|
A
Citizen's Income for All?
The
Citizen's Income Trust's seminar series
The
UK is today experiencing one of the worst economic crises
of the post-War era. The current economic downturn is likely
to affect the wellbeing and opportunities of British citizens
for years to come, and will be especially painful for those
vulnerable groups and individuals that were already struggling
when the economy was booming. In addition, the crisis seriously
impedes the capacity of the UK government to address these
problems, and many citizens aren't convinced that they're
going about it the right way. (Recent proposals for welfare
activation in particular are a major cause of concern amongst
policy analysts and advocates.) One policy instrument which
the Government ought to consider as part of the solution
to the crisis is a Citizen's Income, granted unconditionally
as a right of citizenship, and this seminar series examines
the prospects of instituting a Citizen's Income in the current
economic climate.
Speakers
Tuesday
10 February, 2-4pm - University of Newport, Wales
Dr.
Tony Fitzpatrick, University of Nottingham
'Citizen's
Income and Paternalism'
Venue:
School of Health and Social Sciences, University of Wales,
Newport (Lodge Road, Caerleon)
Info
and RSVP: gideon.calder@newport.ac.uk
Wednesday
4 March, 1.15-3pm - University of York
Professor
Bill Jordan, University of Plymouth
'Citizen's
Income and the Crash: Credit, Debt and the Citizen's Income'
Venue:
Politics Department, Derwent College, Room D013, University
of York
Info
and RSVP: lh11@york.ac.uk
Tuesday
10 March, 5-7 p.m. - University of Nottingham
Dr.
Louise Haagh, University of York
'Citizen's
Income, Varieties of Capitalism and Occupational Freedom'
Venue:
Room B62, Law & Social Sciences Building, University
of Nottingham
Info
and RSVP: tony.fitzpatrick@nottingham.ac.uk
Friday
20 March, 3-5pm - Queen's University Belfast
Dr.
Stuart White, University of Oxford
'Basic
Income versus Basic Capital: Can We Resolve the Disagreement?'
Venue:
Conference Room (20.103), School of Politics, International
Studies and Philosophy, Queen's University Belfast
Info
and RSVP: keith.breen@qub.ac.uk
This
seminar series is organised by the Citizen's Income
Trust, in collaboration with the Centre for Social Ethics,
University of Newport, Wales; the Department of Politics,
University of York; the International Centre for Public
and Social Policy, University of Nottingham; and the School
of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen's
University Belfast.
For
general information visit the series website at www.citizensincome.org/seminars2009.shtml,
or email seminars2009@citizensincome.org.
For information about specific seminars please contact the
respective coordinators.
Biographies
of Speakers
Tony
Fitzpatrick is a Reader at the University of Nottingham.
His recent publications include New Theories of Welfare
(2005) and Applied Ethics and Social Problems (2008). He
is the co-editor of the journal Policy & Politics and
was the principal editor of the 3-volume International Encyclopaedia
of Social Policy (2006).
Louise
Haagh is Lecturer in Politics and Director of the Graduate
School at the University of York. She is a world poverty,
labour studies and social policy specialist working in the
field of comparative labour market institutions, welfare
regimes and the political economy of development. She is
the author of Citizenship, Labour Markets and Democratization
(2002) and co-editor of Social Policy Reform and Market
Governance in Latin America (2002). Louise Haagh is associate
editor of Basic Income Studies (www.bepress.com/bis) and
a member of the executive committee of the Basic Income
Earth Network (BIEN), an international network that fosters
informed discussion about basic income.
Bill
Jordan is Professor of Social Policy at Plymouth and
Huddersfield Universities. He studied Politics, Philosophy
and Economics at Oxford, and worked for 20 years in UK social
services, as well as teaching social work and social policy.
He is the author of 25 books, including most recently Welfare
and Well-being: Social Value in Public Policy' (2008) and
Social Policy for the 21st Century: New Perspectives, Big
Issues (2006), and has held visiting chairs in the Netherlands,
Germany, Denmark, Czech and Slovak Republics and Hungary.
Stuart
White is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and
International Relations, where he is also Director of the
Public Policy Unit, and a tutor at Jesus College, Oxford
University. His research focuses on egalitarianism in theory
and practice, with a particular interest in theoretical
traditions and policy ideas which are simultaneously anti-capitalist
and anti-statist. He is the author of The Civic Minimum
(2003) and Equality (2006).
Further
information can be found on the CIT website at www.citizensincome.org/seminars2009.shtml
or contact the organisers at seminars2009@citizensincome.org
Editorials
The
Chancellor of the Exchequer's pre-budget report
The
prebudget report published on the 24th November correctly
recognises that to raise Child Benefit to £20 per
week per child from January rather than from April will
help the poorest families to weather the current economic
difficulties.
Child
Benefit contributes to poorer families' net incomes and
it isn't withdrawn as other income rises. It is therefore
the most useful of current benefits.
To
extend this principle to the whole population by establishing
a Citizen's Income would provide even more of a cushion
for poorer families in these difficult times; and because
a Citizen's Income wouldn't be withdrawn as other income
rises it would encourage enterprise and skill enhancement
both now and as the economy picks up again.
This
is an ideal time to consider such a policy.
Beatrice
Webb's 1909 minority report
2009
marks the centenary of Beatrice Webb's 1909 minority report
on the Poor Law. Webb believed that society has an obligation
to prevent poverty and not simply to alleviate it, and her
preferred reform option was social insurance. What was important
about this proposal was that it was radical, desirable,
and feasible.
2009
isn't 1909, and the issues facing our tax and benefits system
are different. Most of what is on the table as reform options
simply tinker with a system which has remained essentially
unchanged since 1948. Today's radical, desirable and feasible
alternative is a Citizen's Income.
A
widespread debate on this reform option would be a fitting
memorial to Beatrice Webb and her report.
To
quote a recent Fabian Society book, Fairness not Favours,
by Sadiq Khan MP: 'Universal measures such as child benefit
and the national minimum wage have been important in reducing
poverty over the last ten years and will continue to be.
With high levels of take-up, they have greater efficacy
than many targeted measures and disproportionately benefit
the worse off in society. Furthermore, progressive universalism
ensures that everyone in society feels they are gaining,
rather than some always giving, and others always receiving'
(p.32).
The
Government's welfare reform proposals
There
is much in the Government's welfare reform proposals, No-one
written off (www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/noonewrittenoff/
), with which we wouldn't wish to disagree. We are particularly
keen on the first paragraph of the Executive Summary:
Our
economy depends more than ever before on our people - on
them making a contribution, aspiring to reach their full
potential and taking responsibility for their skills needs.
This matters for the individuals themselves and their families
too - people making the most of their talents pro-motes
social mobility and independence. To help achieve this,
we need a welfare system that enables people to become the
authors of their own lives.
The
report recognizes that the benefits system needs to be simplified,
but doesn't ask whether a radically simpler system, based
on a Citizen's Income, might contribute to the main aim
of encouraging people to make a contribution, aspire to
reach their full potential, and take responsibility for
their skills needs.
As
it stands the Government's approach is all stick and no
carrot. If increased skills and work effort were to contribute
a predictable increase in net income then there would be
a significant incentive to learn new skills and seek higher
paid employment; but the current system doesn't guarantee
such a predictable increase. Currently all benefits except
for Child Benefit are withdrawn as earned income rises,
thus imposing not only a disincentive but also unpredictability
in relation to net income. A Citizen's Income of any size
would contribute towards the solution to this problem. If
the Government is serious about reforming the welfare state
then such a positive approach really ought to be tried.
