Search Tips
sorted by
30 shown of 1262 entities
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 31c
- Paragraph text
- [While the present report has thus far addressed a more or less generic approach to basic income, the reality is that there are a great many variations on the theme and that trying to distinguish them from one another, and then from other social protection schemes, is a major challenge. Following the analysis of David Piachaud, it is helpful to divide the various proposals into four different types:] A supplemental basic income involves the introduction of a modest basic income alongside the existing social security system. Some commentators do not distinguish between partial and supplemental income. A Finnish pilot project, for example, describes partial income as involving a level of benefit that is “substantially lower” and not aiming to replace other current transfers “to the same extent as in full basic income”. Partial and supplemental basic income approaches can also overlap. The Finnish pilot provides €560 over a two-year period (2017-2018) to some 1,500 randomly selected individuals who are aged between 25 and 58 years and are already receiving a labour market subsidy or basic unemployment allowance. The payment is automatic, unconditional and not means-tested. Consistent with Van Parijs’s approach, the basic income payment substitutes only for existing benefits that are lower than it. It can therefore be cumulated with existing earnings-related benefits and housing allowances. Thus, the Finnish model is partial in the sense that it has been targeted at a specific recipient group on the basis of age and income, and it is supplemental in the sense that it does not completely replace the existing social security system. The preliminary report concluded that the deficiencies of the partial basic income are that it would not substantially change the current system or reduce bureaucracy, it would not solve incentive problems arising from a generous housing allowance, and it is a low amount, especially for single parents.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 31d
- Paragraph text
- [While the present report has thus far addressed a more or less generic approach to basic income, the reality is that there are a great many variations on the theme and that trying to distinguish them from one another, and then from other social protection schemes, is a major challenge. Following the analysis of David Piachaud, it is helpful to divide the various proposals into four different types:] A full basic income involves the characteristics set out above in part II, section A — namely an income that is basic, individual, cash, regular, universal and unconditional. Nowhere in the world has such a scheme yet been implemented. One was considered in Finland, at a level of €1,000 per month, but concern was expressed about “possible work disincentives, conflicts with earnings-related unemployment security, political controversies, high costs, regional differences in housing costs and possibly the lack of legitimacy”, with the level “too high for some groups and too low for the others”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- While Van Parijs and Vanderborght write in the liberal-egalitarian tradition, basic income also has strong support from libertarians. Matt Zwolinski argues that in order to justify the system of property rights, it is necessary, as John Locke wrote, to leave “enough, and as good, in common for others”. Thus, a State-financed social safety net might be necessary. For that purpose, a basic income scheme would be preferable to the welfare state because the latter incentivizes wasteful competition among interest groups and is costly and invasive. He avoids addressing questions of the design and implementation of a basic income system but is supportive of the approach developed by another libertarian, Charles Murray.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- All developed societies have welfare states in one or other of the three principal forms. First, welfare for the poor in the form of non-contributory means-tested programmes. Second, social insurance, social rights and social services, which include a wide array of institutions from contributory pension and unemployment schemes to public education and health insurance. Third, and the least familiar, is the role of the government in the economy, through regulatory, fiscal, monetary and labour-market policies and “in shaping markets, promoting growth, providing employment, and ensuring the welfare of firms and families”. While some see these three conceptions as competing, David Garland argues that none “of these three sectors can exist in that form without the others as structural supports”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 7
- Paragraph text
- There is a strong risk that when confronted with the challenge of addressing economic insecurity the human rights system will proceed in zombie mode. It will keep marching straight ahead on the path mapped out long ago, even as the lifeblood drains out of the enterprise. Its supervisory and monitoring organs will address themselves ever more insistently to State actors that have made themselves marginal, and they will continue to demand respect for standards that have long since been overtaken by the grim realities of global supply chains. For the most part, the human rights machinery is cumbersome, lacking in agility, and poorly placed to develop new thinking in such contexts. But it will need to do so if it is to remain relevant.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 31a
- Paragraph text
- [While the present report has thus far addressed a more or less generic approach to basic income, the reality is that there are a great many variations on the theme and that trying to distinguish them from one another, and then from other social protection schemes, is a major challenge. Following the analysis of David Piachaud, it is helpful to divide the various proposals into four different types:] A bonus basic income is akin to a royalty scheme in which resource-based dividends are distributed directly to citizens annually. Funding comes directly from an external source, such as mineral royalties. Thus, the Alaska Permanent Fund annually distributes dividends from investment earning on mineral royalties to people who have lived in Alaska for at least a year and intend to remain there indefinitely. Some commentators consider this to be a poor example of basic income, because it is predistributive as opposed to redistributive, and involves a small sum and a fluctuating level of payment.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 8d
