:
Psychological. Philip Harvey accepts that "both systems
would have the same redistributive effect and tax earned income at the
same marginal rate" but does not agree that "the two systems would be
perceived by taxpayers as costing the same".
Tax profile. Tony Atkinson made a distinction based on whether the tax profile was flat (for basic income) or variable (for NIT).
Timing. Philippe Van Parijs
states that "the economic equivalence between the two programs should
not hide that the fact that they have different effects on recipients
because of the different timing of payments: ex-ante in Basic Income, ex-post in Negative Income Tax".
There is a prevailing opinion that we are in an era of technological
unemployment – that technology is increasingly making skilled workers
obsolete.
Prof. Mark MacCarthy (2014)
One central rationale for basic income is the belief that automation and robotisation could lead to a world with fewer paid jobs. U.S. presidential candidate and nonprofit founder Andrew Yang has stated that automation caused the loss of 4 million manufacturing jobs and advocated for a UBI (which he calls a Freedom Dividend) of $1,000/month rather than worker retraining programs. Yang has stated that he is heavily influenced by Martin Ford.
Ford, in his turn, believes that the emerging technologies will fail to
deliver a lot of employment; on the contrary, because the new
industries will "rarely, if ever, be highly labor-intensive".
Similar ideas have been debated many times before in history—that "the
machines will take the jobs"—so the argument is not new. But what is
quite new is the existence of several academic studies that do indeed
forecast a future with substantially less employment, in the decades to
come. Additionally, President Barack Obama
has stated that he believes that the growth of artificial intelligence
will lead to increased discussion around the idea of "unconditional free
money for everyone".
Basic income and economics
Some proponents of UBI have argued that basic income could increase economic growth because it would sustain people while they invest in education to get higher-skilled and well-paid jobs. However, there is also a discussion of basic income within the degrowth movement, which argues against economic growth.
The cost of basic income is one of the biggest questions in the
public debate as well as in the research. But the cost depends on many
things. It first and foremost depends on the level of the basic income
as such, and it also depends on many technical points regarding exactly
how it is constructed. According to Karl Widerquist it also depends
heavily on what one means with the concept of "cost".
Basic income and work
Many
critics of basic income argue that people in general will work less,
which in turn means less tax revenue and less money for the state and
local governments.
Although it is difficult to know for sure what will happen if a whole
country introduces basic income, there are nevertheless some studies who
have attempted to look at this question.
In negative income tax experiments in the United States in the
1970 there was a five percent decline in the hours worked. The work
reduction was largest for second earners in two-earner households and
weakest for primary earners. The reduction in hours was higher when the
benefit was higher.
In the Mincome
experiment in rural Dauphin, Manitoba, also in the 1970s, there were
slight reductions in hours worked during the experiment. However, the
only two groups who worked significantly less were new mothers, and
teenagers working to support their families. New mothers spent this time
with their infant children, and working teenagers put significant
additional time into their schooling.
A study from 2017 showed no evidence that people worked less because of the Iranian subsidy reform (a basic income-reform).
Regarding the question of basic income vs jobs there is also the
aspect of so-called welfare traps. Proponents of basic income often
argue that with a basic income, unattractive jobs would necessarily have
to be better paid and their working conditions improved, so that people
still do them without need, reducing these traps.
Philosophy and morality
By
definition, universal basic income does not make a distinction between
"deserving" and "undeserving" individuals when making payments.
Opponents argue that this lack of discrimination is unfair: "Those who
genuinely choose idleness or unproductive activities cannot expect those
who have committed to doing productive work to subsidize their
livelihood. Responsibility is central to fairness." Proponents argue that this lack of discrimination is a way to reduce social stigma.
Basic income, health and poverty
The
first comprehensive systematic review of the health impact of basic
income (or rather unconditional cash transfers in general) in low- and
middle-income countries, a study which included 21 studies of which 16
were randomized controlled trials, found a clinically meaningful
reduction in the likelihood of being sick by an estimated 27%.
Unconditional cash transfers, according to the study, may also improve
food security and dietary diversity. Children in recipient families are
also more likely to attend school and the cash transfers may increase
money spent on health care.
The Canadian Medical Association passed a motion in 2015 in clear support of basic income and for basic income trials in Canada.