As
a first step towards studying the feasibility of a Citizen's
Income the Government should study the scheme submitted
as evidence to its Benefits Simplification enquiry last
year; and as a first step towards studying the desirability
of a Citizen's Income it should study the first news item
in this edition of the Newletter: on Namibia's Citizen's
Income pilot project.
Alaska's
got there already. It looks as if Namibia might be the first
nation state to benefit from implementing a Citizen's Income.
News
Namibia
is piloting a Basic Income Grant. Information on this project
can be found at www.bignam.org
'In April 2005, a broad-based civil society coalition consisting
of the Council of Churches, the umbrella body of the NGOs
(NANGOF), the umbrella body of the AIDS organisations (NANASO),
the Union Federation (NUNW), the Legal Assistance Centre
(LAC) and the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI)
formed a coalition to advocate the implementation of the
BIG in Namibia. The Secretariat of the Coalition is hosted
by the Desk for Social Development (ELCRN), which is responsible
for the day-to-day running of the campaign. The BIG Coalition
is now implementing the first ever pilot project of a BIG
in Namibia.' See www.bignam.org/Publications/BIG_Assessment_report_08a.pdf
for a progress report. Key findings include the following:
- The
community itself responded to the introduction of the
BIG by establishing their own 18-member committee to mobilize
the community and advise residents on how they could improve
their lives with the money. This suggests that the introduction
of a BIG can effectively assist with community mobilisation
and empowerment.
- Since
the introduction of the BIG, child malnutrition in the
settlement has dropped remarkably. Using a WHO measurement
technique, the data shows that children's weight-for-age
has improved significantly in just six months from 42%
of underweight children to only 17%.
- Since
the introduction of the BIG, the majority of people have
been able to increase their work both for pay, profit
or family gain as well as self-employment. This finding
is contrary to critics' claims that the BIG would lead
to laziness and dependency.
- Income
has risen in the community since the introduction of the
BIG by more than the amount of the grants. There is strong
evidence that more people are now able to engage in more
productive activities and that the BIG fosters local economic
growth and development. Several small enterprises started
in Otjivero, making use of the BIG money being spent in
the community.
- More
than double the number of parents paid school fees and
the parents prioritized the buying of school uniforms.
More children are now attending school and the stronger
financial situation has enabled the school to improve
teaching materials for the pupils (eg. buying paper and
toner). The school principal reported that drop-out rates
at her school were 30-40% before the introduction of the
BIG. By July 2008, these rates were reduced to a mere
5%.
- The
BIG supports and strengthens Government's efforts to provide
ARV treatment to people suffering from HIV/AIDS by accessing
government services and enabling them to afford nutrition.
- The
residents have been using the settlement's health clinic
much more since the introduction of the BIG. Residents
now pay the N$4 payment for each visit and the income
of the clinic has increased fivefold.
- The
criticism that the grants are apparently leading to more
alcoholism is not supported by evidence from the community.
On the contrary, the introduction of the BIG has induced
the community to set up a committee that is trying to
curb alcoholism and that has worked with local shebeen
owners not to sell alcohol on the day of the payout of
the grants.
- The
introduction of the Basic Income Grant has helped young
women recipients to take charge of their economic affairs.
Several cases document that young women have been freed
from having to engage in transactional sex.
- Economic
and poverty-related crime (illegal hunting, theft and
trespassing) has fallen by over 20%.
- The
BIG has helped to achieve progress towards all eight Millenium
Development Goals.
As
part of the Mirrlees review of the tax system, the
Institute for Fiscal Studies has published Means-Testing
and Tax Rates on Earnings by Mike Brewer, Emmanuel Saez
and Andrew Shephard. The researchers conclude that 'the
amount of gross income taken in tax and withdrawn benefits
when people enter work at low earnings is too high: for
most groups it is close to 100% before individuals are entitled
to the working tax credit, and they remain high even with
it' (p.2). As a solution they suggest a 'radical and comprehensive
plan for reforming the UK household tax and benefit system
that attempts to deal not only with these work incentive
issues, but also the administrative failings that we identify.
Our plan replaces the existing piece-meal benefits for low-income
families (income support, working and child tax credits,
housing benefit and council tax benefit) with a single Integrated
Family Support (IFS) programme which provides stronger and
simpler incentives for work at the bottom, reduces compliance
costs for families, and is means-tested by employers' withholding
from earnings in the same way as National Insurance contributions'
(p.3). To see the report go to www.ifs.org.uk/mirrleesreview/press_docs/rates.pdf
The
Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published research
based on listening to a wide variety of people speak about
what they think minimum income standards should be in the
UK. The key findings were that:
- A
single person without children needs to spend £158
a week, and a couple with two children £370 a week,
not including rent or mortgage.
- To
afford this budget on top of rent on a modest council
home, a single person would need to earn £13,400
a year before tax and a couple with two children £26,800.
- For
families with no adult working, state benefits provide
for less than half the minimum budget for single people
and around two thirds for those with children.
- The
standard is above the official poverty line of 60% median
income for most household groups. This shows that almost
everyone classified as being in poverty has an income
too low to pay for a standard of living regarded as 'adequate'
by the members of the public who took part in this research.
This
research shows that people think a basic minimum income
should provide for more than survival by including sufficient
for basic opportunities and choices that allow proper participation
in society. See www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/2244.asp
for details.
Slivers-of-Time
Working runs a website at www.slivers.com
which enables people with small amounts of time to offer
to make themselves available to local employers. This service
is particularly relevant to students, lone parents, and
anyone who needs to work around other commitments; and is
of considerable benefit to employers who occasionally need
additional small amounts of labour at short notice.
The
Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published research
which identifies problems with the delivery of benefits.
Conclusions include:
- The
design of the system, failure to meet agreed service standards
and administrative errors are all barriers to the receipt
of benefits
- People
want less complexity: 'a tax and benefits system that
was simpler and less changeable'.
- Sanctions
applied to Job Seekers Allowance recipients 'have a harsher
impact on those without access to other resources and
strong social networks'
See
www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/2233.asp
for details.
Articles
Is
a Citizen's Income Scheme the answer?
by
Anne Miller
Clearly,
a CI scheme is not the answer to the credit crunch, which
is global, and in the UK has more to do with decisions of
various Governments to de-regulate the banking sector and
financial services, and with the growing Public Sector Borrowing
Requirement over the last decade. The boom of the last 16
years or so has been financed by a house price bubble, and
by both public and private debt. The UK has been spending
above its means both publicly and privately, and some major
adjustments will have to take place. However, could CI help
to ameliorate the effects of a recession, or even worse,
a depression?
CI
schemes provide several advantages over the present contribution-based
National Insurance and the means-tested Social Assistance
and Tax Credit systems. Nearly half of the population currently
receives some type of benefit. The current systems are hedged
about by so many rigidities and constraints that it discourages
beneficiaries from taking any risks. For instance, a beneficiary
may be reluctant to take up some work, because if s/he were
dismissed a few weeks later, s/he would still have to wait
for the required period before being eligible again for
benefits. Replacing the current system with a CI scheme
would provide flexibility in the labour market for the employees,
(not just for employers). It puts the initiative back in
the hands of the beneficiary, giving him/her the opportunity
to take risks on his/her own behalf. Increased flexibility
in the labour market would help the economy to pick up more
quickly.