- Paragraph text
- [The present report is premised on the view that the human rights movement needs to address and respond to the fundamental changes that are taking place in economic and social structures at the national and global levels. These include, among others:] The rapid and seemingly unstoppable growth in inequality across the globe, captured by Oxfam’s statistic that the richest 1 per cent of humanity already controls as much wealth as the remaining 99 per cent, and by the detailed national-level economic analyses of Thomas Piketty and others;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 66a
- Paragraph text
- [One of the biggest challenges in relation to basic income is to move beyond its chameleon-like character. There are many versions of it, and each is supported by a diverse array of actors, precisely because they see different attractions in the concept. To assess the utility and acceptability of basic income from a human rights perspective, it is helpful to identify the main categories of motivation.] Discouraging laziness and incentivizing work;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 72
- Paragraph text
- Fourth, the implications for gender equality from growing economic insecurity are almost unremittingly negative. It remains true that “the average woman’s career remains shorter, more disrupted and less remunerative than the average man’s”, and the consequences flow through into social security and related arrangements. Proponents of women’s human rights need to become more involved in debates over social protection and basic income.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- Van Parijs and Vanderborght admit that a universal basic income at 25 per cent of GDP per capita would result in “far higher rates of taxation because of the need to keep funding other public expenditures”. They then proceed to point to some (relatively small-scale) basic income experiments, negative income tax experiments and econometric models, none of which provides a clear answer on affordability. After discussing alternative financing models, such as taxes on capital, nature, money and consumption, they conclude that “none of these alternative sources offers a panacea, or any robust assurance that a generous basic income is economically sustainable, or any reason to believe that, in the short run at any rate, we can dispense with the income tax”. That leads them to explore alternatives to their core idea of a universal basic income — including a categorical basic income, a household basic income and tax surcharge, and their preferred alternative, a partial basic income: “one that makes no claim to being sufficient to live on if one lives alone”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- But these contrasting views accurately reflect the conclusion that emerges from a comprehensive survey of the many different utopias the world has known, which is that “utopias are essential but potentially dangerous”. In this case, the danger is that the single-minded pursuit of basic income as a magic bullet, capable of resolving many deeply troubling challenges, will distract attention from the deeper underlying complexities and values. But the utopian vision may also provide the much-needed impetus to rethink the optimal shape of social protection explicitly designed to achieve universal realization of the human right to an adequate standard of living in the twenty-first century. At a comparable watershed moment, Lord Beveridge introduced his 1943 report that laid the groundwork for the British welfare state by insisting that a “revolutionary moment in the world’s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- Thus, the basic income concept should not be rejected out of hand on the grounds that it is utopian. Policymakers at the national and international levels need to develop the sort of creativity in social policy that is capable of matching and responding to the technological innovations and other developments that have brought us to this crossroads. Despite the magnitude of the challenge and the breathtaking scope of the proposed solution, there is an option, which Van Parijs seems to have subtly embraced, to move in an incremental fashion towards the overall goal. As Anthony Atkinson has observed, inspired by Amartya Sen’s work, “the aim is progressive reform rather than transcendental optimality”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- The most prominent path chosen to date has focused on respect for labour rights. But significant questions arise as to whether the tools used to tackle economic insecurity in that context have been, or are likely to be, effective in responding to the emerging conditions in the global labour market. For example, in its general comment No. 18 (2005) on the right to work, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights calls on States “to reduce to the fullest extent possible the number of workers outside the formal economy”, “to ensure that privatization measures do not undermine workers’ rights”, and to ensure that enhanced labour market flexibility does “not render work less stable or reduce the social protection of the worker”. All of these important objectives are grounded in human rights law, but the question is how best to respond to the reality that the trends in most industries seem to be heading rapidly in the opposite direction.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- Similarly, an ILO report entitled Decent Work in Global Supply Chains responded to the “negative implications for working conditions” of “the dynamics of production and employment relations within the global economy” by proposing a series of steps such as promoting international labour standards, closing governance gaps and promoting inclusive and effective social dialogue. Unsurprisingly, after lengthy debate on the report, the 2016 International Labour Conference expressed its “concern that current ILO standards may not be fit for purpose to achieve decent work in global supply chains”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- In its comprehensive and ideal form, a basic income is explicitly designed to challenge most of the key assumptions underpinning existing social security systems. Rather than a system where there are partial payments, basic income guarantees a floor; instead of being episodic, payments are regular; rather than being needs-based, they are paid as a flat rate to all; they come in cash, rather than as messy in-kind support; they accrue to every individual, rather than only to needy households; rather than requiring that various conditions be met, they are unconditional; rather than excluding the well off, they are universal; and instead of being based on lifetime contributions, they are funded primarily from taxation. And simplicity of design promises minimal bureaucracy and low administrative costs.