A guaranteed basic income could be a stabilizing force for Canada
Globe and Mail
Guaranteed basic income has become an idea that won’t go away. Maybe there’s a reason for that.
It surfaced again Wednesday at the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which published a report on a “distributional and fiscal analysis” of a guaranteed basic income (GBI). It’s the fourth time in the past three years that the PBO has written a report on GBI; three of those reports have come in the past 10 months alone.
Why is the PBO examining this further? Because members of Parliament – of various political stripes – keep asking it to.
Read moreBasic income program could cut national poverty rates in half, PBO says
Global News
The parliamentary budget officer says a basic income program similar to one previously studied in Ontario could cut poverty rates nationally by almost half in 2022.
The reductions are not even across provinces, but budget officer Yves Giroux estimates that poverty rates could fall as much as 61.9 per cent in Manitoba or as little as 13.5 per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador if the federal government instituted the program. At its core a basic or guaranteed income provides a no-strings-attached government benefit to citizens to provide each with a minimum amount of earnings.
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