CI
schemes also provide more incentives for beneficiaries to
take even low-paid jobs. Means-tested systems have a built-in
design fault, in that beneficiaries face benefit withdrawal
rates in addition to paying personal income tax and National
Insurance contributions, and in the UK the combined rates
are often 68% and over. Thus, someone on the minimum wage
of £5.73 per hour, would end up with a net wage of
only £1.83 per hour - hardly an incentive. The Tax
Credit systems provide an incentive for applicants to earn
their first £5,000, in order to qualify, but very
little incentive to earn the next £20,000. By contrast,
with a CI scheme, everyone would pay the tax, but would
not suffer a benefit withdrawal rate.
One
of the important benefits of a CI scheme is that its redistributive
aspects can help to regenerate the poorer regions of the
UK, whether they are run down inner London estates or post
industrial cities in the north.
Economic
insecurity is one of the main stresses of life, for the
rich as much as for poorer people. Most people are only
two months income away from disaster, - losing their jobs,
their homes and possibly their families. A CI scheme would
give a greater degree of economic security to the population,
who would know that, even with the modest levels of CI that
are likely, they would be able to budget around those amounts
as a minimum.
Finally,
the reduced administration costs of CI schemes would enable
the government to reduce its civil service budget, and those
made redundant would, of course, receive their CI.
Major
disasters require major rethinking. The world cannot go
on as it has been. Disasters can also turn out to be times
of great civil unrest and the overthrowing of the status
quo for good or ill. They are times of opportunities as
well as of problems. The present financial débacle
and the looming depression may in fact present our best
opportunity to address some of the major problems facing
the world, such as its extremes of inequality, and the ecological
disasters associated with global warming waiting round the
corner. Maybe, the time for CI has come. Let us try to ensure
that the reforms which are taken up are the ones that most
of us would prefer.
The
Citizen's Income and Child Labour: Two Ships Passing at
Night*
by
Ian Orton +
Abbreviations
CCT
Conditional Cash Transfer(s)
CSG
Child Support Grant (South Africa)
Introduction
A
new dialogue is needed between those interested in eliminating
child labour (the anti child labour lobby) and those advocating
a Citizen's Income so that the agendas of both groups can
feed off one another in a mutually beneficial manner and
help to bring about their two, not unconnected, goals.
Conditional
cash transfers [CCTs] have demonstrated some promising,
although not conclusive, evidence in being effective in
reducing child labour even when not tied explicitly to this
objective. This has been particularly true of the CCT programmes
in Latin America, and thus explains why discourses centring
on child labour have become increasingly interested in the
logic of CCTs as a mechanism to address the phenomenon of
child labour.
My
aim is to encourage the anti child labour lobby and those
practitioners who work in the area of child labour to consider
a Citizen's Income as a policy that could help to eliminate
child labour. Similarly, individuals working on a Citizen's
Income ought to privilege the elimination of child labour
as an important effect of a Citizen's Income, even if the
Citizen's Income cash transfer is not designed to target
child labour head-on. By doing this we might find more appropriate
entry points for a Citizen's Income. By combining their
efforts, perhaps the anti child labour lobby and advocates
of a Citizen's Income might add value to one another and
help to create a world more fit for the 218 million children
who are toiling away at present (ILO, 2006: table 1.1, p.6).
1.
An untapped opportunity
Up
until now the dialogue between advocates of a Citizen's
Income and those working to eliminate child labour has been
rather limited and they both continue to pass each other
by, like two ships at night. This represents a major missed
opportunity. Put simply: it would be prudent strategically
to move the logic of a Citizen's Income higher on the agenda
of those agencies that have a commitment to ending child
labour. In particularly, this lobby needs to be aware that
Citizen's Income is a proposal that is not just theoretical
but manifests itself in various almost fully-fledged and
applied forms around the globe, such as the Alaskan Permanent
Fund, the Universal Citizens Pension in Mexico City, and
the now legally enshrined Citizen's Basic Income in Brazil.
Moreover, the prestigious historical pedigree of the proposal
is also little known.
2.
Why a Citizen's Income may help reduce child labour
While
child labour is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon
not reducible to exclusively economic explanations, poverty
is often the main cause. A Citizen's Income can address
household poverty and empower families to overcome the need
and temptation to put their children into child labour as
a way to boost income during times of economic difficulty
or as a form of social insurance to offset and prepare for
future economic hardship and insecurity.
CCTs
have been effective in reducing child labour even when not
tied explicitly to the objective of eliminating child labour.
Mexico's Oportunidades programme, which does not specifically
target child labour, has reduced the probability of children
undertaking labour by as much as 14 per cent for children
aged 8 to 17 (in Tabatabai, 2006: viii). There was substantial
decline in child labour in Latin America during 2000-2004,
by as much as two thirds, and this may be in part due to
widespread adoption of CCTs in the region (IPEC, 2006: 7-8).
In absolute terms, the number of children at work has fallen
by 17 million children and now only 5 per cent of children
are engaged in such work.
But
the evidence that CCTs are effective in reducing child labour
is not conclusive, and further research is needed. Other
factors may account for the substantial decline, such as
economic growth. The Oportunidades programme was not tied
exclusively to the goal of combating child labour yet seems
to have contributed to a reduction of child labour. Similarly,
a Citizen's Income could play a role in reducing child labour
because a reduction in child labour could be a significant
spin-off of its general poverty-reducing properties.
3.
Potential advantages of a Citizen's Income: The example
of the South African Child Support Grant
The
proponents of conditionality in CCT programmes, such as
the World Bank, favour it on the grounds that it:
- raises
the profile of the social services that are available
for the poor;
- leads
to greater and more effective investment in human capital;
- and
makes such programmes more acceptable to politicians who
are more likely to support something that places certain
obligations on the beneficiaries.
However,
these are to an extent mere suppositions and the expression
of political preference. It is possible to argue that universal
and unconditional cash transfers such as a Citizen's Income
might have some key advantages over CCTs in terms of impact
on child labour. These advantages can be seen in the experience
of the Child Support Grant in South Africa [CSG]. The CSG
was instituted in 1998 to address child poverty and it was
originally a conditional grant. However, after the Taylor
Commission of 2000 it was agreed that the grant would be
more fit for purpose if it were not conditional on behaviour.
Today it covers 7.5 million children. Income and assets
are tested and the geographical area and type of household
are also taken into consideration to identify eligible children
in South Africa, so the CSG still does not fully conform
to the logic of a Citizen's Income because it is mean-tested;
but the reasons for dropping the conditional behaviour aspects
of the grant are quite important in terms of demonstrating
how a Citizen's Income might reduce child labour. The advantages
are administrative and social advantages, and these will
be illustrated through specific reference to the South African
CSG and more general examples.
Administrative
advantages
1.
There are fewer administrative costs with a Citizen's Income
because there is no means-testing, targeting or reinforcement
of conditionalities. (This is not true with the CSG). The
savings in administrative costs leave more money available
for the actual cash transfer.
2.
There is no need to worry about building exit strategies
into Citizen's Income programmes because in its fully-fledged
form it is intended to be a life-long income rather than
a transient CCT.
3.
