Is Basic Income Within Reach?: Building the Case Amidst Progress and Poverty (Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee)

✍ Scribed by Wayne Simpson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 326
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book examines the evolution of basic income policy and research in advanced economies and is divided into two parts. The first section considers the development of basic income as a social policy initiative in advanced (OECD) nations from the 1960s to today. It reviews what the negative income tax experiments accomplished, their limitations, and what they can lend to the design and implementation of basic income pilots or a full blown basic income program today. It also considers important developments and research in poverty and economic inequality and in technological change and labour market adjustment over the last half century. The second section focuses on the Canadian case, where the prospects for basic income are perhaps among the most promising. In addition to a review of Mincome and its lessons and limitations, this section considers important developments in poverty research by the Economic Council of Canada and the Canadian Senate in the 1960s,attempts at welfare reform, and the policy initiatives to develop a basic income for elderly Canadians that has endured to this day. Many of the important social and technological developments that are reviewed in the first part will be discussed in more detail with specific reference to the Canadian case. The evolution of the important policy innovations―the National Child Benefit and its successors and the Poverty Reduction Strategy―are outlined in detail and linked to other, more modest, income support initiatives such as the federal sales tax credit that provide a potential foundation for a comprehensive basic income plan in Canada. Research, including recent microsimulation studies of a basic income, are critically reviewed. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has increased interest in basic income to support those hardest hit, the book argues for careful design of basic income policies in its aftermath rather than simplistic adoption of emergency pandemic measures.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Abbreviations
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction: Maturity of Basic Income and Its Prospects in Canada and Elsewhere
1.1 Where Do We Start?
1.2 How Do We Proceed (in a Pandemic World)?
1.3 Is There a Special Canadian Case for a Basic Income?
1.4 Outline of the Book
References
Part I Basic Income as Social Policy in Advanced Economies
2 Emergence of the Basic Income Concept as a Negative Income Tax (the 60s)
2.1 A Beginning: The U.S. War on Poverty
2.2 An Idea: The Negative Income Tax
2.3 The Debate: How to Address the Issues Raised?
2.4 Another Approach: The Negative Income Tax as Optimal Taxation and Redistribution
References
3 The Age of Negative Income Tax Experimentation (the 70s)
3.1 Introduction: The Setting for Policy Experimentation
3.2 The Framework of the Negative Income Tax Experiments
3.3 Rolling Out the Experiments
3.4 Administration of the Negative Income Tax Experiments
3.5 Aftermath: Research, Popular Impact and Lessons
References
4 Basic Income Beyond the Negative Income Tax (the 80s and 90s and a Bit Before)
4.1 Moving Toward the Millennium: Poverty, Technology and the Changing World of Work
4.2 Income Assistance Policy in the Aftermath of the Negative Income Tax Experiments
4.3 The Basic Income Europe/Earth Network: Changing the Focus?
References
5 Basic Income in the Twenty-First Century (the 00s and 10s)
5.1 Accelerating Technological Change, Inequality and the Changing Labour Market
5.1.1 The Precarious Work Predicament
5.2 Evolution of the Basic Income in Advanced Economies
5.2.1 The U.S.
5.2.2 The Netherlands
5.2.3 France
5.2.4 The U.K.
5.2.5 Ireland
5.2.6 Germany
5.3 New Basic Income Experimentation: Finland to California with Stops in Between
5.3.1 The Pilot Projects in Advanced Economies
5.3.2 Outcomes from the Pilot Projects So Far
5.4 Expanding the Research on Basic Income: Optimal Taxation and Microsimulation
5.4.1 Optimal Taxation
5.4.2 Microsimulation Research on Basic Income
References
Part II A Basic Income for Canada?
6 Emergence of the Negative Income Tax in Canada (the 60s and 70s)
6.1 Catching Up: Uncovering Poverty in Canada
6.2 Engineering a Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment (Mincome)
6.3 Delivering a Basic Income to Manitobans: Lessons from Mincome
References
7 Development of a “Basic Income” in Canada (the 80s and 90s)
7.1 Resurrection of Mincome: Research and Lessons from the Winnipeg Site
7.2 Moving Toward the Millennium in Canada: Poverty, Technology and the Changing World of Work
7.3 Developments Toward a Basic Income: Tax Credits, Child Benefits and a Royal Commission
References
8 Basic Income in Canada in the Twenty-First Century (the 00s and 10s)
8.1 Poverty in the Labour Market of the Twenty-First Century
8.2 New Research from Mincome: The Dauphin Site
8.3 The Canada Child Benefit: Delivering a Basic Income for Families with Children
8.4 New Research on a Basic Income for Canada: Experimentation and Microsimulation
8.5 Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy and Provincial Initiatives
References
9 Where Is the Forefront of Basic Income?
9.1 The Case for a Basic Income in Advanced Economies
9.2 Canada’s Poverty Strategy and Prospects for a Basic Income
9.3 Final Thoughts and a Warning
References
Index