Dear UBI Friends and Supporters,
We hope our email meets you well.
Would you like to join us for a start-of-2025 in-person UBI Lab Leeds meeting?
We will have a UBI Lab Leeds discussion and social gathering on Tuesday, 7th January, starting at 6.00 PM (18.00hrs) at the Arcadia pub (34 Arndale Centre, Headingley, Leeds LS6 2UE) (https://theeuropeanbarguide.com/arcadia-leeds/ ).
Our topics for discussion:
- Are Municipal Basic Income Pilots a good idea and why?
- Updates on development of an online UBI game
- Any other topic: What are your burning questions about UBI?
You are welcome to bring along friends!
We hope to see you on 7th January, 18.00hrs at the Arcadia.
Please find below some updates about UBI publications and events.
- Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland – What have we learned after 26 months?
In case you have missed the fifth event in December and want to watch the recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72zWG29e8D4
2. The former Irish Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has written an opinion piece in the Guardian about the recent Irish election ‘I regret none of the climate policies we pushed in Ireland. But we underestimated the backlash – From rural buses to solar panels, our Green agenda has been transformative. Yet, vested interests and big polluters helped to poison the well of public thinking’ He mentions the Basic Income scheme for artists.
3. Rethinking Wealth: Universal Basic Income for a sustainable future
You can find the presentation of UBI Lab Leeds for this event with Sheffield Humanists and Skeptics here.
4. Philosophical Reflections on the Idea of a Universal Basic Income
You may want to read this article as a good starter into the New Year. The author Catherine Rowett states ‘…the idea [UBI] raises many interesting philosophical questions, about fairness, entitlement, desert, stigma and sanctions, the value of unpaid work, the proper ambitions of a good society, and our preconceptions about whether leisure (time for recreation and free creativity) or jobs (working to give the proceeds of our labour and the luxury of free time to someone else) are the thing we should prize above all for free citizens…. The fact is that, so far from being unable to afford this Universal Basic Income system, it is pretty clear that the lack of it is the source of many of our costs, and of the uncosted problems that are destroying the planet and leading us to exhaust the entire resources of the planet. In reality we cannot afford not to change the model of what is costly and what is the affordable solution…. Meanwhile it would terminate the employment of a huge army of bureaucrats whose current task is to assess whether the poor have reached a sufficiently dire level of poverty to be worth saving.’ You can read the full article here.
5. UBIE (Unconditional Basic Income Europe) has planned to advocate Mayors for Basic Income in Europe. You may want to study the presentation of Jurgen De Wispelaere and Fabienne Hansen ‘Making (Municipal) Pilots happen’ based on the experience of the Basic Income programme of the city of Maricá in Brazil.
6. You may be interested in a recent academic paper about ‘Ethical research in cash-transfer programs’ (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09614524.2024.2428298 ) by Vibhor Mathur from the University of Bath. It discusses the challenges of power and positionality, informed consent, and respect and sensitivity that arise when researching cash-transfer projects including Basic Income. The power imbalance between researchers and participants is reinforced through the cash intervention.
7. A group of UK academics brought together citizen engagement groups in Jarrow, South Tyneside, in the northeast of England to explore local people’s expectations and positions on the development of UBI policies and pilots prior to their implementation. They found that people’s expectations regarding the potential beneficial health impacts of UBI on their communities corresponded clearly with academically predicted impact pathways. You can download and read the full article ‘Prospective Health Impacts of a Universal Basic Income: Evidence from Community Engagement in South Tyneside, United Kingdom’(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/27551938241265928 )
8. You may be interested in another research article ‘From theory to practice: Designing a European basic income’ ( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pop4.415 ). The authors state that a European Basic Income (EBI) can be financed sustainably and equitably without reducing existing tax revenues based on their microsimulation analysis. The proposed EBI will be financed through a reform of the personal income tax and the introduction of common European wealth and greenhouse gas emissions taxes and will ensure the material existence of all Europeans and foster a more egalitarian European Union through its redistributive effects. Unfortunately the complete article is behind a pay barrier, but one of the authors may be able to advise < jbollain@mondragon.edu>
9. The authors of ‘Basic income in crisis? (Hard) lessons from the pandemic’ (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1758-5899.13461 ) argue that we can learn from the political debate around and policy experimentation with (emergency) basic income schemes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the pandemic crisis initially seems to have opened up a policy window for introducing a basic income as a crisis instrument, theoretical arguments and empirical observations strongly suggest the reliance of some basic income advocates on crisis events, such as the pandemic, to push forward their policy ideas involves wishful thinking rather than political reality. A feasible roadmap towards introducing basic income requires the hard work of raising public awareness, constructing broad constituencies, and building robust political coalitions rather than waiting for the next crisis to come around the corner
10. A UBI team from University of Bath has produced the documentary ‘Unconditional’ (32 min) The film explores UBI pilot programs in India and Bangladesh, revealing the profound impact of financial stability in communities facing extreme poverty. The two ‘Basic Income Plus’ experiments began in 2022, providing 7,500 residents of six urban slums with a monthly Basic Income for 18 months that increased average household incomes by 25%. You can watch the documentary here.
