PRESIDENT Nicos Anastasiades on Friday announced the complete reform of social policy based on the principle of securing a Guaranteed Minimum Income for all citizens.
It should be fully in place by June 2014, he said.
“Beneficiaries will be all of our fellow citizens who have an income below that which can assure them a dignified living, irrespective of age, class or professional situation,” Anastasiades said in a statement.
He said the level of the Guaranteed Minimum Income would take into consideration the needs of every citizen and every household concerning nourishment, clothing, consumption of electricity and other indispensable items.
At the same time, it will guarantee the right for housing of the economically weaker groups of the population, he said. This will be done either through the subsidisation of the rent if the beneficiaries don’t own their own residence, or through the subsidisation of the interest on housing loans in the cases where people own a house but face problems in paying instalments.
“Also covered will be unforeseen expenses, which unfortunately come up in every household, such as, for example, absolutely necessary construction and repairs to houses, municipal taxes, etc,” he said.
“What I want to stress emphatically is that the Guaranteed Minimum Income will also be provided to thousands of our fellow citizens who, in spite of their needs, are not covered to this day by the existing system and they did not receive any substantial assistance from the state,” the president said.
He said these would include unemployed graduates of schools and universities, working people with particularly low earnings will have their income supplemented to reach the Guaranteed Minimum Income, and the self-employed, who have found themselves out of work and who, until now were not covered.
“Many of the pensioners with low pensions, without adequate contributions to the Social Insurance Fund, will also receive higher payments than they receive today,” said Anastasiades.
He said the general principle of the plan was that there would not be any citizen who was “not guaranteed the minimum needs for a dignified living in a European Country”.
The Guaranteed Minimum Income will replace, but will also be financed by a large number of allowances have been until now not targeted and often arbitrarily, given by different ministries and different services of the state.
“The policy of non-targeted and scattered allowance is terminated,” Anastasiades said.
“ A policy which, in spite of burdening significantly the public finances and the taxpaying citizens, did not manage to reduce the inequalities and often ignored fellow citizens who are truly in need.”
The new policy of social welfare will from now would be concentrated under the same authority – in other words, there will be a merging of services that until today were giving subsidies, whether these refer to the Ministry of Labour and social Insurance or the Ministry of interior or the Ministry of Finance.
Allowance that concern students will remain under the Ministry of Education.
The president said the level of the Guaranteed Minimum Income would be determined in an objective and scientific way by the Statistical services, with the International Labour Office playing a catalytic advisory role.
At the same time, the new policy provides for the continuation of the unemployment allowance at the level and duration that applies today, in other words six months.
“For the first time, however, with the introduction of the new system, our fellow citizens who continue to be unemployed will be able to continue to live with dignity, since they will be receiving the Guaranteed Minimum Income,” Anastasiades added.
“The single but absolutely necessary precondition is that they don’t refuse to accept offers for employment and to participate in the policies of continuous employment that are determined by the state,” he said.
The policies of active employment will be financed mainly by the European Social Fund, and they will aim to encourage and to facilitate the unemployed in their effort to find employment. They will concern programs for education, practical training or subsidized employment.
Beyond the Guaranteed Minimum Income, the Unemployment Allowance, and the policies of active employment, the new social welfare policy of the state will be supplemented through separate allowances that concern other groups of the population which have certifiable needs, such as, for example, paraplegics and the children with special needs and a stack of other similar categories.
He said the troika had accepted the government’s proposal “for a modern conceptualization on the policy of social welfare and prosperity”.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:31 pm Post subject:
Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult
Five cent coins are pictured in the air in front of the Federal Palace during an event organised by the Committee for the initiative ''CHF 2,500 monthly for everyone'' (Grundeinkommen) in Bern October 4, 2013.
REUTERS/Denis Balibouse - BERNE | Fri Oct 4, 2013 10:55am EDT
(Reuters) - Switzerland will hold a vote on whether to introduce a basic income for all adults, in a further sign of growing public activism over pay inequality since the financial crisis.
A grassroots committee is calling for all adults in Switzerland to receive an unconditional income of 2,500 Swiss francs ($2,800) per month from the state, with the aim of providing a financial safety net for the population.
Organizers submitted more than the 100,000 signatures needed to call a referendum on Friday and tipped a truckload of 8 million five-rappen coins outside the parliament building in Berne, one for each person living in Switzerland.
Under Swiss law, citizens can organize popular initiatives that allow the channeling of public anger into direct political action. The country usually holds several referenda a year.
In March, Swiss voters backed some of the world's strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation.
A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the company's lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24.
The initiative's organizing committee said the basic income could partly be financed through money from social insurance systems in Switzerland.
The timing of the vote has yet to be announced, pending official guidance from the government.
