Poor citizens to receive $ 1320 per month in Canada

[vgane]

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Why can't they give food stamps, insurance & basic health services...Why cash that will make people lazy? However it is only a pilot


[h=1]What Happens When You Give Basic Income to the Poor? Canada Is About to Find Out[/h]

• November 15, 2016

by Natalie Shoemaker


Ontario is poised to become a testing ground for basic income in 2017 as part of a pilot program. Hugh Segal is the special advisor to the Canadian province and a former senator. He believes a supplemental income of $1,320 a month could provide a viable path to poverty abatement—effectively replacing welfare programs and a system he described as “seriously demeaning” in a paper discussing this basic income pilot project.
Segal suggests this pilot project would provide real evidence to whether basic income is the solution to poverty many governments have been seeking. It would answer many of the burning questions and concerns regarding such a system:

• Can basic income policies provide a more efficient, less intrusive, and less stigmatizing way of delivering income support for those now living in poverty?
• Can those policies also encourage work, relieve financial and time poverty, and reduce economic marginalization?
• Can a basic income reduce cost pressures in other areas of government spending, such as healthcare?
• Can a basic income strengthen the incentive to work, by responsibly helping those who are working but still living below the poverty line?

In the United States, welfare programs are the staple of big government—a Republican nightmare. Paul Ryan has indicated he wants to phase-out these entitlement programs, however, he’s also concerned about solving the poverty issue in America. If Ontario’s proposed three-year project provides compelling evidence that basic income could do both, we may have a bi-partisan solution.
Segal is a conservative. In his view, welfare programs help alleviate some of the symptoms of poverty, but provide no long-term program to get people out.
“Testing a basic income is a humane and useful way to measure how so many of the costs of poverty (in terms of productivity, health, policing, and other community costs, to name only a few) might be diminished, while poverty itself is reduced and work is encouraged,” Segal says in the report.
A guaranteed income would provide a floor no one would fall beneath and citizens would receive it regardless of employment status. Conservatives like it because it provides an elegant solution that could replace the welfare state and the left love it because it provides a greater social architecture.
However, many question how giving people free money could fix many of our socio-economic issues. But we won’t know if we don’t try—if we don’t do the research to find a solution, which is what Segal suggests.
"There cannot be, nor should there be, any guarantees about what results a pilot might generate,” Segal writes. “The objective behind this endeavor should be to generate an evidence-base for policy development, without bias or pre-determined conclusion."
This test of basic income won’t be the first. Researchers and governments across the globe have started implementing similar tests to see what happens when you give people no-strings-attached cash. Finland, the Dutch city of Utricht, and Kenya all have plans to create programs to test this system. Segal believes a program in Ontario could add to this growing body of research.
"This Ontario initiative takes place at a time when other jurisdictions, in Canada and abroad, are working in different ways toward a Basic Income approach to better reduce poverty,” he wrote. “The opportunity to learn from and engage with these other initiatives should not be overlooked, nor should approaches being tested elsewhere be necessarily re-tested here."
A study in Manitoba, Canada done back in the 1970s provides us with an idea of what a community receiving basic income would look like. Many believe people would stop working, and become lazy. They would be half right, some people did stop working in Manitoba. But when you look at the data a little closer, we begin to see how poverty starts at an early a

http://news.rediff.com/commentary/2...ation-system/d95dba6e93ddba2b1cfa9f869f11d7ba

 

[prasad1]

The op title is misleading. This is still in thinking phase, it is not accomplished.
A basic income (also called unconditional basic income, Citizen's Income, basic income guarantee, universal basic income or universal demogrant) is a form of social security[SUP]][/SUP] in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from elsewhere.
An unconditional income transfer of less than the poverty line is sometimes referred to as a partial basic income.
Basic income systems that are financed by the profits of publicly owned enterprises (often called social dividend or citizen's dividend) are major components in many proposed models of market socialism. Basic income schemes have also been promoted within the context of capitalist systems, where they would be financed through various forms of taxation.

The affordability of a basic income proposal relies on many factors such as the costs of any public services it replaces, tax increases required, and less tangible auxiliary effects on government revenue and/or spending (for example a successful basic income scheme may reduce crime, thereby reducing required expenditure on policing and justice.)
A 2012 affordability study done in the Republic of Ireland by Social Justice Ireland found that basic income would be affordable with a 45 percent income tax rate. This would lead to an improvement in income for the majority of the population.
Paul Mason stated that universal basic income would increase social security costs, but that it would also reduce the high medical costs associated with diseases of poverty, by reducing stress, diseases like high blood pressure, type II diabetes etc. would become less common.

A commission of the German parliament has discussed basic income in 2013 and concluded that it is "unrealizable" because:

• it would cause a significant decrease in the motivation to work among citizens, with unforeseen consequences for the national economy
• it would require a complete restructuring of the taxation, social insurance and pension systems, which will cost a significant amount of money
• the current system of social help in Germany is regarded more effective because it's more personalized: the amount of help provided is not fixed and depends on the financial situation of the person; for some socially vulnerable groups the basic income could be not sufficient
• it would cause a vast increase in immigration
• it would cause a rise of the shadow economy
• the corresponding rise of taxes would cause more inequality: higher taxes would translate themselves into higher prices of everyday products, harming the finances of poor people
• no viable way to finance basic income in Germany was found

Some economists have expressed concern about the basic income. Daron Acemoğlu, who has expressed uncertainty about his views on basic income has stated "Current US status quo is horrible. A more efficient and generous social safety net is needed. But UBI is expensive and not generous enough."[SUP][45][/SUP] Eric Maskin has stated that "a minimum income makes sense, but not at the cost of eliminating Social Security and Medicare."[SUP]][/SUP]The Economist notes that raising the income floor would have no impact on the wealth gap. While cash transfers would make the most difference to those on the bottom of the pile, they posit it would be instead of existing welfare benefits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Varun Gandhi has written about basic income.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/policy-watch-why-we-need-to-talk-about-a-basic-income/article8788880.ece

 

[prasad1]

Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to introduce a guaranteed basic income for all.
Final results from Sunday's referendum showed that nearly 77% opposed the plan, with only 23% backing it.
The proposal had called for adults to be paid an unconditional monthly income, whether they worked or not.
The supporters camp had suggested a monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs (£1,755; $2,555) for adults and also SFr625 for each child.
The amounts reflected the high cost of living in Switzerland. It is not clear how the plan would have affected people on higher salaries.
The supporters had also argued that since work was increasingly automated, fewer jobs were available for workers.
Switzerland is the first country to hold such a vote.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060