(University of Bath via EurekAlert) The introduction of a partial basic income targeted at young people living in France would provide an important ‘leg up’ for the country’s disenfranchised youth, say the authors of a new report.
The analysis, from the University of Bath’s Institute for Policy Research (IPR) and Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis (CeMPA) at the University of Essex, assesses a range of different policy options proposed for basic income in France and considers trade-offs required in terms of how these would be funded.
The report comes ahead of this weekend’s French Presidential first round elections where candidates from the right and left have stated they want to extend access to the minimum income benefit (RSA) to those under 25, which is the current qualifying age. However, these proposals would not be universal.
This includes left-wing candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has proposed a monthly basic income or ‘autonomy grant’ aimed at students in France. His plans would see all students receive an unconditional monthly allowance of €1063.
Basic income for all young people
The IPR report author, Professor Matteo Richiardi, argues that a basic income in France is credible, but suggests that targeting students specifically could also be regressive, given that many come from better-off backgrounds and are also likely to go on to earn more in the future. Instead, his report advocates for a more modest allowance (of €337 a month) but for all young people aged 20-24, not just students.
(University of Bath via EurekAlert) The introduction of a partial basic income targeted at young people living in France would provide an important ‘leg up’ for the country’s disenfranchised youth, say the authors of a new report.
The analysis, from the University of Bath’s Institute for Policy Research (IPR) and Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis (CeMPA) at the University of Essex, assesses a range of different policy options proposed for basic income in France and considers trade-offs required in terms of how these would be funded.
The report comes ahead of this weekend’s French Presidential first round elections where candidates from the right and left have stated they want to extend access to the minimum income benefit (RSA) to those under 25, which is the current qualifying age. However, these proposals would not be universal.
This includes left-wing candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has proposed a monthly basic income or ‘autonomy grant’ aimed at students in France. His plans would see all students receive an unconditional monthly allowance of €1063.
Basic income for all young people
The IPR report author, Professor Matteo Richiardi, argues that a basic income in France is credible, but suggests that targeting students specifically could also be regressive, given that many come from better-off backgrounds and are also likely to go on to earn more in the future. Instead, his report advocates for a more modest allowance (of €337 a month) but for all young people aged 20-24, not just students.
Honestly, I'd repackage it into a minimum survival amount of resources/money that one gets to simply survive...I think we should outlaw homelessness and probably aim for at least the basics for each person within our societies. Even if the government buys or makes thousands of trailers, 5th wheels and tiny houses in order to do it. Next food stamps could be given to everyone that is disabled, homeless and makes under 15k per year in order to make sure that they're eating enough. It is basic human kindness and it is the right thing to do. Now on the otherhand, I believe we should invest in education and programs to advance these people and hopefully one day get them to the level of doing better. This investment would be far better then driving someone off the cliff(sometimes quite literally) and making it impossible for them to dig themselves out.
I was going to put this in the USA Watch thread, but I think that the expired Child Tax Credit does relate to the themes in this thread. A difference between the Child Tax Credit and UBI is that the credit targets families with children. In other respects, many of the same arguments, both pro and con, surround both issues.
Who Killed the Expanded Child Tax Credit? by Dylan Matthews
April 18, 2022
(Vox) So why did Congress let one of the most important child poverty policies ever enacted lapse?
The Joe Manchin failure, and the larger failure
There’s a very simple answer to why the child credit didn’t continue: there weren’t 50 senators willing to support its extension. And most public reporting suggests the main holdout was Sen. Joe Manchin.
Axios’s Hans Nichols, the DC press corps’ premier Manchin-whisperer, reported last October that the West Virginia Democrat was demanding that the credit include a “firm work requirement” and not go to families making over $60,000 a year.
That’s a huge departure from the Biden CTC, whose major attraction was that it didn’t phase in with income and went to all poor households. The credit also went to many families with six-figure earnings, and changing that as Manchin desired would force a de facto tax increase on upper-income folks.
Some reports have also suggested that Manchin thought the money would go to buy drugs — an evergreen concern about cash programs for the poor (Manchin’s office declined to confirm or rebut that he expressed this concern privately). This suspicion is ill-founded; the best evidence review on the question I know of concluded there’s little reason to believe cash transfers increase drug or alcohol abuse.
As someone who writes frequently about universal basic income — the idea of giving everyone enough money to live on, no strings attached — the most common argument I hear against the proposal has nothing to do with its cost, or the potential that it’ll discourage people from working, an attack that former Vice President Joe Biden used this week.
The most common criticism I hear, rather, is that basic income would cause massive inflation.
Luckily, new research on a program in Mexico gives us a real-world test case for this idea. And it strongly suggests that giving out cash doesn’t cause inflation — or if it does, the effects are very, very mild.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
By far, the most common concern in regards to my first article on Medium about the idea of an unconditional basic income was that all prices would inevitably go up as a result, immediately reducing the value of each dollar and essentially creating a new zero. Let’s call it the “New Zero Argument” against basic income.
The New Zero Argument: Although a noble idea to give money to those in need, no one would actually be better off as a result of basic income due to everything costing more — especially rent — and therefore the policy idea is entirely pointless because the only thing it would attain is a new zero.
In economic terms, this concern is the fear of inflation or even hyperinflation, and it is possibly the most common reflex to the notion of just transferring more money to the lower and middle classes. So how grounded in reality is this concern?
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
I've always resented the idea that basic income will just make people lazy. To be frank, my "job" prevents me from doing my real life's work by sapping all of my energy and motivation.
Guaranteed income embraced by leaders of some of largest US counties
Source: ABC News
Some of the largest counties in the U.S. are joining forces to provide guaranteed income to residents in need.
County leaders from Los Angeles County, Chicago's Cook County, Houston's Harris County and more help make up Counties for Guaranteed Income, a coalition of local leaders hoping to collect research to try to expand no-strings-attached cash assistance programs nationwide.
Research suggests that guaranteed income can provide a path to financial stability and address poverty as well as racial, wealth or income inequalities.
"It's not just the morally right thing to do. It's actually pragmatic and economically a smart strategy as well," Will Jawando, a Montgomery County, Maryland, councilmember at-large, told ABC News. "We saw with the child tax credit, we saw with the stimulus."
