Sault Online

Basic income (BI) schemes are a political and social issue. BI addresses inequality and could help to eliminate poverty. Doug Ford cancelled the Ontario BI Pilot program. 

On January 23rd, the Basic Income Canada Network (BICN) released its “Basic Income: Some Policy Options for Canada” report. The researchers were Chandra Pasma and Sheila Regehr. 

Vox

“It’s a serious social experiment.” So says Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa about his plan to give away 1 billion Japanese yen — about $9 million — to 1,000 random Twitter followers this week.

Believe it or not, this is free money, no strings attached. Well, almost no strings: Each recipient will have to fill out follow-up surveys asking what impact the cash has had on their lives. It was not clear exactly how the amount — $9,000 per person — will be disbursed.

Joli Scheidler-Benns

Gaston Tremblay remembers camping and fishing in Kawartha Lakes and surrounding areas with his family twice a year in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was a peaceful and tragically short time of his life.

He tried three times over the years to get back here, where he believed things might be better for him. By the time he was 14, though, his then-undiagnosed mental health issues sent him on another path — to his first stay in a psychiatric ward.

Afterwards he found himself homeless and on the streets across Canada, an anguished journey that would last more than 18 years and cost him nearly everything he held dear.

CBC News

New Brunswick Green Party Leader David Coon would like to see a basic income guarantee replace the province's social assistance program which has led to "government enforced poverty."

"It's a different kind of social assistance system, that's for sure. It's simpler," Coon said in an interview with Information Morning Moncton. 

"It doesn't have the clawbacks. It doesn't have these awful rules that really bind people in poverty and prevent them from getting ahead in any way."

Business Insider

Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, California, was just 28 years old when he launched a pilot program that gives free money to his city's residents.

In February, the city began distributing $500 monthly stipends to 125 residents who live at or below the median income line (about $46,000 annually). The stipends are a test of basic income, a policy approach that would essentially pay people simply for being alive.

Lindsay Advocate

Canadians are marching for Universal Basic Income on Oct. 26 as Toronto and cities around the world join forces – and it won’t be just Toronto, as people from former pilot centres Lindsay, Hamilton, Thunder Bay and other areas will also be taking part.

The event will be held in front of the Ontario Legislative Building at Queen’s Park, from where participants will march and hear from champions of a universal basic income in Canada.

Thunder Bay Newswatch

Ruth Westcott says Ontario’s now-cancelled basic income pilot project changed her life.

It’s why she’s helping to lead a grassroots effort to ensure the program is available not only in Ontario again, but across the country.

Lifting people out of poverty must become a national priority, she said, speaking at city hall on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Thunder Bay Newswatch

Thunder Bay-Superior North candidates tackled a number of hot-button issues on Wednesday night as they met the electorate at a debate hosted by the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce.

Topics ranged from climate change to homelessness to Indigenous issues in the lone local forum to date to include all six candidates in the race.

The election hopefuls,  Liberal incumbent Patty Hajdu, Conservative Frank Pullia, the NDP’s Anna Betty Achneepineskum, Bruce Hyer of the Green Party, Youssef Khanjari of the People’s Party of Canada and Liberatarian Alex Vodden, didn’t agree on much, but they did all agree that a basic income guarantee of some sort was something to work toward.

Basic Income Earth Network

The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee (2005) edited by Karl Widerquist, Michael Anthony Lewis, and Steven Pressman, published by Publishing is availed in a free version at this link.

This book available because most publishers allow authors and editors to post early version for free on their personal websites. That means it has lots of typos and other problems. But it’s a reasonable approximation of the final version. Please see the published version if you can. It’s available at university libraries.

People's Policy Project

Max Sawicky has a piece in Jacobin that again repeats the clearly incorrect claim that it would be impossibly expensive to provide everyone in the country a significant cash grant each year.

So what’s wrong with the UBI? In a nutshell, if it’s universal, it can’t be basic, and if it’s basic (provides a decent income floor), it can’t be universal. The US population exceeds 300 million. If the UBI benefit is $10,000 a year (less than Yang’s), you can do the math. The entire federal budget is about $4.4 trillion.