11. How’s the income pilot going in Wales?David Westlake and Zoe Bezeczky provide a brief reflection on the early findings from the Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales evaluation.
12. Community Justiceis a US organization for economic justice based in Florida that aims to disrupt the cycle of poverty and incarceration. Community Justice runs a guaranteed income (GI) program offering unrestricted cash assistance to people returning to the community with a felony record. The program runs annually, with participants receiving $800/month for a year. A rigorous evaluation tries to demonstrate the impact and showcase the broader potential of GI. At the moment they have launched the third cohort of their Just Income program to break the cycle of poverty and incarceration. The program offers GI to support reintegration and economic stability of released prisoners.
13. If you are interested in the various Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) pilots in the USA, you can use the Community GBI pilot tracker which covers (at the moment) 163 pilots.
14. The results of a Guaranteed Income pilot in Tacoma (Washington, USA) have been published in Growing Resilience In Tacoma (GRIT).
15. OXFAM America has published ‘Guaranteed Income: Securing the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living’. A guaranteed income can dramatically reduce poverty and inequality, advance gender and racial justice, and support workers. By providing direct cash assistance without onerous conditions or eligibility requirements, it can help create a more equitable future. Oxfam America recognizes the human right to an adequate standard of living. To fulfil this right and address inequality, policymakers should support local guaranteed income initiatives and work toward a federal income guarantee. By providing unconditional cash transfers, a guaranteed income would represent a sharp break from the punitive, highly conditional, and inadequate safety net programs that allow poverty and extreme inequality to persist. It can break down the structural barriers that perpetuate racial and gender disparities and help create a more just economy.
16. You may be interested in a Simulation Game about Human Rights of the organisation Just Fair which includes the introduction of a Universal Basic Income: ‘Human Rights: Not a Game’
17. Do you think that AI may take our jobs and therefore we need a UBI? You may want to read the online article ‘After work: If AI takes all our jobs, what’s next for humanity? – Robots are coming for our careers, and Gen Z is calling it quits on the 9-to-5 – but what does a future without work actually look like?’ Unfortunately the article does not clearly differentiate between labour, job and work. Moreover the author Thom Waite refers to academic James Smith that the connection between community and work has been “coded into” our economic models dating back to ancient civilisation. Clearly Guy Standing’s most recent book ‘The politics of time’ has corrected this misleading myth which is so convenient for our corporations and politicians: ‘The ancient Greeks organised time into five categories: work, labour, recreation, leisure and contemplation. Labour was onerous, whereas leisure was schole, and included participation in public life and lifelong education. Since the industrial revolution, our time has been shaped by capitalism, our jobs are supposed to provide all meaning in life, our time outside labour is considered simply ‘time off’, and politicians prioritise jobs above all other aspects of a good life.’
18. Basic Income for Farmers (BI4Farmers) has published short pieces of this year’s events on Instagram: WHAT A YEAR FOR BASIC INCOME FOR FARMERS!
19. Basic Income in Malaysia: You can find out more about a 7-page infographic and responses in the Malaysian media here.
20. In October 2024 the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) released its position paper in support of direct monetary transfers for development outcomes. This may change the position of other international development agencies to support cash transfers in development assistance.
21. Canada’s National Advisory Council on Poverty recommended in chapter 5 Recommendations of its annual report that Canada implements a basic income. Quote: “The Council proposes that the federal government should work across governments to introduce a basic income floor, indexed to the cost of living, that would provide adequate resources (above Canada’s Official Poverty Line) for people to be able to meet their basic needs, thrive and make choices with dignity.”
22. A press release summarizes the first evaluation results of the Basic Income program in the city of Maricá in Brazil. The Renda Básica de Cidadania (RBC, or Citizens’ Basic Income), is one of the largest cash transfer programs in existence.
23. Have you got experience with fundraising? The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) is seeking a consultant to develop a comprehensive overview of the global fundraising ecosystem as part of our strategy to ensure financial sustainability in 2025. The deadline for application is 17 January 2025 and you can find out more here.
24. The Basic Income in Belgium (BABEL) Closing Event, happening online on January 24, from 11:00 AM to 1.30 PM (UK). The BABEL project is a comprehensive research initiative examining Basic Income proposals in Belgium. The researchers will present their key findings at an online event. You can register here and read the agenda.
25. UBI Lab Network is proposing online working groups in four key areas: Fundraising, Alliance Building, Storytelling, Running the Network. If you are interested and considering to join one of the groups in 2025, you can find out more and register here.
UBI Lab Leeds wishes you a peaceful Christmas period and happiness and health for the year 2025.
AND
We hope to see some of you on 7th January, 18.00hrs at the Arcadia.
In solidarity and
best wishes
reinhard on behalf of UBI Lab Leeds