Milton Friedman,
world famous economist, supported UBI by reasoning that it would help
to reduce poverty. He said: "The virtue of [a negative income tax] is
precisely that it treats everyone the same way. [...] [T]here's none of
this unfortunate discrimination among people."
Eric Maskin has stated that "a minimum income makes sense, but not at the cost of eliminating Social Security and Medicare".
Ailsa McKay, a Scottish economist, has argued that basic income is a way to promote gender equality.
She has specifically argued that "social policy reform should take
account of all gender inequalities and not just those relating to the
traditional labor market" and that "the citizens' basic income model can
be a tool for promoting gender-neutral social citizenship rights".
Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at the City University of New York, has stated that he sees basic income as a sophisticated way for corporations to get richer at the expense of public money.
Bertrand Russell
argued for a basic income alongside public ownership as a means of
shortening the average working day and achieving full employment.
Guy Standing has proposed financing a social dividend from a democratically accountable sovereign wealth fund
built up primarily from the proceeds of a tax on rentier income derived
from ownership or control of assets—physical, financial, and
intellectual. Standing also generally argues that basic income would be a much simpler and more transparent welfare system.
Other academics
André Gorz,
a French sociologist, saw basic income as a necessary adaptation to the
increasing automation of work, yet basic income also enables workers to
overcome alienation in work and life and to increase their amount of leisure time.
Stephen Hawking, an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author supported universal basic income during his life.
Philippe Van Parijs, a Belgian philosopher, has argued that basic income at the highest sustainable level is needed to support real freedom, or the freedom to do whatever one "might want to do".
Frances Fox Piven
argues that an income guarantee would benefit all workers by liberating
them from the anxiety that results from the "tyranny of wage slavery" and provide opportunities for people to pursue different occupations and develop untapped potentials for creativity.
Harry Shutt proposed basic income and other measures to make most or
all businesses collective rather than private. These measures would
create a post-capitalist economic system.
Karl Widerquist and others have proposed a theory of freedom in which basic income is needed to protect the power to refuse work.
Erik Olin Wright argues that basic income will empower labor by giving the workers greater bargaining power.
Alternative proposals
Anthony Atkinson proposed "minimum inheritance" or capital endowment to all adults to reduce inequality.
Julian Le Grand proposed a form of "universal basic capital", inspired by Thomas Paine, and recommended a fixed grant for every 18-year-old in the UK.
Darrick Hamilton and Sandy Darity
proposed "baby bonds" where every newborn was endowed with an
investment account whose size is inversely proportional to the child's
family wealth.
Prateek Raj proposed "universal basic wealth" such that all citizens
had "ownership over some substantial property or wealth" like a basic
house or apartment, and were not dependent on recurring government
benefits.
Yanis Varoufakis
proposed universal basic income to be funded not from taxation, but
from returns on capital where "a percentage of capital stock (shares)
from every initial public offering (IPO) be channeled into a Commons
Capital Depository, with the associated dividends funding a universal
basic dividend (UBD)."
Omitara, one of the two poor villages in Namibia where a local basic income was tested in 2008–2009
Since the 1960s, but in particular since 2010, several pilot programs
and experiments on basic income have been conducted. Some examples
include:
1960s−1970s
Experiments with negative income tax in United States and Canada in the 1960s and 1970s.
The province of Manitoba, Canada experimented with Mincome, a basic guaranteed income, in the 1970s. In the town of Dauphin, Manitoba, labor only decreased by 13%, much less than expected.
2000−2009
The basic income grant in Namibia, launched in 2008 and ended in 2009.
An independent pilot implemented in São Paulo, Brazil launched in 2009.
2010−2019
Basic income trials run in 2011-2012 in several villages in India, whose government has proposed a guaranteed basic income for all citizens. It was found that basic income in the region raised the education rate of young people by 25%.
Iran
introduced a national basic income program in autumn 2010. It is paid to
all citizens and replaces the gasoline subsidies, electricity and some
food products,
that the country applied for years to reduce inequalities and poverty.
The sum corresponded in 2012 to approximately US$40 per person per
month, US$480 per year for a single person and US$2,300 for a family of
five people.
In Spain, the ingreso mínimo vital, the income guarantee system, is an economic benefit guaranteed by the social security in Spain, but in 2016 was considered in need of reform.