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- In Canada, two basic income approaches have been the subject of macroeconomic modelling: a full basic income for all Canadians, and a negative income tax under which the richest receive nothing and the poorest receive the maximum income supplement. Neither payment is adjusted for age. In terms of poverty, the conclusion was that: Cancelling existing income transfer programmes in favour of a single basic income results either in dramatically higher levels of poverty, or ethically and politically unsupportable compromises where seniors are pushed into poverty to lift up adults and children. The more acceptable and feasible approach would be to set up a new basic income on top of the 33 transfers that already exist, thus creating only winners, though the main beneficiaries would be middle-aged Canadians.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Older persons
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- Broader political support is suggested by former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who suggests that basic income could possibly be financed out of the profits coming from labour-replacing innovations, or perhaps even from a revenue stream generated by the underlying intellectual property. And a book by the former President of the Service Employees International Union, Andy Stern, also calls for a universal basic income to address a new economy characterized by high unemployment, stagnant wages, declining trade union power, and decreasing job security.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 66d
- Paragraph text
- [One of the biggest challenges in relation to basic income is to move beyond its chameleon-like character. There are many versions of it, and each is supported by a diverse array of actors, precisely because they see different attractions in the concept. To assess the utility and acceptability of basic income from a human rights perspective, it is helpful to identify the main categories of motivation.] The right to work, either in the sense of promoting full employment for the community or of the individual being able to choose satisfying work;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- The starting point is to acknowledge that economic insecurity represents a fundamental threat to human rights. It is not only a threat to the enjoyment of economic and social rights, even though they are a principal concern. Extreme inequality, rapidly increasing insecurity, and the domination of politics by economic elites in many countries, all threaten to undermine support for, and ultimately the viability of, the democratic systems of governance upon which the human rights framework depends.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- The most committed proponents of basic income proclaim their approach to be utopian, not in the sense of being unrealistic or unachievable, but as providing a highly ambitious, sweeping, and progressive vision. Critics or sceptics who raise objections based on unaffordability, the unacceptability of unconditionality or the unrealistic change in mentality required will often be dismissed as unimaginative defenders of an obviously unsatisfactory status quo.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- The income is “basic” in the sense that it is designed to guarantee a “floor” on which every recipient can stand. Because people’s needs are highly individualized and context-dependent, the amount that any specific individual requires will depend on factors such as local housing and living costs, the person’s health status, and whether there is any form of support network in place. But in its pure form, basic income would generally be assumed to be a uniform amount, which does not reflect those differentials. There are, however, different versions of the concept that envisage adjusting the amount over time, providing less money for children and more for the elderly, or adjusting for geography. The basis on which the floor is calculated and the amount to be paid will, of course, vary greatly from one country to another. Thus, while a national referendum on basic income in Switzerland proposed a payment of SwF 2,500 per month per adult, a South African initiative envisages a grant of US$15 per person per month, indexed to inflation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- Cost calculations for Canada are also revealing. If existing Canadian “de facto” basic income programmes (such as Canada Child Benefit for children, the Guaranteed Income Supplement for the elderly and sales tax credits for working adults), quasi-basic income programmes, earned income tax credits, social assistance and employment insurance were all cancelled, the savings could support a basic income for all Canadians (depending on which programmes were scrapped) of between Can$ 2,655 and Can$ 3,565 per year, with between roughly 1.7 and 1.9 million Canadians falling below the poverty line. Under a scenario in which all existing programmes were kept in place and a supplemental universal basic income was paid to all Canadians of Can$ 1,000 per year, 719,000 Canadians would be taken out of poverty, but at a net cost of Can$ 29.2 billion (equalling Can$ 40,886 per person). To pay for this, the Canadian rate of value added tax would have to be increased from 5 per cent to 9 per cent or income taxes would have to be increased by 20 per cent.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Older persons
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 4
- Paragraph text