There are fewer moral hazards and there is less potential
for corruption or divisive discretion associated with a
Citizen's Income than with CCTs, something which was a big
problem with the CSG. For example, in South Africa we saw
what Standing calls the 'paternalist twitch' (Standing,
2002: 208). This refers to a basic default tendency within
the human psyche, and expresses itself as a desire or need
to impose conditionality and testing on welfare. According
to Leatt and Budlender, in this instance, welfare officials
asked that people provide more evidence than was necessary
when applying for the CSG: evidence which was not sanctioned
at the national level (see Leatt and Budlender, 2006). While
these extra, illegal conditionalities were not of a tremendously
disturbing nature, they did increase the number of hoops
through which families were obliged to jump in order to
satisfy the eligibility criteria. This meant that there
were bottlenecks in the delivery systems and that take-up
was low, especially in the poorest areas. A Citizen's Income
would side-step paternalistic testing and would not engender
the damaging outcomes listed above.
4.
The Citizen's Income would increase take-up by the most
excluded. The CSG in South Africa was originally conditional
on behaviour and became far more effective in terms of take-up
when conditions were removed. In fact, when the CSG was
conditional, eligibility was so burdensome that as many
as 90 per cent of eligible children failed to receive the
grant. According to Samson et al., after conditions had
been dropped, take-up rose by 58 per cent (Samson et al.,
2006: 11). Similarly, Child Benefit in the UK has nearly
100 per cent take-up.
Social
impact
1.
A Citizen's Income would increase household income and allow
families to decide how best to spend money according to
their priorities so the need for their children to labour
may diminish.
2.
By providing long-term guaranteed security which enables
long-term planning, a Citizen's Income may be better equipped
to interrupt the social reproduction or inter-generational
transfer of poverty which induces child labour.
3.
Less stigmatisation would be attached to a Citizen's Income
because every family with children would be entitled to
it. It would therefore impose fewer psychological and social
costs.
4.
There would be less possibility of generating perverse effects
such as a swollen realm of non-hazardous child labour or
the greater concealment of hazardous child labour.
With
regard to the last point, a Citizen's Income-type approach
to the child labour problem may be better than CCTs in terms
of the perverse effects generated. As Samson has argued
in his debates with the World Bank, enforcing rigid conditions
risks perverse outcomes. Conditionalities can 'punish the
poorest, who face high costs to comply with requirements,
particularly when high quality schools and health care are
inaccessible' (Samson et al., 2007: 101). To give one example
with reference to child labour: one can envisage that a
condition specifically requiring withdrawal of children
from hazardous work could mean that children may merely
be transferred from 'very bad' work to 'bad work' as a kind
of natural and demographic readjustment response. There
would be a downgrading of child risk transference and displacement,
but still this would represent the exchanging of one evil
for a lesser evil.
To
conclude: there are some potential advantages in using a
Citizen's Income as a measure to reduce child labour.
4.
The benefits of utilising the elimination of Child Labour
to advance a Citizen's Income
Linking
a Citizen's Income with the anti child labour lobby could
be a powerful move. The anti child labour lobby is a powerful
and well-resourced sector that holds significant public
and political influence (i.e., UN agencies and numerous
NGOs). In addition, the proposal of a Citizen's Income for
children would not fall on unsympathetic ears in powerful
institutions like the European Commission who have already
suggested the relevance of a Citizen's Income for Europe's
children (see Levy et al., 2006).
This
suggests that Citizen's Income advocates need to exploit
the emotionally and morally loaded subject of child labour.
This could elicit public sympathy and create support for
more general universal and unconditional cash transfer programmes
and it could also leave the Citizen's Income argument less
open to attack. Child labour might therefore provide a good
point of entry for a Citizen's Income and could permit the
logic of a Citizen's Income to be grafted into the core
of a society. Just as the Universal Citizen's Pension in
Mexico City has been the catalyst for the Citizen's Income
debate in Mexico, a Citizen's Income as a cash transfer
for children could catalyse further shifts towards a Citizen's
Income in other countries.
5.
Promoting a Citizen's Income to the Anti Child Labour Lobby
How
can we best promote a Citizen's Income to the anti child
labour audience?
Providing
evidence of impact on child labour
A
Citizen's Income will encounter problems with the anti child
labour lobby if it is not advanced in a way that satisfies
demands for demonstrating outcomes in terms of its impact
on child labour. Before this lobby would give its stamp
of approval it would want to be able to evaluate and assess
the impact of a Citizen's Income on child labour either
as a real actually existing scheme or through simulations.
Need
to pay heed to the affordability issue
A
Citizen's Income to reduce child labour must not neglect
to recognise the severe resource constraints that afflict
some countries and regions. Equally, it is important that
one does not concede too much ground on the affordability
issue, since what is affordable is invariably a question
of priorities in low income countries. The affordability
question is a political question.
Connecting
child labour with a Citizen's Income would contribute to
mainstreaming child labour concerns
Connecting
with the Citizen's Income debate could be advantageous to
the anti child labour lobby and it would help with the mainstreaming
of the child labour issue.
Child
labour is a complex multidimensional issue
To
curry favour with the anti child labour lobby, the Citizen's
Income must be articulated as a proposal that recognises
the complexity and multidimensionality of child labour.
It needs to be presented as one policy instrument among
several others.
Citizen's
Income is likely to be more effective as a preventative
than as a corrective measure
A
Citizen's Income is more likely to be effective in reducing
child labour as a preventative measure rather than a corrective
one or for addressing the extreme forms of child labour.
The long term prevention of child labour would be the Citizen's
Income's major selling point.
The
need to introduce a Citizen's Income along with other integrative
and complementary measures linked with eliminating child
labour
Since
the receipt of a Citizen's Income would most likely have
no direct conditions connected with child labour, it will
have to be introduced with an indirect link in order to
satisfy the anti child labour lobby. One way to link a Citizen's
Income-type grant with the goal of reducing child labour
might be to get families to sign onto the Citizen's Income
scheme with an 'on paper' pledge stating that they will
not involve their children in child labour. As impotent
a measure as this might sound, simple awareness raising
exercises such as this can be effective. Linking a Citizen's
Income with universal and compulsory education would also
be an important move in reducing child labour.
Recommendations
and Conclusion
At
present there is little understanding of the implications
of a Citizen's Income for child labour, although what evidence
exists suggests that a Citizen's Income-style grant could
impact positively on child labour by removing poverty as
one of the conditions that compel children to labour. Undoubtedly,
more policy research is needed to inform and direct future
action. The steps which could be taken by advocates of a
Citizen's Income to develop the link between the Citizen's
Income and child labour could include:
- Establishing
dialogue with the anti child labour lobby
- Further
research and discourse is needed on this topic (i.e.,
to demonstrate fiscal, political plausibility and extract
lessons from case studies).
- Knowledge
gaps ought to be plugged.
- Identifying
which agencies might be willing to support and resource
the exploration of the relationship between a Citizen's
Income and child labour
The
above is a tentative and cursory attempt to understand better
how a Citizen's Income might impact on child labour. If
those organisations that wish to end child labour see the
value and virtue of a Citizen's Income, they could add depth
to the justification behind the Citizen's Income proposal
and their support would lend tremendous weight to the progressive
implementation of the Citizen's Income proposal. This would
give substance and meaning to Van Parijs's notion of the
need for the swelling and spreading of the Citizen's Income
proposal.
