Dear UBI Friends and Supporters,
We hope our March update meets you well.
- Would you like to join us for the next in-person UBI Lab Leeds meeting?
We will have a UBI Lab Leeds discussion and social gathering on Tuesday, 1st April, starting at 6.00 PM (18.00hrs) at the HEART (Headingley enterprise and arts centre) not the Arcadia pub. (HEART, Bennett Road, Leeds LS6 3HN) (https://heartcentre.org.uk/).
Our member Bill Shutt will summarize and analyse the book ‘Unconditional Freedom – Universal Basic Income and Social Power’ by David Casassas. The book has first been published in Spanish in 2018 and in 2024 Pluto Press published an English version (https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745348636/unconditional-freedom/ ).
Reinhard will give some updates about the Manchester BI pilot proposal which we discussed during our last meeting.
If there is sufficient time we may also discuss the February briefing ‘Basic Income and Regrowth’ for MPs in a committee room of the House of Commons. You can read a summary of the briefing , find images from the session here and see the presentations from the briefing here.
You are welcome to bring along friends!
2. Wales
The Welsh BI pilot for young care leavers will continue until the summer of 2025 and the evaluation will be published in a series of reports between now and 2027. At the moment you can read several new documents about the BI study:
CASCADE (Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre) is responsible for the Welsh Basic Income Evaluation
A midpoint report as short presentation: Findings of the research about the Basic Income
for Care Leavers in Wales Pilot.
Basic income for care leavers in Wales pilot evaluation: second annual report, 2024 to 2025
A summary of the annual report.
3. The Care Society Cymru (Wales) has published ‘Wales’ hidden war: the Long Covid crisis demands a national response‘. The proposal includes a Universal Basic Income (UBI) for the Chronically Ill and is inspired by Wales’ UBI pilot for care leavers. The petitioners propose extending this to Long Covid sufferers, ensuring financial security without the obstacles of means-testing or punitive work assessments.
4. Our UBI Lab Wales member Jonathan Williams has published in Bylines Cymru ‘Universal basic income for a just transition – Universal basic income has arguably never been a more important tool. People and societies need assistance with the transition to Net Zero.‘ A BI for workers in the mining, quarry and steel industry can facilitate a just transition and help these workers to set up business, become mature students or carers and volunteers in their communities.
5. There has been a further contribution about the Manchester proposal in the ‘Poverty Research and Advocacy Network’: What Would the Proposed Basic Income Pilot in Greater Manchester Mean for the UK?
6. In the March Peeps interview (23 mins), the Green Party’s deputy leader Zack Polanski tells Isabel Loubser why he is such a passionate about the introduction of a UBI (Universal Basic Income): ‘UBI will happen’.
7. Compass has just published ‘Paying for a decade of National Renewal’ written by Stewart Lansley. It includes UBI as an institution to create a more equal society (p 25).
International
8. You can win €9,600 with the next UBI4ALL’s 8th Basic Income Raffle on 30th March. In order to participate you need to register at UBI4ALL before this date.
9. Canada Liberal Party Leadership debate:
The candidate Karina Gould spoke about the introduction of Basic Income saying ‘Poverty costs money’ (3:20-5:10 min video recording). The presenter added that BI should be introduced on top of other support measures rather than replacing them.
10. The Vatican hosted an event in February together with the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT): ‘Pope, Lula, Sanchez, top economists to call for taxes to protect democracy’.,A memorable quote from Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez at thismeeting about global taxation “The question before us is simple: do we govern global taxation or do we let the wealthiest few govern us?“
11. You may be interested in the blog of Development Pathways ‘Confessions of a [former] true believer in poverty targeting’. Here is one interesting quote ‘…let’s admit that the poverty targeting ideology is highly seductive and it’s very easy to fall prey to its Loreleian charms.’
12. The editors ProCon of the website Britannica have written and fact-checked the article:
‘Universal Basic Income (UBI) – Should the United States Implement a Universal Basic Income?’
13. Project Community Connections, Inc. (PCCI) serves households experiencing homelessness in the greater Atlanta, Georgia area in the USA. In 2022, PCCI began the Direct Funds Transfer (DFT) program, which provided selected clients with an unconditional $400 per month over 12 months for a total of $4,800. You can read the report ‘PCCI Direct Cash Transfer Project’.
14. In collaboration with Equal Right, BIEN has been submitting inputs to the Office of the United Nations Special Rapporteur (SR) on Extreme Poverty for the report “Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth“, based on a call for inputs. You can read the submission here.
15. You may be interested in an interview with Malcolm Torry, a British academic and a leading researcher on basic income for more than 40 years, about ‘Basic Income: History, Feasibility, and Societal Impact’
16. President Chandrikapersad “Chan” Santokhi announced the Royalties for Everyone program, aiming to grant Surinamese citizens US$750 from future oil royalties with a 7% annual interest. The initiative seeks to ensure direct benefits from natural resources, enhance local financial engagement, and promote economic development with implementation scheduled for 2025. You can read the original article in Loop News ‘Suriname: Financial payments from energy royalties to citizens’.
17. You may be interested in an interview with Riane Eisler on Partnership Ethic and Basic Income. She is an Austrian-born American systems scientist, attorney, and author known for her work on gender, family, economics, and social evolution. Eisler advocates for caring-based economic systems.
18. You can read the second edition of the UBI times here. It is the BIEN (Basic Income Earth Network) Asia-Pacific Hub Newsletter.
Research
19. The conditional cash transfer Bolsa Familia for poor families in Brazil seems to lower the risk of Substance Use Disorders. The open access study published this March in the Lancet Global Health ‘Associations between the Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer programme and substance use disorder hospitalisations: a quasi-experimental study of the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort’ states ‘This protective association could be mediated by alleviating poverty, fulfilling basic needs, improving socioeconomic status, enhancing health access, and promoting education.’
20. A commentary in Medscape proposes A Cash Giveaway to Improve Health. Whatever disease you are looking at — cancer, heart disease, dementia, drug abuse, psychiatric disorders, in every case poverty is associated with worse disease. Many health professionals think that it is not just an ‘association’ but poverty itself is causally linked to worse disease outcomes through factors like poor access to care and poor access to medicines.
21. In order to advocate for UBI we need to better understand the field of politics. A paper has analysed ‘Billionaire Politicians: A Global Perspective’. A quote from the article: Indeed, the concentration of massive wealth in the hands of a tiny elite has understandably caused many observers to worry that “the super-rich have super-sized political influence.”
22. Can China move towards the UBI? The study was conducted by interns Zhao Muge, Wu Yifan, and Huang Xinhe under the guidance of scholars Cheng Furui and Ye Jiabin, and evaluates China’s current Minimum Livelihood Guarantee (Dibao) and targeted poverty alleviation policies, proposing UBI as a potential next step.The paper was presented at the BIEN congress 2024.
23. An open access article ‘Basic income trials and the politics of scale: A research agenda’ analyses the links between BI trials and the politics of BI. The authors write ‘The growing popularity of basic income has led to extensive trials of the policy in numerous settings across the world. However, analysis of the politics of basic income, and in particular the political dynamics preceding and resulting from trial programs, lags.’
We hope to see you on 1st April, 18.00hrs at the HEART in Headingley.
In solidarity and with hope
best wishes
reinhard on behalf of UBI Lab Leeds2