In South Korea the Youth Allowance Program was started in 2016 in the City of Seongnam, which would give every 24-year-old citizen 250,000 won
(~215 USD) every quarter in the form of a “local currency” that could
only be used in local businesses. This program was later expanded to the
entire Province of Gyeonggi in 2018.
The GiveDirectly experiment in a disadvantaged village of Nairobi, Kenya, the longest-running basic income pilot as of November 2017, which is set to run for 12 years.
A project called Eight in a village in Fort Portal,
Uganda, that a nonprofit organization launched in January 2017, which
provides income for 56 adults and 88 children through mobile money.
A two-year pilot the Finnish government began in January 2017 which involved 2,000 subjects In April 2018, the Finnish government rejected a request for funds to extend and expand the program from Kela (Finland's social security agency).
An experiment in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands, launched in early 2017, that is testing different rates of aid.
A three-year basic income pilot that the Ontario provincial government, Canada, launched in the cities of Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay in July 2017.
Although called basic income, it was only made available to those with a
low income and funding would be removed if they obtained employment,
making it more related to the current welfare system than true basic
income. The pilot project was canceled on 31 July 2018 by the newly
elected Progressive Conservative government under Ontario PremierDoug Ford.
In Israel,
in 2018 a non-profit initiative GoodDollar started with an objective to
build a global economic framework for providing universal, sustainable
and scalable basic income through new digital asset technology of
blockchain. The non-profit aims to launch a peer-to-peer money transfer
network in which money can be distributed to those most in need,
regardless of their location, based on the principles of UBI. The
project raised US$1 million from eToro.
The Rythu Bandhu scheme is a welfare scheme started in the state of Telangana, India, in May 2018, aimed at helping farmers. Each farm owner receives 4,000 INR per acre twice a year for rabi and kharif
harvests. To finance the program a budget allocation of 120 billion INR
(US$1.6 million as of June 2020) was made in the 2018–2019 state
budget.
2020−present
Swiss non-profit Social Income started paying out basic incomes in the form of mobile money in 2020 to people in need in Sierra Leone. Contributions finance the international initiative from people worldwide, who donate 1% of their monthly paychecks.
In May 2020 Spain
introduced minimum basic income, reaching about 2% of the population,
in response to COVID-19 in order to "fight a spike in poverty due to the
coronavirus pandemic". It is expected to cost state coffers three
billion euros ($3.5 billion) a year."
In August 2020, a project in Germany started that gives a 1,200 Euros monthly basic income in a lottery system to citizens who apply online. The crowdsourced project will last three years and be compared against 1,380 people who do not receive basic income.
In October 2020, HudsonUP was launched in Hudson, New York, by The Spark of Hudson and Humanity Forward Foundation
to give $500 monthly basic income to 25 residents. It will last five
years and be compared against 50 people who are not receiving basic
income.
In May 2021 the government of Wales, which has devolved powers in matters of Social Welfare within the UK,
announced the trialling of a universal basic income scheme to "see
whether the promises that basic income holds out are genuinely
delivered".
Examples of payments with similarities
Alaska Permanent Fund
The Permanent Fund of Alaska
in the United States provides a kind of yearly basic income based on
the oil and gas revenues of the state to nearly all state residents.
More precisely the fund resembles a sovereign wealth fund, investing resource revenues into bonds, stocks,
and other conservative investment options with the intent to generate
renewable revenue for future generations. The fund has had a noticeable
yet diminishing effect on reducing poverty among rural Alaska Indigenous
people, notably in the elderly population.
However, the payment is not high enough to cover basic expenses (it has
never exceeded $2,100) and is not a fixed, guaranteed amount. For these
reasons, it is not considered a basic income.
Macau
Macau's Wealth Partaking Scheme
provides some annual basic income to permanent residents, funded by
revenues from the city's casinos. However, the amount disbursed is not
sufficient to cover basic living expenses, so it is not considered a
basic income.
Bolsa Familia
Bolsa Família
is a large social welfare program in Brazil that provides money to many
low-income families in the country. The system is related to basic
income, but has more conditions, like asking the recipients to keep
their children in school until graduation. As of March 2020, the program
covers 13.8 million families, and pays an average of $34 per month, in a
country where the minimum wage is $190 per month.
Other similar welfare programs
Pension:
A payment which in some countries is guaranteed to all citizens above a
certain age. The difference from true basic income is that it is
restricted to people over a certain age.