Bibliography
ILO
(2006), The End of Child Labour: Within Reach. Global
Report under the follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental
Principles and Rights at Work, Report I(B), International
Labour Conference, 95th Session, 2006, Geneva
IPEC
(2006), Child Labour in Latin America and Caribbean Region:
A Gender Based Approach, Geneva: ILO
Leatt,
A. & Budlender, D., (2006), Under What Conditions?
Social Security for Children in South Africa, www.epri.org.za/KatharineHallFullPaper.pdf
Levy,
H., C. Lietz and H. Sutherland (2006), A Basic Income
for Europe's Children?, EUROMOD, Working Paper No. EM4/06,
www.iser.essex.ac.uk/msu/emod/workingpapers/emwp0406.pdf
Samson,
M., I. Van Niekerk and K. Mac Quene (2006), Designing
and Implementing Social Transfer Programmes, Cape Town:
EPRI Press.
Standing,
G. (2002), Beyond the New Paternalism: Basic Security
as Equality, London: Verso.
Tabatabai,
H. (2006), Eliminating Child Labour: The Promise of Conditional
Cash Transfers, Geneva: IPEC, ILO.
Notes
*
Disclaimer: This article is based on the draft of a more
comprehensive paper being prepared by the author as a consultant
to the International Programme on the Elimination of Child
Labour of the International Labour Office. The responsibility
for opinions expressed in this paper rests solely with the
author and dissemination does not constitute an endorsement
by the International Labour Office of the opinions expressed
in it.
+
Ian Orton works as an external consultant for the International
Labour Organisation in Geneva. He is currently assisting
in the research of a compendium that aims to promote the
creation of a basic social security floor for all in low
and middle income countries.
1
CCTs are a form of non-contributory, means-tested social
assistance programmes that administer a certain amount of
cash to poor households on a regular basis on the condition
that the beneficiaries fulfil some obligation(s) aimed at
human development, such as sending children to school or
participating in health programmes (Tabatabai, 2006: 2-3).
They are thus a means for stimulating behavioural changes
that are more conducive to satisfying human development
goals.
2 The Oportunidades programme is a large CCT programme that
covers 5 million poor families in Mexico. It has been designed
to provide incentives for poor families to invest in human
capital, education, health and nutrition. In other words
it makes a cash transfer conditional on behaviour that reinforces
human capital development. Successful receipt of payment
is dependent on parents ensuring their children make regular
clinic visits and receive key vaccinations and that children
maintain a certain level of school attendance.
Jeremy
Waldron and the Basic Income Debate by Karl Widerquist
A
comment on:
Waldron,
J. (1988). The Right to Private Property. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Waldron,
J. (1993). Liberal Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Waldron,
J. (1999). Law and Disagreement. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Jeremy
Waldron is one of the foremost legal and political philosophers
active today. He has devoted considerable attention to examining
the suppositions of property rights advocates and his work
shows a great deal of concern for disadvantaged people.
He has not written on basic income, except for one short
article in 1986 favoring a 'social minimum.' Even though
he has not paid much attention to the basic income debate,
participants in that debate should pay attention to him.
Some of his arguments about property rights, homelessness,
and political disagreement could be put together into an
excellent argument for basic income.
In
The Right to Private Property (1988) Waldron addresses the
argument for private property and shows that either of the
two main arguments proposed to justify private property
rights fails unless it secures at least access to subsistence
for all. This book is extremely long and dense; it is hard
to do justice to it in a paragraph, but the gist of it is,
"Under serious scrutiny, there is no right-based argument
to be found which provides an adequate justification for
a society in which some people have lots of property and
many have next to none" (p. 5). Any property system
that excludes people from property, therefore, owes them
at least a right of subsistence.
Waldron's
book, Liberal Rights (1993) contains a chapter entitled,
"Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom," in which
Waldron argues that the homeless are not only needy but
unfree in the most liberal negative sense. Quite simply,
"No one is free to perform an action unless there is
somewhere he is free to perform it" (p. 310). The homeless
face interference as they try to perform their most basic
human functions such as sleeping, urinating, eating, and
so on. They do not lack the ability to do these things;
they face constant interference as they try to do them,
because the laws say they have no place where they can do
them legally. Without the right to sleep and eat, people
have little ability to exercise rights to free speech and
political participation.
In
Law and Disagreement (1999) Waldron focuses on the process
of lawmaking rather than on what laws should exist, but
even this book contains arguments that are important to
the basic income debate. Waldron confronts the problem of
fundamental and persistent political disagreement:
[W]e
not only disagree about the existence of God and the meaning
of life; we disagree also about what count as fair terms
of co-operation among people who disagree about the existence
of God and the meaning of life. We disagree about what we
owe to each other in the way of tolerance, forbearance,
respect, cooperation, and mutual aid (p. 1).
He
faults political philosophers, especially John Rawls, for
philosophizing about policy while ignoring the question
of how to live with disagreement, 'It is rare to find a
philosopher attempting to come to terms with disagreement
about justice within the framework of his own political
theory.'
From
this starting point one might expect Waldron to propose
an alternative to Rawls's theory of justice, specifically
incorporating the problem of fundamental political disagreement.
Such a framework could be extremely valuable to the basic
income debate, because Rawls used the idea of consensus
to justify a socially cooperative project to which individuals
were obliged to contribute. He famously labelled those who
refuse to contribute to the social project as lazy "surfers"
who consume more than their fair share of leisure and who
therefore have to claim to public funds. If there is a consensus
that the social project is just, refusal to participate
can only be motivated by laziness. However, if there is
no such consensus, refusal to participate is not laziness
but political dissent-the rejection of the terms and goals
of the social project. Persistent political disagreement
takes away much of the appeal of Rawls's contributive obligation.
Waldron
does not go down this road, and instead focuses on how political
disagreement implies that the most important individual
right is the right to equal political participation in a
democratic system with a sovereign legislature that represents
the diversity of political opinion in society. Waldron's
argument about political disagreement could be used just
as effectively to defend the refusal to participate as a
form of political dissent. This reasoning could be especially
strong combined with Waldron's earlier arguments about homelessness,
freedom, and property. Wittingly or not, Waldron's arguments
can be used to form a powerful case for basic income.
Conference
report
Dublin
delights: BIEN 2008
The
twelfth congress of the Basic Income Earth Network, 19th
to 21st June 2008, at the Quinn Business School, University
College, Dublin
Theme:
Inequality and Development in a Globalised Economy: The
Basic Income Option
In
keeping with tradition, the first day of the congress was
devoted to the situation of Basic Income in the host country.
There were 232 names on the participants' list, and unsurprisingly,
the largest contingent came from Ireland, many having come
specifically to attend the first day. The number of people
attending the main part of the conference was limited to
170, this being the size of the main lecture theatre, and
there was a waiting list of hopefuls.
As
usual, the conference was truly international, with nearly
every continent being represented. In addition to representatives
from many other European countries, including Portugal,
Spain, France, UK, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Germany,
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, delegates also
came from Japan, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, USA,
Canada and South Africa. It was a time to meet old friends
and acquaintances, and to make new ones.
The
congress was very well organised by Brigid Reynolds and
Seán Healy and their team from CORI Justice, and
John Baker, Chair of BIEN Ireland. This led to a calm air
of concentration on the basic income ideas by the participants
throughout the conference. The sessions were held in the
new, light and spacious Quinn Business School on the campus
of University College, Dublin, about four miles from the
city centre.
