New Atlas

A new report, from researchers at McMaster University and Ryerson University, has surveyed over 200 participants from a prematurely cancelled basic income experiment that took place in Southern Ontario between 2017 and 2019.

The report suggests participants saw improvements in mental health, housing stability and social relationships, along with less frequent visits to hospitals and doctors that lowered the impact on general health services.

Quartz

As pandemic panic mounts worldwide and more people globally are being told to stay home, one conservative American politician is taking a decidedly progressive position, proposing interim Universal Basic Income.

Senator Mitt Romney of Utah today said that every American should get a $1,000 check to cover costs and keep the economy running, in addition to a slew of other measures to mitigate the pandemic’s fiscal fallout.

Huffington Post

Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government says it has no regrets about cancelling a basic income pilot project even though a recent study found it vastly improved people’s health and helped many find better jobs. 

“One of the first campaign promises your government broke was to complete the basic income pilot,” Green party Leader Mike Schreiner told Premier Doug Ford in the legislature Thursday. 

The Star

Three-quarters of people who were employed before joining Ontario’s ill-fated basic income pilot project continued to work while receiving the no-strings-attached monthly stipend, according to a new study.

And more than one-third of those low-wage workers were able to move to higher paying and more secure jobs, according to the study by McMaster University researchers being released Wednesday.

CBC News

The P.E.I. Legislature's special committee on poverty heard testimony Wednesday on whether it is feasible to create a basic income guarantee for Prince Edward Islanders.

The idea behind a basic income guarantee is to make sure everyone has enough money to live on. Rather than calculating assistance based on ability to work or find a job, people would be guaranteed a certain income under any circumstances.

The committee is working on how the province could afford such a system.

Vox

After hundreds of years, basic income seems to be finally catching on.

The general idea — that the government should give every citizen a regular infusion of free money with no strings attached — has been around since the 16th century. But it’s experienced a remarkable resurgence over the past few years, moving from the fringes into the mainstream.

Advocates ranging from tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg to libertarian economist Milton Friedman have endorsed it. Andrew Yang popularized it on the Democratic debate stage. And around the world, countries are running pilot programs to test it.

Marie Burge

The PEI Working Group for a Livable Income, established in 2003, is receiving support from across Canada for its work toward establishing Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) in PEI. The Working Group had developed its campaign in 2013 and called it C-BIG PEI (https://cbigpei.wixsite.com/c-big-pei)

In late November a national initiative group on BIG was formed, made up of promoters representing nine provinces and one territory. The Kingston and Area Group for BIG were the original motivators, having previously identified PEI as an ideal place to start a Basic Income program. The understanding is that it would be a permanent, fully-funded, federal-provincial program. The promoters from across the country see the advantage of having BIG established in a complete provincial jurisdiction.The size of the PEI provides minimal complications.

National Post

A New Hampshire family that received a $1,000-a-month “freedom dividend” for a year from the campaign of Democratic presidential contender Andrew Yang spent most of the money on college bills – but also on an improv class for the unemployed dad.

Chuck Fassi had lost his job as a manager for a company servicing chemical dispensing equipment when his family got the first check in January 2019.

He had never heard of Yang before his daughter, Janelle, mentioned the candidate’s universal basic income plan, or UBI, and nominated her family for it.

Karl Widerquist - Basic Income Earth Network

Forty years ago today—February 7, 1980—was a small milestone for the Universal Basic Income (UBI) movement: Milton and Rose Friedman dedicated an episode of their television show to a form of basic income guarantee called the Negative Income Tax. This episode might have been the last gasp of the UBI movement’s second wave, which came very close to the centers of power in the United States and Canada in the 1960s and early 70s but had been declining for nearly a decade.

Although Friedman brought his fame and Nobel-Laureate credibility to UBI and related policies, that broadcast did little to stop the decline in UBI’s popularity. It gradually vanished from mainstream politics in the United States and in most countries. It remained an idea for academics, minor parties, fringe activists for decades, only to emerge—seemingly out of nowhere—as a growing worldwide movement over the last 10 years.

RTE News

A universal basic income, free public transport for students and light rail systems for Cork and Galway are amongst the promises being made by the Green Party in Ireland.

In its manifesto being launched in Dublin, the Green Party is proposing fundamental changes in energy generation, transport policy, industry, land use, taxation, planning and housing.