Child benefit: A program similar to pensions but restricted to parents of children, usually allocated based on the number of children.
Conditional cash transfer:
A regular payment given to families, but only to the poor. It is
usually dependent on basic conditions such as sending their children to
school or having them vaccinated. Programs include Bolsa Família in Brazil and Programa Prospera in Mexico.
Full and partial basic income: When the level of the basic income is
high enough for people to live purely from that income, it is sometimes
referred to as a "full basic income". If not, it is often referred to
as a "partial basic income". No country has yet introduced either to all its citizens.
Petitions, polls and referenda
2008: An official petition for basic income was launched in Germany by Susanne Wiest.
The petition was accepted, and Susanne Wiest was invited for a hearing
at the German parliament's Commission of Petitions. After the hearing,
the petition was closed as "unrealizable."
2013–2014: A European Citizens' Initiative collected 280,000 signatures demanding that the European Commission study the concept of an unconditional basic income.
2015: A citizen's initiative in Spain received 185,000 signatures,
short of the required number to mandate that the Spanish parliament
discuss the proposal.
2016: The world's first universal basic income referendum in Switzerland on 5 June 2016 was rejected with a 76.9% majority. Also in 2016, a poll showed that 58% of the EU's population is aware of basic income, and 65% would vote in favour of the idea.
2017: Politico/Morning Consult asked 1,994 Americans about
their opinions on several political issues including national basic
income; 43% either "strongly supported" or "somewhat supported" the
idea.
2018: The results of a poll by Gallup conducted last year between September and October were published. 48% of respondents supported universal basic income.
2019: In November, an Austrian initiative received approximately
70,000 signatures but failed to reach the 100,000 signatures needed for a
parliamentary discussion. The initiative was started by Peter Hofer.
His proposal suggested a basic income of €1,200 for every Austrian citizen.
2020: A study by Oxford University found that 71% of Europeans are
now in favour of basic income. The study was conducted in March, with
12,000 respondents and in 27 EU-member states and the UK. A YouGov-poll likewise found a majority for universal basic income in United Kingdom and a poll by University of Chicago found that 51% of Americans aged 18–36 support a monthly basic income of $1,000. In the UK there was also a letter, signed by over 170 MPs and Lords from multiple political parties, calling on the government to introduce a universal basic income during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020: A Pew Research Center Survey, conducted online in August 2020,
of 11,000 U.S. adults found that a majority (54%) oppose the federal
government providing a guaranteed income of $1,000 per month to all
adults, while 45% support it.
2020: In a poll by Hill-HarrisX, 55% of Americans voted in favour of UBI in August, up from 49% in September 2019 and 43% in February 2019.
2020: The results of an online survey of 2,031 participants
conducted in 2018 in Germany were published: 51% were either "very much
in favor" or "in favor" of UBI being introduced.
2021: A Change.org
petition calling for monthly stimulus checks in the amount of $2,000
per adult and $1,000 per child for the remainder of the COVID-19
pandemic had received almost 3 million signatures.
The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future is a 2018 book written by Andrew Yang, an American entrepreneur and Venture for America founder, who would later run as a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate on policy strategies discussed in the book. It was published by Hachette Books in the United States on April 3, 2018. A paperback edition was released on April 2, 2019. Yang narrated an audiobook version released on YouTube in September 2018.
Focusing on domestic issues, the book discusses technological change, automation, job displacement, the U.S. economy, and what Yang describes as the need for a universal basic income
(UBI). Yang argues that "as technology continues to make many jobs
obsolete, the government must take concrete steps to ensure economic
stability for residents of the United States," including the provision
of a UBI, which is one of three central policies of Yang's 2020 presidential campaign.
The book was published by Hachette Books in the United States on April 3, 2018. A paperback edition was released on April 2, 2019.
Synopsis
In
the book, Yang discusses job displacement and the shrinking of local
economies, terming it the "Great Displacement", which has been "the
product of financialization, globalization, and technologization". He predicts that automation will eliminate millions of jobs,
including white-collar jobs, such as attorneys specializing in document
review and medical positions, as "computers have proven to be quite
adept at reading and diagnosing radiology scans".