Thursday
was Ireland's day. The programme consisted of seven papers,
all of which were very good, well informed, thoughtful presentations
by people who are at the peaks of their professions. The
morning's four papers were subtitled 'A Business -, A Trade
Union -, An Economist's -, and A Community & Voluntary
Perspective', respectively. The afternoon continued the
theme of the day 'Making Choices - Choosing Futures' with
a consideration of an Appropriate Level of Minimum Income,
The Case for a Universal State Pension in Ireland as in
New Zealand, and lastly A Survey of the last three decades
of BI in Ireland,. There was so much excellent reference
material in these papers, that it was a relief to learn
that they are available in book form, with the same title
as the theme of the day Making Choices - Choosing Futures:
Ireland at the Crossroads.
The
main part of the BIEN Congress took place on the Friday
and Saturday with the theme, 'Inequality and Development
in a Globalised Economy. - the Basic Income Option'. There
were 5 sets of 5 parallel sessions over the two days, with
74 presentations, covering a wide range of subject matter.
I shall not dwell on them here, because copies of the final
version of all the papers can be perused on the conference
website at www.basicincomeireland.com.
In
addition there were four plenaries with 13 speakers. The
opening plenary was addressed by Peter Townsend, Emeritus
Professor of Bristol University and LSE, Carol Pateman of
UCLA, who had just completed 2 years of secondment to Cardiff
University, and Pablo Yanes, of the Social Development Secretariat
of the Government of Mexico City, examining why a Basic
Income must be a major part of the answer to the question
of how to obtain equality and development.
The
theme of the second plenary at the end of the first afternoon,
was 'How can a BI system be operationalised and achieved
(politically, institutionally and technically?' Katja Kipping,
a member of the German Parliament for the Left Party, gave
a left-wing political perspective. Hugh D. Segal, a Senator
in the Canadian Parliament for the Conservative Party, gave
a right-wing perspective.
Charles
M. A. Clark of St. John's University, New York addressed
the Institutional and Technical Challenges. The advantages
of long experience in the political arena became obvious,
when Senator Segal immediately had us all in the palm of
his hand, in stitches of laughter, relaxing us and making
us feel good, while also assuring us of his commitment to
the BI idea.
Mr
John Gormley TD, Minister for Environment, Heritage and
Local Government, hosted an Official Reception on the Friday
evening at his offices at the Customs House, a beautiful
Georgian building in the city centre.
At
the third plenary on Saturday morning, three people who
had experience of making a difference by introducing a universal
benefit for certain sections of their societies, testified
to the tremendous impact that this had had. Guy Standing
formerly of the ILO, now of Bath and Monash Universities,
described a private subscription Citizen's Income scheme
with which he is involved in Namibia. It has contributed
to regenerating the local economy and it has helped to prevent
poverty among children. He noted that grandparents spent
much of their new pensions on their grandchildren. Rosani
Cunha, National Secretary of Citizen's Income, Ministry
of Social Development and Fight Against Hunger, Brazil,
described how the Bolsa Familia, or Family Grant, had made
a difference. Families, who previously could not afford
to look after their children, reclaimed them from the streets
and received the grant on condition that the children attended
school and health clinics and underwent various health and
nutrition programs. Thus the introduction of the Bolsa Familia
addressed several problems at once. Finally, Dr Jean Swanson-Jacobs,
Deputy Minister Social Development, Republic of South Africa,
described similar beneficial effects of unconditional pensions
in South Africa.
The
closing plenary, on the theme 'Basic Income: The Way Forward'
took the form of a roundtable with four short presentations
followed by an open forum. The four speakers were Richard
Caputo of Yeshiva University, New York, Lorna Gold, Programme
Leader of Trocaire, Ireland, Philippe Van Parijs of the
Catholic University of Louvain and Harvard, and Guy Standing.
The closing session is always a time to review the past
three days, to summarise progress and disappointment, a
mixture of exhilaration and hope, exhaustion, and sadness
at saying farewell again, until next time.
The
General Assembly, which is the business meeting of the Basic
Income Earth Network, took place at the Montrose Hotel on
the evening of Saturday 21 June. The business covered a
Financial Report, a report on the funding of BIEN's and
USBIG's e-journal Basic Income Studies., and a report on
BIEN's new website. A happy part of the proceedings was
the recognition of four new national affiliated networks,
in Canada, Italy, Japan and Mexico. The venue for the 13th
BIEN Congress was confirmed as São Paolo, Brazil
in June 2010. Guy Standing and Eduardo Supplicy stood down
as co-chairs, (Guy after 22 years in office, since the first
BIEN Congress in 1986), with appreciation of all that they
have contributed. They were proposed as Honorary Co-presidents
of BIEN for the next two years. Karl Widerquist and Ingrid
Van Niekirk was elected as co-chairs. The rest of the committee
was re-elected with the addition of Louise Haagh and Simon
Birnbaum.
The
hard work at the business meeting was followed by social
time together in the bar afterwards. Those who stayed in
Dublin for an extra day arranged to meet up together in
the city centre for lunch. And the storms of the midsummer
solstice failed to dampen people's enjoyment. Truly a friendly
occasion all round.
Bibliography:
Reynolds,
Brigid and Seán Healy (Eds), 2008, Making Choices
- Choosing Futures: Ireland at a Crossroads, Dublin:
CORI Justice, €12.50.
The
final versions of all of the papers are available on www.basicincomeireland.com
Anne
Miller
Report
of the annual conference of the Child Poverty Action Group
in Scotland, 29th June 2008, Glasgow Caledonian University,
Glasgow
This
conference provided an opportunity for welfare rights and
other advisors in Scotland to hear about the latest developments
in benefits and tax credits. It was very well attended,
and the atmosphere was warm and friendly as old friends
renewed acquaintance. The theme of this year's conference
was 'Welfare Rights 2008'. The current scene was laid out
by John Dickie, Head of CPAG in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon
MSP, Deputy First minister & Cabinet Secretary for Health
and Wellbeing, then outlined the Scottish Government's anti-poverty
strategy, and the role of welfare rights work within that
policy, and she spoke sympathetically about the aims of
CPAG in Scotland.
Before
and after lunch, there were sessions where delegates could
attend two out of the six workshops on 'Employment and support
allowance, (ESA)', 'Kinship carers: allowances, benefits
and tax credits', 'Refugees rights - an update', 'Local
housing allowance', 'Medical evidence and tribunals', and
'Right to reside'. These workshops were given by CPAG's
Welfare Rights workers, a CPAG Solicitor, a Trustee, and
the last one was presented by Commissioner Edward Jacobs
of the Tribunals Service Social Security and Child Support
Commissioners. The purpose of the workshops was to update
delegates on changes in the legislation, how they will work
in practice, to assess whether they really improve the situations
of claimants, and, for instance, to work out the outcome
when DWP and local government rules come into conflict.
I was impressed by the detailed knowledge displayed by the
leaders of the groups that I attended, and really thought
that they each deserved a Ph.D for being able to sort out,
commit to memory and communicate all the extremely complicated
facts.
The
last session was a panel debate and question time based
on the theme 'A Welfare State to End Child Poverty: what
should it look like?' The four panellists were Adrian Sinfield,
Professor Emeritus of Social Policy, Edinburgh University,
Kate Green, Chief Executive of CPAG, Peter Kelly, Director
of The Poverty Alliance and me. Each of us put forward ideas
for improving services to prevent child poverty. A CI scheme
is likely to start by introducing a realistic Child Benefit,
which reaches those parts of poverty that other schemes
cannot reach. The foolhardiness of the Chancellor's announcing
a cut of 2% in income tax rate this summer, which could
have been used to meet the government's own targets to halve
child poverty by 2010, did not pass unnoticed.
