Abstract
This concluding chapter tries to summarize and further clarify the issues around basic income policy for advanced economies, including both the negative income tax and universal basic income approaches. It then turns for special attention to the Canadian case, where a long history of income assistance through the tax system for those with low incomes coupled with a recent spotlight on anti-poverty strategy offers a pathway, albeit not without its challenges, to a universally accessible basic income. The chapter also offers some final thoughts on what might lie ahead as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic to a new normal.
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Notes
- 1.
The premier of P.E.I. has called for a basic income or a pilot project (http://media.wix.com/ugd/828f53_9b8b5e424afb43afb7ac421b1456fabc.pdf) for Canada’s smallest province, with a population of 150,000. The B.C. government commissioned a Basic Income Task Force which will offer recommendations by the end of 2020. I received a contract to provide background research for this task force.
- 2.
I am thinking specifically of Québec, which has guarded its provincial rights particularly closely but also is the only province that has never entered into agreement with the federal government to harmonize tax collection. Other provinces might want the opt-out provision even if they do not plan to exercise it.
- 3.
Although Québec administers its own provincial taxation, there is considerable agreement on these fundamental tax issues that would simplify any discussions on a CBI with that province.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
This allows for the slightly higher MBM poverty thresholds and incidence of poverty (as in Table 8.2), since we estimated that the average income guarantee would be about 55% of the LICO with provincial cooperation.
- 7.
References
Boadway, Robin. 2013. Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance on Income Equality in Canada, 41st Parliament, 1st Session, Meeting 116, 25 April. Accessed online at http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/Committee/411/FINA/WebDoc/WD6079428/411_FINA_IIC_Briefs/BoadwayRobinE.pdf.
Browne, James, and Herwig Immervoll. 2017. Mechanics of Replacing Benefit Systems with a Basic Income: Comparative Results from a Microsimulation Approach. The Journal of Economic Inequality 15 (4): 325–344.
Honkanen, Pertti. 2014. Basic Income and Negative Income Tax: A Comparison with a Simulation Model. Basic Income Studies 9 (1–2): 119–135.
Hoynes, Hilary, and Jesse Rothstein. 2019. Universal Basic Income in the U.S. and Advanced Countries. NBER Working Paper 25538, National Bureau of Economic Research, February.
Stevens, Harvey, and Wayne Simpson. 2017. Toward a National Universal Guaranteed Basic Income. Canadian Public Policy 43 (2): 120–139.
Tobin, James. 1966. The Case for an Income Guarantee. The Public Interest 4: Summer, 31–41.
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Simpson, W. (2021). Where Is the Forefront of Basic Income?. In: Is Basic Income Within Reach?. Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66085-7_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66085-7_9
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