(Reporting by Denis Balibouse, writing by Alice Baghdjian, editing by Gareth Jones)
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 1:27 am Post subject:
Canada plans to experiment with giving people unconditional free money
http://www.orrazz.com/2016/03/canada-plans-to-experiment-with-giving.h tml
Finland and the Netherlands have already shown their interest in giving people a regular monthly allowance regardless of working status, and now Ontario, Canada is onboard.
Ontario's government announced in February that a pilot program will be coming to the Canadian province sometime later this year.
The premise: send people monthly checks to cover living expenses such as food, transportation, clothing, and utilities — no questions asked.
It's a radical idea, and one that has been around since the 1960s. It's called "basic income." In the decades since it was first proposed, various researchers and government officials have given basic income experiments a try, to mixed results.
Folks at the Basic Income Canada Network, the national organization promoting basic income, have high hopes.
"We need it rolled out across Canada, and Quebec, too, is in the game," said chair of BICN, Sheila Regehr, in a statement. "So there's no reason why people and governments in other parts of this country need sit on the sidelines – it's time for us all to get to work."
Ontario officials haven't decided when or where exactly it'll roll out the program, nor how much each person will receive. When it does, the money will come from a portion ofOntario's budget set aside for the experiment.
In Finland, a small social democratic country, people will receive an additional 800 euros per month, or just shy of $900. In various cities throughout the Netherlands, people receive an extra $1,000.
Ontario at least doesn't seem to be spinning its wheels. Canada's federal minister of families, children, and social development, Jean-Yves Duclos, formally endorsed the experiment early last month, saying that basic income merits a genuine discussion.
"There are many different types of guaranteed minimum income," Duclos told The Globe and Mail. "I'm personally pleased that people are interested in the idea."
In theory, basic income should work.
While one kneejerk reaction is to argue that free money creates a lazy working class, research suggests the opposite is true. Supported by the financial safety net, people in one 2013 study actually worked 17% longer hours and received 38% higher earnings when basic income was given a shot. _________________ www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org www.rethink911.org www.patriotsquestion911.com www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org www.mediafor911truth.org www.pilotsfor911truth.org www.mp911truth.org www.ae911truth.org www.rl911truth.org www.stj911.org www.v911t.org www.thisweek.org.uk www.abolishwar.org.uk www.elementary.org.uk www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
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If you’ve been paying attention to recent advancements in artificial intelligence (if not, no worries, just check out some of my older work), you’d know that some very smart people posit that 40% of U.S. jobs can be swallowed by automation in the next 25 years. The melancholy truth is that this is a certainty – these machines will come to do our work better than we can – so we must maintain a plenary focus on protecting the financial and occupational interest of those whose jobs are up for grabs.
The solution – receiving troves of support from the likes of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Richard Branson – is universal basic income. Nothing more than a monthly benefit that’s given out regardless of professional status or even intent to find work, the concept has come under fire as of late. Leave it up to the billionaires and technology behemoths to append a few digits to the telephone number salaries they already dole out. Don’t be so quick to judge, however; positive implications of UBI abound, and it may just be the saving grace of our domestic workforce once automation has made its sweeping overhaul of the professional landscape.
Universal basic income operates under the fundamental belief that unconditional income would increase job security, mitigate the pangs of work-based stress, and engender the freedom to explore business prospects without monumental risk. Recipients don’t have to actively seek employment, and they are under no obligation to report their progress – the money is theirs, no questions asked.
Obviously, this is a contentious issue; the implementation of UBI pervades every aspect of economic and social policy, and to think that any struggling or barely erect infrastructure could assume such costs is idiotic. On the other hand, notice how this is an eminently sensible policy, the struggle solely exists in implementation for nation states that have other priorities for its denizens.
I know, I know, this sounds like a leftist ideology that’s exciting in whiteboard meetings but fully disastrous in execution. But, I disagree. I think UBI has an incredible amount of potential to do away with much of the bureaucracy and intemperate regulations inherent to welfare programs like unemployment and social security.
Think of it this way: if I gave you a choice of free college tuition, healthcare, or an unconditional basic income, what would your preference be? Granted, it’s depressing to exclude two of the three, but for the purposes of elucidating the benefits of UBI, I think it’s important. Giving citizens even a small safety net could unlock explosive amounts of entrepreneurialism, professional risks, individual businesses, and most importantly, the knowledge of knowing you have a few extra bucks to work with every month.
I will concede that implementation is a egregiously large challenge, and I’ve glossed over it this piece. What most people forget, however, is that with the advent of artificial intelligence, things are about to get a lot cheaper. Machines will be able to do our work for less, without the need for a lunch break or eight hours of rest. This dilutes company costs, increases profits, and for socially aware enterprises, makes the widespread implementation of UBI much easier to swallow.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 12:58 am Post subject:
A right-wing think tank is now supporting Universal Basic Income – but they’ve missed the point
Right-wing supporters of UBI, such as the Adam Smith Institute, will try to use it as a justification for further dismantling of the welfare state and for individualising society's problems
Universal basic income (UBI) is now firmly in mainstream political discourse. Political parties, activist groups and now even think tanks such as the right-of-centre Adam Smith Institute are taking the policy seriously. It is an unconditional, regular monetary payment made to every citizen that meets the basic necessities of life. Although some advocates may see this as a simple solution to unemployment and automation, this threatens to obscure the fact that UBI would be part of a broader political programme with its own particular agenda. Designed in a particular way it may in fact, exacerbate the politics of austerity.