When
I later commented to one CPAG employee that she would be
out of a job if a CI scheme were adopted, she replied that
that is already the aim of all CPAG workers: to make themselves
redundant through having prevented child poverty.
Anne
Miller.
Reviews
Simon
Birnbaum, Just Distribution: Rawlsian Liberalism and
the Politics of Basic Income, Stockholm Studies in Politics
122, Stockholm University, 2008: 978-91-7155-570-0
Simon
Birnbaum is a newcomer to the basic income debate who has
quickly worked his way into the basic income movement. He
completed his doctorate in 2008 at Stockholm University,
and has already been awarded fellowships at Oxford University
and at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium under
the supervision of Philippe Van Parijs. He has only been
publishing since 2005, but he has already published six
academic articles and chapters, five of which are on basic
income.
Just
Distribution is Birnbaum's doctoral thesis. It is not an
easy read. It is 240 pages of dense political philosophy
that only people who intend to get deeply into the philosophical
debate over basic income will want to read in full. It is
aimed at people who have already read several of John Rawls's
major works and some of the more philosophical works on
distributive justice in general and basic income in particular.
However, many of the arguments in this book are of interest
to a wider audience, and I will try to give readers of CIT
Newsletter a brief introduction to them.
Birnbaum's
starting point is John Rawls's Theory of Justice, one of
the most influential works of political philosophy of the
Twentieth Century. Rawls's most famous proposition, "the
difference principle," stated that the distribution
of benefits from the joint social project should take incentives
into account, but decision makers should use incentives
to maximize the benefit to the least advantaged individual.
When do we stop giving more to high achievers? When doing
so ceases to be in the interest of the least advantaged
people. Such a principle sounds favourable to basic income,
but Rawls balked when confronted with the question of whether
the difference principle should benefit lazy "surfers"
who enjoy the benefits of the social project without contributing.
The least advantaged individual in Rawls's theory is not
necessarily the poorest person, but the poorest contributor
to the social project, apparently ruling out basic income.
Birnbaum's
project is to admit that the surfer problem exists but also
to argue that on balance an unconditional basic income would
further the overall goals of a Rawlsian economy. The surfer
problem is a strike against basic income, but it need not
be decisive, if basic income has other benefits that further
Rawlsian goals. Birnbaum discusses many such benefits. For
example, many contributors would benefit from the assurance
of unconditional support. People who contribute to the social
project in ways other than paid labour will share more in
the benefits that they help to create and will be better
able to make their contribution if an unconditional basic
income is available. Subjecting disadvantaged people to
extensive supervision to make sure that they are eligible
for conditional redistribution is harmful to the self-respect
that Rawlsianism is supposed to accord to contributors.
Basic income gives workers the power to refuse exploitive
working conditions. Finally, there is a large amount of
wealth in society that attaches to nonhuman resources, and
that can therefore be distributed unconditionally without
violating any principles of fairness to contributors.
The
latter half of the book responds to criticisms based on
reciprocity, responsibility, and feasibility. A regular
basic income can be important to upholding the security
and autonomy that individuals need in order to make well-informed
choices as self-respecting, equal citizens, and it, therefore,
helps maintain responsibility. Birnbaum concedes that a
contributory ethos is necessary to maintain a Rawlsian society
with or without basic income and that basic income might
therefore lead to exploitation of those who hold the necessary
ethos by those who don't. However, there is also a tension
between the effort to eliminate any such exploitation and
the neutrality-based goals of a liberal society. Birnbaum
concludes that, given the constraints of feasibility, there
is a tentative case to be made for a mixed redistributional
system with some redistribution coming in the form of conditional
benefits and some coming in the form of unconditional basic
income.
Karl
Widerquist, University of Reading
Erik
Christensen, The Heretical Political Discourse: a Discourse
Analysis of the Danish Debate on Basic Income, Aalborg
University Press, 2008, 164 pp, pbk, 87 7307 936 2, £28
This
collection of mainly previously published articles and book
chapters contains a single simple message: in Denmark there
has been a battle between a social and political discourse
about workfare and a social and political discourse about
Citizen's Income, and the former has won the battle.
It
really doesn't matter that there is a certain amount of
repetition between the different chapters (- there always
is in such collections): what the different chapters together
achieve is a variety of viewpoints from which the Citizen's
Income and workfare discourses can be explored and from
which the relationships and conflicts between them can be
understood.
Particularly
interesting from a UK perspective is the occasional widespread
nature of the Citizen's Income debate in Denmark. Whilst
we have experienced here considerable understanding of a
Citizen's Income's feasibility and desirability amongst
academics, policy analysts and some parliamentarians and
civil servants, the kind of public political debate which
Denmark has experienced has eluded us. The Republic of Ireland
comes closer to Denmark in this respect, which suggests
that size of population might have something to do with
it.
As
well as the debate in Denmark being widespread socially
and politically, it has also been widespread in terms of
its relationships with ideologies and ideas. Christensen's
chapters on the battles between the Citizen's Income and
workfare discourses in the labour movement and the women's
movement are particularly interesting.
So
how can a social and political Citizen's Income discourse
cease to be 'heretical' and become mainstream political
and social debate? The author suggests that advocates should
position themselves between exclusion and inclusion, thus
avoiding the marginalisation which advocates experience
if they treat a Citizen's Income as an alternative to the
current socio-economic system and the marginalisation experienced
when a Citizen's Income is treated simply as a minor administrative
reform. He recommends Mathieson's notion of 'the unfinished',
i.e. relating to the current situation and attempting to
move it on to something very different. Here the workfare
discourse is currently firmly in charge, and only a careful
'unfinished' strategy will give the Citizen's Income discourse
any leverage at all. Such a strategy is possible because
a Citizen's Income relates both to practical problems with
the present system and to substantial reforms of the current
system, so avoiding both inclusion and exclusion is possible
in principle.
The
UK isn't Denmark, but many of the issues are the same, and
particularly the dominance of the workfare discourse. This
book contains some valuable lessons and it should be essential
reading for anyone interested in promoting debate on a Citizen's
Income.
Clare
Bambra, ' "Sifting the wheat from the chaff":
a two-dimensional discriminant analysis of welfare state
regime theory', Social Policy and Administration,
volume 41, no.1, February 2007, pp.1-28
There
are two ways of categorising welfare states: 'How much?'
and 'How?'. In this important article Bambra shows how each
of the numerous classification systems which have been offered
since the 1950s have weighted these two different facts.
She decides that the more useful categorisations are those
which take account of both factors.
The
problem with this article is that the 'How?' question is
narrowly constructed, and only amounts to a question as
to how much is funded by the state and how much by employers.
The important matter of the structure of the entitlement
system is not addressed. Yes, employer-funded schemes are
contribution-based whereas state-funded systems are generally
a mixture of both contribution-based and means-tested systems,
so it might look as if the question as to how much the state
pays and how much employers pay might act as a proxy for
benefits structure, but the way in which means-testing is
done and the extent of means-testing are entirely ignored
in Bambra's categorisation, and this can't be right. To
add a third factor, 'extent of means-testing', and a fourth,
'marginal withdrawal rates', would provide a more useful
way of categorising the different approaches to categorisation
of welfare states.
A
fifth factor is, of course, the extent of universal benefits
such as Child Benefit: possibly a more important factor
than all of the others when it comes to evaluating a welfare-state's
structure on poverty reduction and labour market effects.