Yang draws a distinction between "normal people" and technologically
inclined people, noting that "the average starting salary in Silicon Valley for engineers is nearing $200,000, a draw that has led to a decline in humanities enrollments and boost in technical degrees". He predicts that automation will make "normal people" redundant, and that increasing unemployment can lead to violent protests.
Yang provides a "rebuttal to more optimistic thinkers, such as Thomas Friedman, who believe that Americans can be transformed into lifelong learners". According to Yang, 49% of American workers fall into one of the five most common jobs in the U.S. economy:
administrative and clerical work, including call center workers; retail
and cashiers; food service and food prep; truck drivers and
transportation; and manufacturing workers.
Yang supports a universal basic income (UBI) of $1000 a month for every U.S. citizen, "paid for by a 10% value-added tax on all goods and services". He calls it the "Freedom Dividend" and claims that it "would replace the vast majority of existing welfare programs."
Yang states that it would "eliminate poverty for the 41 million
Americans now living below the poverty line" and "would also improve the
bargaining power of millions of low-wage workers—forcing employers to
increase wages, add benefits and improve conditions in order to retain
them". He cites civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., former U.S. president Richard Nixon, and economist Milton Friedman as early supporters of a UBI.
He argues that UBI will "enable people to more effectively transition
from shrinking industries and environments to new ones" and be "perhaps
the greatest catalyst to human creativity we have ever seen".
In addition to UBI, Yang calls for a new stage of capitalism
called "human-centric capitalism", which incorporates "goals and
measurements like childhood success rate, mental health, levels of
engagement with work, [and] freedom from substance abuse." He argues that "GDP will be an increasingly misleading and flawed measurement over time, as more and more work is done by software, AI, and machines."
He suggests that a UBI would spur a "social credit" system of bartering
goods and services, as well as reform the higher education system to
"teach and demonstrate some values".
Significance
The
topics discussed in the book, including technological change,
automation, job displacement, the U.S. economy, and what Yang describes
as the need for a UBI, were central to Yang's 2020 presidential campaign.
Yang argued that "as technology continues to make many jobs obsolete,
the government must take concrete steps to ensure economic stability for
residents of the United States," including the provision of a UBI,
which was one of three central policies of his 2020 campaign.
Reception
Yang has discussed the book and its contents in numerous interviews, including Merion West, Recode Decode with Kara Swisher, and The Ben Shapiro Show. The book, as well as Yang's views and solutions, have received generally positive reviews.
Author and businesswoman Arianna Huffington
gave the book a positive review, calling it "both a clear-eyed look at
the depths of our social and economic problems and an innovative roadmap
toward a better future." Major Garrett of CBS News found the book "fascinating and troubling". Entrepreneur Daymond John
called the book "a must read", writing that Yang "sees the big picture"
and that "every entrepreneur should read this book to understand the
challenges of the next decade". Author Alec Ross
wrote: "In this powerful book, Andrew Yang highlights the urgent need
to rewrite America's social contract. In a call to arms that comes from
both head and heart, Yang has made an important contribution to the
debate about where America is headed and what we need to do about it."
In 2019, CNBC editor-at-large John Harwood ranked the book among his top five political books, calling it "another take on the forces fraying America's middle class. [Yang] draws our attention to eye-popping data points about where our economy is heading." Kirkus Reviews called the book "a sobering portrait of a crumbling polity" and "a provocative work of social criticism". Writing for The New York Times, American economist Robert Reich reviewed both Yang's book and Annie Lowrey's Give People Money, calling them "useful primers on the case for a [UBI]". Reich felt that "some form of [UBI] seems inevitable". Emily Witt of The New Yorker saw "Yang's arguments for his policies [as] empirical rather than sentimental." Felix Haas of World Literature Today
commented that "following the challenges Yang discusses [might feel
like] getting punched in the face repeatedly", but "Yang equally manages
to convey an incredible sense of community."
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Harvard economics professor Edward Glaeser
said that while he shares "Yang's worries about the future of work", he
disagrees with Yang's UBI proposal, stating that a "future in which
two-thirds of America lives off UBI is a true horror". Andy Kroll of Rolling Stone
wrote that Yang's book "lays out his views in greater detail but raises
as many questions as it answers", and that it "places him firmly in the
camp of those who believe economic anxiety played a decisive role in
Trump's election and the rise of white nationalism".
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