Once implemented, for example, it is easy to imagine a scenario in which leading conservative politicians and think tanks would argue that individuals will now have the “economic autonomy” with which to meet their own individual health care needs, resulting in a rapid withdrawal of funding for the NHS and social welfare, and the implementation of a US-style healthcare system. While a “basic” individual health care insurance policy might be affordable and calculated into a UBI payment, a traumatic life-changing injury or disease would push the burden of responsibility back onto the individual with no social safety net for protection beyond their personal payments.
Replacing the NHS is obviously not what we want a UBI policy to facilitate – and it must be reiterated over and over again that this is not the only possible destiny for the policy. As political economist Nick Srnicek points out, “the question of whether we want a UBI or not turns out to be secondary to the question of ‘which UBI’?” Which welfare payments would it replace and which would it supplement? Exactly who is eligible? Will it actually be a sturdy safety net and how will it dovetail with other reforms?
Most importantly, If the emancipatory potential of a UBI is to be realised, we must understand it as one of a set of progressive policy proposals that can help transition us to a more just and sustainable economic setup. The makeup of a particular UBI model is open for design: working out and specifying this is what supporters and critics should be attentive to.
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Right-wing supporters of UBI, such as the Adam Smith Institute, will try to use it as a justification for further dismantling of the welfare state and for individualising society’s problems. It is true that the welfare state as it exists is no longer fit for purpose – but not because the principle of protecting people in vulnerable economic situations and ensuring healthcare for all is an outdated one. Rather, to confront the problems relevant to the present age, the welfare system needs to become even more of a safety net. More specifically – it needs to be more comprehensive regarding how it takes care of the necessities of life.
Thus, we should welcome the proposal for “Universal Basic Services“ that researchers at UCL put out a few months ago. Generally much cheaper than a UBI, UBS offers something different: free housing, food, transport, education, forms of communication, healthcare and legal aid for all. Creating free, essential services – and not just distributing free money – could be the way forward.
But “UBS vs UBI” is a false opposition – they both afford different freedoms and assure different forms of security. Basic services are just that – an infrastructure which provides a no-cost set of facilities and opportunities that we would consider to be fundamental to modern life. A decent basic income, on the other hand, gives you the capacity to pursue your vision of the ‘good life’ by allowing you to pursue activities and interests that are meaningful to you, your family and/or your community. It also puts the onus on employers to offer decent jobs with good working conditions, in order to attract potential employees who no longer have to fear the same destitution that currently comes with being unemployed.
Both of these policies could be part of a vision of progress for the tumultuous century ahead, but we must be clear about what we want: an updated welfare system, not the memory of one.
Picture showing the front cover of the report with the title "UBI: Solution or Illusion? The implications of Universal Basic Income for Disabled People in Britain", the DPAC logo and a pile of money including a £5 note and some change.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) – a regular cash payment made to individuals without means testing or conditionality – has been described as an idea whose time has come, supported across the political divide from free market libertarians to left wingers attracted to the idea of emancipating the working classes from wage labour. With disabled people as one of the groups at the sharp end of “welfare reform”, DPAC are less convinced that UBI can deliver the solution so desperately needed to fix the social security system and fear that the introduction of UBI could further disadvantage those who have suffered the most since 2010. Today we are launching our report “Universal Basic Income: Solution or Illusion” based on a longer paper we published on the same subject last year.
Download the report here: UBI – Solution or Illusion
A basic income will not cover the extra costs of disability and therefore a system of disability benefits will still be needed alongside a UBI. Disabled people are concerned that the need to finance universal basic income payments could lead to even more pressure to save money by restricting eligibility than under the current system. With the crisis in social care having taken disabled people’s quality of life dramatically backwards, there are also concerns that the introduction of a UBI will prevent a reversal of cuts that are leaving increasing numbers trapped in their own homes without access to food, water or the toilet for hours at a time, day and night.
The report comes at a time when there is growing support for the idea that Universal credit cannot be fixed but must be scrapped. That leaves us with the question of with what to replace it. The idea of a UBI – with no means testing or conditionality – sounds attractive but the reality would be very different. A central principle underpinning any social security policy development must be meaningful engagement with the lived experience of those affected. The “test and learn” approach of Universal Credit has, as identified at the end of last year by the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extreme poverty, made guinea pigs of the most disadvantaged members of society. The disastrous impacts of UC were entirely predictable but ignored. Transformation of the social security system won’t succeed through top down policy making: it has to be designed to meet need and to do that you need to listen to those at the grassroots.
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