By Toni Pickard

In the media these days, conservative policy analysts are repeatedly defining basic income in its neoliberal guise, as if that's what any basic income program must be.

We've known for a long time that austerity policies don't work. Even the IMF, which has a lot to answer for in promoting/imposing them, has finally acknowledged this. 

Yet austerity thinking continues to influence our governments and many fellow citizens. If it comes to dominate basic income models, it will destroy all hopes for humane and effective designs, and kibosh positive outcomes for a basic income program. 

Roderick Benns recently interviewed Toni Pickard about basic income policy. Pickard was a law professor at Queen’s University before she retired and is now the co-founder of the Kingston Action Group for a Basic Income Guarantee. 

Benns: We hear often that basic income could replace the need for higher minimum wages. Many point out that with the scarcity of jobs, a better minimum wage will only reach a minority of people anyway. What do you believe?

Pickard: For me, minimum wages and basic income go together like bread and butter. Together they are wonderful. Each alone serves a purpose, but only one leaves a lot to be desired. Some recent media discussion seems premised on the view that the two are an either-or proposition. I don’t see why. They have different conceptual bases, different beneficiaries and different payers. There’s no need to choose between them.