Patricia
Evans, '(Not) taking account of precarious employment: workfare
policies and lone mothers in Ontario and the UK', Social
Policy and Administration, volume 41, no.1, February
2007, pp.29-49
This
study of workfare for lone mothers in Canada shows that
the result of the policy is precarious low-quality employment
which leads to lone mothers cycling in and out of employment
and thus in and out of means-tested benefits and to little
emphasis on education and training. The more general anti-poverty
approach of the UK Government is commended, but the importance
of Child Benefit in the British system is unfortunately
not recognised in the article.
Thomas
F. Crossley and Sung-Hee Jeon, 'Joint taxation and the labour
supply of married women: Evidence from the Canadian tax
reform of 1988', Fiscal Studies, vol.28, 2007,
no.3, pp.343-365
A
change to the taxation system in Canada in 1988 has enabled
Crossley and Jeon to conduct a natural experiment to test
the effect of changes in marginal tax rates on labour market
participation.
The
Canadian tax system treats husband and wife jointly. Before
the change, the husband received a tax allowance for the
dependent spouse which reduced as the spouse's earnings
rose. This meant that for each additional dollar earned
by the woman, tax was paid on an additional dollar of the
husband's income at the husband's highest current rate.
After the change, deduction of the additional dollar of
the husband's income was at a flat rate of 17%: the lowest
tax rate. This meant that a low-earning husband experienced
no change, whereas a high-earning husband experienced a
change of 12% in their marginal tax rate.
The
researchers chose two samples of couples similar in all
respects except that the husbands in one sample earned $24,568
(standard deviation $37) and the husbands in the other $53,273
(standard deviation $195).
A
simulation of average tax rates showed that for the low
earners the tax reform created almost no change in net incomes,
whereas for the high earners the effective marginal tax
rate on the woman's additional income was considerably reduced,
and that the difference was greatest for women earning $5,000.
This suggested that the effect of the change on labour market
participation was likely to show up most clearly in part-time
employment rates.
The
researchers found that labour market participation amongst
wives of high-earning husbands increased by 10%, which they
rightly suggest is both 'economically and statistically
significant' (p.357); and, as they expected, they found
that 'the principal effect of the reform was to increase
incentives for part-time work' (p.357). Amongst the wives
of low-earning husbands there was no significant change.
The
conclusion which the researchers draw is that individualising
the taxation system would increase labour supply amongst
women. This is a valid conclusion to draw for systems in
which the jointness of the system imposes high marginal
tax rates on spouses of earning husbands. The researchers
also rightly suggest that their research should be 'of interest
…. where the unit of taxation is the individual, but
where recent trends towards means-tested benefits and tax
credits on family income have increased the 'jointness'
of the system' (p.362) - as in the UK.
They
might have drawn a further and more general conclusion:
that lowering marginal tax rates increases labour market
participation. This is an important result which should
have been highlighted. The study of the effects of tax and
benefits changes on labour market participation is still
in its infancy, and this article contributes significantly
to the field because it shows that increasing marginal tax
rates by means-testing benefits or by withdrawing tax credits
will decrease labour market participation, and that decreasing
marginal tax rates by increasing universal benefits such
as Child Benefit and by replacing means tested benefits
and tax credits by universal benefits will increase labour
market participation.
It
is a pleasure to read an article which contributes such
unambiguous results to a field with direct application to
the reduction of poverty and the efficiency of the economy.
Short
notices
The
October 2007 issue of Social Policy and Administration contains
several articles of interest to readers of this Newsletter.
Martin Seeleib-Kaiser and Timo Fleckenstein show how Germany's
labour market policies have recently followed the UK into
greater reliance on means-tested benefits, and suggest that
this has happened because 'policy-makers … did not
have concrete blueprints for labour market reform' (p.444)
available to them other than the UK model. Suzanne Moffatt
and Paul Higgs show how non-uptake of means-tested benefits
by elderly people exacerbates the gap between the richest
and the poorest pensioners, and suggest that it is 'unlikely
that, in the immediate future, many frail and vulnerable
older people will be able to operate as successful consumers
in the welfare market, since consumer citizenship for older
people depends to a great extent on their resources and
health' (p.462). Siobahn E. Laird explains how in sub-Saharan
Africa management of the economy is not enough and that
government involvement in welfare delivery is essential
to social cohesion. Robert Maier, Willibrord de Graaf and
Patricia Frericks offer a life-course perspective on pensions
provision and ask for 'new pension systems that fit the
present life course with all its variations and interdependencies'
(p.501). Finally, Alina Gildiner takes Canada as an example
of some of the effects of policy drift.
In
the September 2007 edition of the newsletter of the Geneva
Association (the International Association for the Study
of Insurance Economics) the association reports on its 'Four
Pillars' project. Income maintenance in old age now has
four pillars: state pensions, occupational pensions, private
pensions, and employment income; and an article in the newsletter
recommends that, in order to promote part-time employment
amongst 'silver workers', a flexible framework and a smooth
transition into retirement are required, and also the ability
to take part-time employment both before and after official
retirement.
Call
for papers
Citizen's
Income sessions at the Social Policy Association Conference
29
June - 1 July, 2009
The
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland
The
Citizen's Income Trust is attempting to organize several
sessions on Citizen's Income at the Social Policy Association's
(SPA) 43rd annual Conference to be held at the University
of Edinburgh's George Square buildings, 29 June - 1 July,
2009. The theme is 'Policy futures - learning from the past?'
and the conference will provide a great opportunity for
presentations on all aspects of Citizens Income.
To
participate in one of these CI sessions, please send a title,
an abstract of 300-400 words, together with full contact
information and affiliation, to Annie Miller at the CIT
office, info@citizensincome.org by Friday, 30 January 2009.
These papers will be grouped by topic and sent to the SPA
for their approval. They will announce the final decisions
by Friday 6 March. The deadline for full papers is Monday
15 June, for uploading onto the conference website.
All
participants must register with the SPA. Online booking
opens in mid-January 2009, via www.crfr.ac.uk/spa2009/spa_index.html.
Registration before Friday 24 April 2009 will offer a discounted
fee which, for non-members, is £260 for the full conference
and a reduced fee of £140 for students, unwaged and
retired people. The registration fee after 24 April but
before Friday 29 May 2009 attracts the full fee, which is
£315 for the full conference and £165 for the
reduced fee. This fee includes coffees, teas and lunches,
and a year's subscription to the SPA. Accommodation for
Monday and Tuesday nights costs £50 per night per
person, while the Conference Dinner on the Monday evening,
and a Reception on the Tuesday evening together cost £55.
The conference starts with lunch on Monday 29 June and ends
with lunch on Wednesday, 1 July 2009.
The
conference fee goes entirely to the SPA. The Citizen's Income
Trust may be able to contribute towards this cost for some
delegates who have little or no other institutional funding.
To apply for funding, send an application, including the
abstract and notification of acceptance of the paper, to
the CIT Treasurer, Philip Vince, at info@citizensincome.org.
by Friday 27 March.
The
SPA publishes a journal Policy World, and members also receive
copies of the Journal of Social Policy (CUP) and Social
Policy and Society (CUP) free as part of their subscription.
For further information about the SPA, see www.social-policy.com.
For further information about the 2008 and 2009 conferences,
see www.socialpolicy.ed.ac.uk. If you would like to submit
directly to the SPA, send your abstract and contact information
to spa09@ed.ac.uk by Friday 13 February 2009.
©
Citizen's Income Trust, 2009
|