- The neoliberal policies encapsulated in the 1980s-era Washington Consensus can be seen, especially in retrospect, to have greatly exacerbated economic insecurity, whether or not that was the intent. The State was assumed to be intrinsically inefficient and corruption-prone, and this led to constant pressure to shrink all those parts of it that provided social and basic economic services to the populace, while vindicating and reinforcing the State in its role as the regulator facilitating and legitimizing the privatization of the economy. Social security and social protection was transformed, including through the explicit policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, into a minimalist notion of “social safety nets” designed to avoid the very worst outcomes and make the State look beneficent while empowering officials dedicated to devising ever more efficient “targeting” mechanisms and to rooting out overinclusion while playing down underinclusion. The objectives of promoting tax reform and prudent fiscal policies turned into a race to the bottom to set the lowest individual and corporate tax rates, attracting businesses through expensive exemptions, turning a blind eye to illegal or unconscionably evasive tax practices, and eliminating estate taxes and other measures that would bring about even minimal redistribution. Privatization was promoted even in relation to what were once seen as basic State functions, such as prisons, education and security. In some States, even the justice system has been partly privatized, whether through onerous court fees for the poor or the channelling of consumer and other complaints into private arbitration.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- For its part, the human rights community has had all too little to offer in response to the profound challenges associated with deep economic insecurity. The human rights to an adequate standard of living, to work and to social security have been very low on the list of priorities of the major human rights groups and of the principal international and regional human rights organizations, with the exception of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The reasons for this include long-standing arguments that economic issues belong on the agenda of economic rather than human rights bodies, a perception that human rights specialists are not qualified to engage with issues that are presented as technical matters of economic policy, a preference to avoid addressing issues involving redistribution of income or expenditure from a human rights perspective, and the assumption that if civil and political rights are protected, respect for economic and social rights will automatically follow.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- However, many social insurance and social assistance programmes that are integral parts of the welfare state differ in crucial respects from basic income. A study of 108 countries where child benefit or family benefit schemes were anchored in national legislation found that only 49 of them had non-contributory schemes. And contributory schemes generally only cover those in formal employment. They are therefore not universal, and often impose conditions, such as actively searching for work or undergoing medical tests. Moreover, they often go well beyond a floor, by compensating in part or in full for lost earnings.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 39
- Paragraph text
- The past two decades have seen a dramatic increase in cash transfer programmes in low- and middle-income countries, including conditional cash transfers and unconditional cash transfers. The World Bank, which strongly supports conditional cash transfers, defines them as “periodic monetary benefits to poor households that require beneficiaries to comply with specific behavioural requirements to encourage investments in human capital (such as school attendance, immunization, and health check-ups)”. Unconditional cash transfers have no such strings attached. The largest conditional cash transfer in the world is Bolsa Família in Brazil, with more than 70 million beneficiaries, while the largest unconditional cash transfer is Dibao in China, with about 75 million beneficiaries. Conditional cash transfers have long been considered a hallmark of Latin American countries. While African countries have focused more on unconditional cash transfers, conditional cash transfers have expanded in Africa in recent years, albeit with relatively “soft” conditions attached.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 19
- Paragraph text
- In the United States of America in the 1960s, Milton Friedman advocated a negative income tax, a concept that bears a close resemblance to a basic income. In the late 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. called for a guaranteed income as the solution to poverty. And by the end of that decade, Richard Nixon, the then President, came close to implementing a universal income supplement, but the scheme was defeated in the Senate by conservatives who thought the programme was too expensive and by liberals who thought the benefit was too low.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- In recent years, there has been a strong resurgence in support for the idea of a basic income. Its advocates include philosophers, economists, politicians, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, trade union leaders, futurists and others, and in addition to concerted promotional efforts by civil society groups, support has come from within governments in countries as diverse as Finland and India. Most strikingly, basic income proponents come from many different positions on the political spectrum, ranging from libertarians to socialists.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- Further support for the theory comes from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., which reviews the support given to basic income by free-market and libertarian thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Robert Nozick, Charles Murray and Matt Zwolinski. Its view is that while the idea may look good on paper, the “further one moves from theory to implementation, the more the theoretical advantages dissipate”. The main objection is affordability, since a universal basic income scheme “would cost far more than the current welfare system”.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Extreme poverty and human rights on universal basic income 2017, para. 31b
- Paragraph text
- [While the present report has thus far addressed a more or less generic approach to basic income, the reality is that there are a great many variations on the theme and that trying to distinguish them from one another, and then from other social protection schemes, is a major challenge. Following the analysis of David Piachaud, it is helpful to divide the various proposals into four different types:] A partial basic income is limited, such as to a particular group of recipients. For example, the Netherlands and New Zealand both have universal basic pensions, under which all persons above a certain age receive an income without means testing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph