The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Canada tests ‘basic income’ effect on poverty
HAMILTON, Ontario — Former security guard Tim Button considers how a sudden increase in his income from an unusual social experiment has changed his life in this Canadian industrial city along the shore of Lake Ontario.
Sipping coffee in a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop, Button says he has been unable to work because of a fall from a roof, and the financial boost from Ontario Province’s new “basic income” program has enabled him to make plans to visit distant family for Christmas for the first time in years. It has also prompted him to eat healthier, schedule a long-postponed trip to the dentist and mull taking a course to help him get back to work.
“It’s making a huge difference for me,” Button said of the almost 60 percent increase in monthly benefits he started receiving in October from the Ontario government.
Ontario intends to provide a basic income to 4,000 people in three different communities as part of an experiment to evaluate whether providing more money to people on public assistance or low incomes will make a significant difference in their lives. How people like Button respond over the next three years is being closely watched by social scientists, economists and policymakers in Canada and around the world.
Anyone unemployed or with an annual income below 34,000 Canadian dollars ($26,000) is eligible to take part in the experimental program. Single people receive up to 17,000 dollars ($13,000) of basic income and they can keep half of what they earn from working. Canadians on welfare normally would have to subtract all of what they earn from their monthly benefit, so this is an incentive to work. Couples get 24,000 dollars ($19,000).
The idea is getting renewed interest amid concerns that technology will eliminate many jobs in the future. Technology leaders such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla founder Elon Musk have promoted the idea as a way to address the potential loss of jobs to automation and artificial intelligence.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said the experiment is rooted in a fear there will be a mass dislocation of jobs not seen since the Industrial Revolution that governments will have to address.
“I see it on a daily basis. I go into a factory and the floor plant manager can tell me where there were 20 people and there is one machine,” Wynne said. “We need to understand what it might look like if there is, in fact, the labor disruption that some economists are predicting.”