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The Liberal premier of Ontario announced details of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot. The provincial government issued a press release saying
Three regions will take part in the study. Pilots will start in late spring in Hamilton, including Brantford and Brant County; and in Thunder Bay and the surrounding area. The third pilot will start by this fall [autumn] in Lindsay.
The Basic Income model Ontario has developed will ensure that eligible participants receive:
Up to $16,989 per year for a single person, less 50 per cent of any earned income
Up to $24,027 per year for a couple, less 50 per cent of any earned income
Up to an additional $6,000 per year for a person with a disability.
[...] The three test regions will host 4,000 participants eligible to receive a basic income payment, between the ages of 18 to 64. By late spring, people in these areas will begin receiving information about the pilot and how to participate. The province is partnering with these communities and other experts to make sure that the Ontario Basic Income Pilot is fair, effective, and scientifically valid.
additional coverage:
- Canoe (editorial)
- The Globe and Mail
- globalnews.ca
- The Guardian
- Business Insider
- BBC News
- Canadian Press via City News
- Reuters via NASDAQ
- Toronto Star
- CHCH-TV
- CBC
- CNN Money
related story:
Ontario is Starting a Universal Basic Income Pilot
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Wednesday April 26 2017, @11:37AM
This is where the dissatisfaction will start to kick in. Not going to ever see a benefit from that 16,989 base and going to be stuck paying 30% more in taxes to cover a bunch of other people to make more money
Except that the majority of the people who will actually benefit from basic income are already receiving welfare payments and services funded by your taxes. That's even the case in the US, and this is in Canada where I presume welfare payments are a bit more generous. The hope is that BI would be far cheaper to administer (no means testing, less policing of fraud: in a real BI system the whole thing would be assimilated by the existing income tax system) and less prone to poverty traps that discourage people from earning more from work (forget 50% of earned income being clawed back from your BI: the current situation can be earn 1$/week more, pass some threshold, loose a whole tranche of related benefits, end up with $5/week less).
Finally - there would have to be some public waking up and smelling of the coffee: the large-scale mass employment of the 20th century is over. Existing welfare payments amount to a subsidy to industry - effectively letting them employ labour at below cost while the taxpayer pays for them to eat hot meals and sleep indoors. Previous governments (certainly in the UK) have used the "benefits scrounger" happily living off welfare as a scapegoat - the reality is a large tranche of welfare payments go to the "working poor" who's salaries don't otherwise cover housing costs.
...I mean, there's also an issue with the inflated cost/shortage of housing which needs to be addressed - but any realistic solution to that is going to mean some of the equity in your house vanishing, which isn't going to be popular, either.