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- On Universal Basic Income
Hello, hello, and welcome to this week’s edition of The Stitch—where I send a little piece of evidence-based research straight to your inbox.
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On the heels of last week’s edition on food banks, I thought I would share some research into the UBI—that’s Universal Basic Income.
This seems to be a controversial issue—with some thinking it may be a ‘handout’ for ‘lazy’ people. Here we are, back at that word lazy again (remember the stereotypes about foodbank visitors 🙄).
This is a bad take, and one that can be seen as tied to neoliberal thinking, which harps on individual responsibility and the good ol’ myth of meritocracy—the notion that nothing is standing in anyone’s way of achieving their goals. You know, the promise of the ‘American dream.’ Apparently all you have to do is pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Simple! Right? Right…
The catch is that meritocracy doesn’t account for any structural inequalities at play within societies. For example, it assumes that racism and sexism, class-based discrimination, or ableism, etc. won’t factor in when people try to support themselves or their families, and communities.
So what is the UBI? And why is it getting some people excited, and not others ? Here’s a bit of evidence-based research to help us think through this issue. What you’ll find pretty quickly as you explore the evidence, is that Universal Basic Income holds unique promise.
📖 READ //
Check out this article from Roger Patulny and Ben Spies-Butcher, published in 2023 in the Journal of Sociology. It drops us in to the Australian context and shows that 51% percent of people there could be in support of UBI, and that support went up slightly thanks to COVID-19.
Australian attitudes are broadly in the middle of European opinion, with 51% in support of introducing some form of UBI. Australian support is on par with its liberal Anglo counterpart in Europe, the UK, and is significantly higher than in countries with strong social democratic welfare systems, like Sweden and Norway. The lack of support in these countries has been attributed to the strong existing welfare state apparatuses, and the desire not to lose such support by introducing a UBI.
🎧 LISTEN //
It seems there may be more support for UBI as a development tool in countries facing ‘less generous’ welfare systems.
In this Social Science Bites podcast, Tavneet Suri (Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management) discusses a very interesting long-term (at least 12 year!) project her and her team have been running out of Kenya using UBI in different ways.
⁉️ What’s the vibe on UBI where you are? Is there a ‘freeloader’ sentiment, or is there momentum to push forward on it, or ideas like it? You can reply directly to this email ([email protected]) or share in the comments.
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Until next time,
Mary
If you have an academic, evidence-based, article or project you’d like readers to check out (whether already published open access or not), be sure to submit a pitch here: