Elaine Power Says Yes
Head of gender studies at Queen’s University
Basic income—a guaranteed minimum income—already exists in Canada, for seniors and children. Canadians aged 65 or over qualify for Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, regardless of employment history. The Canada Child Benefit provides a tax-free benefit, with the largest payments to families with the lowest incomes.
Basic income proponents want to extend a guaranteed minimum income to working-age Canadians. Though the idea of a universal basic income, paid to everyone and then clawed back through the income tax system, has gained traction, most Canadian advocates support a targeted approach in which eligibility depends on income, and support is gradually reduced as other income rises. Like Medicare, basic income would be available unconditionally, and adequate to meet basic needs for food, shelter, clothing and social inclusion.
Though often discussed as if there were a single type, many varieties of basic income exist. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) was a kind of basic income, though temporary and conditional on loss of employment because of the public health measures to control the spread of COVID-19. The federal government used CERB to support unemployed Canadians and the economy through the worst of the pandemic, with the recognition that the Employment Insurance system was out of date and inadequate for the task.
The Ontario Basic Income Pilot (OBIP), which was launched in 2017 and then prematurely and arbitrarily cancelled in 2018 by the new Doug Ford government, was more aligned with current Canadian proposals. With its robust evaluation plan, measuring various aspects of health, healthcare usage, housing and labour force participation, OBIP would have provided strong data to inform our current basic income debates. Even though the formal, rigorous evaluation was cancelled, the available data are consistent with other basic income experiments from around the world. OBIP participants experienced basic income as “transformative,” giving them freedom to make better choices about their lives and their futures. Those formerly on social assistance programs spoke of freedom from paternalistic bureaucracy. Some, working multiple part-time jobs, had the security to find better-paying, more secure jobs or to enroll in post-secondary education.
The evidence we have from OBIP, from the 1970s MINCOME experiment and from basic income pilots around the world is that a guaranteed minimum income encourages and supports necessary unpaid work in the home (e.g., childcare) and the community (e.g., volunteering) and paid employment. Basic income would also support local economies and, in the longer term, save us money in healthcare, education and the justice system. It would be an investment in citizens’ well-being, giving individuals greater freedom to make decisions and plan better futures for themselves and their families.
Anna Cameron Says No
Public policy research associate at U of C
Guaranteed basic income (GBI) advocates compose a broad church—from Thomas Paine and Martin Luther King Jr., to the feminists behind Wages for Housework, anti-poverty advocates and Silicon Valley techies. The merits of GBI have been discussed in relation to a similarly diverse set of issues, whether it’s the threat of automation, ecological crisis, gig work, gender inequality, poverty or stigma-ridden welfare systems. In the face of the daunting, the complex and the dehumanizing, GBI offers a tempting promise of simplicity and dignity. Further, widespread support for a policy is noteworthy in our polarized times. And to deny that everyone merits, by virtue of their humanity, a basic standard of living (expressed monetarily) is to enter tricky moral territory. For many, the pandemic lifeline provided by the CERB was the final piece of evidence required to solidify the case for an unconditional payment, accessible to all when needed.
To remain unconvinced of the desirability of GBI is to ask other questions, though—not about deservedness or work disincentives, cost or state reliance, but instead about whether GBI is the radical movement behind which we wish to direct our collective energy, and about whether GBI is transformative at all. I contend no, and that efforts are better placed elsewhere.
As an income-based tool, GBI does nothing to address the structural issues underpinning high living costs and material need, including a lack of quality, affordable and accessible services (e.g., housing, childcare, transportation) and persistent inequalities in the public and private spheres. Since GBI fails to call into question the commodification of necessities, it’s likely that, barring sweeping changes to the provision of housing and other services, any income received through GBI would do little to address access—particularly when access is further complicated by oppressive systems such as racism and heteropatriarchy.
The same can be said about inequalities in the labour market and private sphere. GBI might provide some compensation for reproductive labour or a top-up for low wages; it might also offer individuals some freedom to leave a toxic workplace or relationship. Yet it would do nothing to address the systems which produce and enable such dynamics in the first place.
While other reforms could conceivably be pursued alongside GBI, it’s difficult to imagine sustained collective struggle in all directions. Thus prioritization is necessary, and structural reforms—including decommodification of necessities through public provision—exhibit much greater transformative potential. Rooted in notions of individual autonomy, GBI sets aside values of reciprocity and shared struggle, and thus risks undermining the projects of solidarity upon which a better future relies. More akin to a band-aid response than a radical vision, GBI is far from the best our collective imagination has to offer. We can and must be much bolder.
Elaine Power responds To Anna Cameron
I agree completely with Anna Cameron. Basic income, on its own, cannot address dysfunctional and damaging hierarchical structures such as racism and heteropatriarchy. Nor can it compensate for a lack of affordable housing, childcare, public transit or other public services.
Basic income is insufficient to create a more just society. But it is necessary. The implementation of a basic income, one that is adequate to meet material needs for food, shelter and clothing, and the critical human need for social belonging, is the foundation on which we can build a more just and comprehensive social safety net. Basic income is also essential to democratic visions for a just future, because it facilitates the participation of people who are currently disenfranchised.
As we are now learning, some CERB recipients took the breathing space afforded by the federal government’s pandemic relief (a type of basic income) to chart a new direction for their lives, stepping off the frantic treadmill of working dead-end, low-wage jobs to launch a new business or career. That’s bad news for low-wage employers, but it’s good news for the precariat—workers (often young, often racialized) who scramble to put together enough income to cover their expenses, working irregular shifts at multiple workplaces, with little control over their time and carrying large debt loads.
Living in poverty is all-consuming, taking away energy and capacity to address anything other than immediate concerns. Poverty impedes cognitive function, creating a drop in IQ of up to 13 points, equivalent to losing a full night’s sleep. Those who live in poverty—disproportionately women and racialized groups, including Indigenous people—have little capacity to ponder how to dismantle abstract social structures such as heteropatriarchy or racism, or even to demand better public services. They’re among the least likely to vote, that barest indicator of democratic participation. They have more immediate and important needs, such as putting the next meal on the table for their family.
The large body of public health research about the social determinants of health shows that, in aggregate, as income declines, health worsens and life span decreases. This remarkably consistent relationship is not primarily about lifestyle choices, though at the bottom end of the income distribution, the necessity to subsist on food bank offerings and the cheapest, most filling foods from the discount store is hardly conducive to health. Food insecurity, a sensitive marker of material deprivation, is associated with much higher rates of a wide range of chronic illnesses compared to people who are food secure. For example, people who are the most food insecure have rates of mood disorders, including depression and anxiety, that are almost four times as high as the rates of those who are food secure.
Sacrificing the health of the millions of Canadians who live in poverty while we await radical social transformation is not a calculation I’m willing to support. Moreover, the creation of a more just future requires the participation of people who are marginalized in our current systems, including those living in poverty. They are most affected by intersecting injustices (those who live in poverty are more likely to be women, racialized and disabled); they have the experience to inform debates about creating a better future. But their poverty must be addressed first, to give poor people the freedom, sense of belonging and improved health to facilitate their participation in democratic discussions about the future.
Theoretically, we could reduce poverty in other ways. For example, we could tie minimum wages and social assistance rates to the cost of living, and create fewer precarious jobs and more “good” jobs, full-time with benefits. But “poor people” have many economic and social “uses,” as sociologist Herbert Gans pointed out in 1971. These include the creation of numerous occupations that “serve” the poor (including food bank directors and civil servants who administer social assistance and employment insurance programs) or protect others from them (such as police). Symbolically, the poor serve as scapegoats who help to uphold the legitimacy of conventional norms; for example, when we blame poverty on the “laziness” of individuals, we uphold the delusion that hard work explains material success. Our punitive, deeply dysfunctional social assistance programs are based on 19th century moral ideas that people who live in poverty deserve their fate and are somehow different from those of us who aren’t poor.
Just as Medicare provides peace of mind that we won’t go bankrupt if we get sick, a basic income that eliminates poverty could give us the security and freedom to make good choices for ourselves if we lose employment, can’t get a job, want to explore other ways to contribute to society, or need time off for whatever reason.
Ensuring that all citizens have an income that provides a foundation for health and well-being is a manifestation of collective solidarity and care for each other, essential for a democratic and just future.
Anna Cameron responds to Elaine Power
I am happy to have had the opportunity to read Elaine Power’s submission, in which she offers an important synopsis of the various policies, pilots and potentialities that form the contours of GBI discourse in Canada. Further, I have profound respect for the community members, activists, scholars and others who have worked tirelessly to champion GBI in our country. We owe a debt of gratitude to this collective for pushing Canadians to reconsider in more expansive and just terms what it is that we owe each other. However, despite a deep-rooted conviction that we must do much more to provide for the basic needs of all, I remain unconvinced of the desirability of the GBI that Power supports and concerned about the consequences of a continued fixation on GBI as the key to unlocking a better future.
Premised on the notion that a simple, regular infusion of cash can achieve not just a basic standard of living for all but also administrative simplicity and ease of access, increased dignity and autonomy for recipients, and a host of additional benefits across society, Power’s GBI is nearly irresistible. That is, until you consider what such a policy would entail, the technical snags it would face in practice and what shifts it might produce or reinforce both in terms of public service provision and in how we relate to and live alongside one other.
Evidence from GBI-type programs and pilots, as well as from benefit administration more broadly, raises concerns about the ability of GBI to satisfy important objectives of adequacy, access and responsiveness. For one, GBI is not well suited to responding to differences in people’s needs, particularly when compared to other targeted cash and in-kind supports. Grounded in simplicity and universality, GBI models are, by definition, resistant to the realities of complexity and difference that exist in relation to people’s basic needs. Since GBI cannot easily account for the fact that certain populations not only face higher and different costs of living but may also require ongoing access to tailored, situational supports, its ability to support an adequate standard of living for all is questionable. Adequacy concerns become even more relevant when considering the rising costs and short supply of basic services, such as housing, childcare and eldercare, transportation and vital infrastructure such as clean drinking water and broadband networks. And one must take seriously the potential of important programs and services being eliminated to offset the cost of GBI.
Further, the programs Power references as offering a strong case for GBI, such as the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) and the Ontario Basic Income Pilot, not to mention the GBI models constructed in academic studies, all leverage the tax system in some way (e.g., to assess eligibility). Thus, it is reasonable to expect GBI to follow a similar approach. This will present key access and responsiveness challenges, which arise in relation to two issues: low tax-filing rates among marginalized Canadians and lack of in-year income reporting. That Indigenous persons, social assistance recipients, new immigrants and others face systemic barriers to tax filing suggests that many who would benefit most from GBI are unlikely to access it. In the case of the CCB, for example, up to 40 per cent of First Nations families are missing out on the benefit.
In addition, a lack of real-time reporting means that GBI would not be responsive to changes in need, as income would only be assessed once a year—at tax time. The imposition of a system that requires individuals to wait until April to qualify for support needed in August cannot be considered a progressive policy victory.
Of course, there are policy solutions to the above issues. Though some require substantial changes to the tax system, others could be achieved by making tweaks to GBI itself—for example, through the institution of monthly income reviews by program staff or assessment processes to identify particular needs. However, it is vital to understand that such tweaks would undercut core principles of simplicity and dignity while moving the GBI closer in line with its antithesis, the social assistance system—far from a desirable outcome for advocates. As a result, it is hard to argue with the stance that it would be more effective to pursue direct reforms to social assistance, such as the institution of higher benefit amounts, the elimination of asset tests and the removal of punitive and discriminatory measures.
The above practical limitations aside, we must ultimately ask whether GBI’s vision for society—one that is built on the primacy of individual autonomy, and which suggests that we can purchase our way to freedom—is truly the best we can imagine for ourselves. I don’t believe that it is. More worryingly, GBI could set us on a dangerous path by undermining values of reciprocity, solidarity and public provision—values to which we are already just barely clinging.
