If you have a body – you have basic needs !

Many-many years ago people were living in a forest and spending their nights under a tree or in a cave. Their basic needs were covered by the nature – the water and food were free, shelter was free, clothing was not required and they may defecate wherever they like.

The basic needs arise not because you need some special treatment, but only because you have a body.

Now we live in a civilized world and, still, have a body. Therefore, we still have our basic needs.

However, we have severe limitations on how we may meet out basic needs.

We cannot walk naked – we should wear some clothes.

We cannot defecate wherever we like and in most cases we cannot wash ourselves in a natural way – we need sanitation.

We cannot spend nights in a park or on a street – we need some shelter.

We may have some free food and water, but probably need access to the energy source to prepare our meals.

And because we live in a society, we cannot reduce out communications to “ugh-ugh” and “woooo”, but must have the ability to talk on basic topics. And we have to learn how to read and write, the basic counting and if-then logic.

On top of that we have to have skills to use the touch screen of our smartphone or MacDonald menu selections. Most probably the access to local transportation and a high speed internet is now our basic need too.

So, because we are alive, have a body and live in a society, we have now our extended basic needs. These needs must be granted to every-body, poor and rich, old, young and medium aged, to an individual – not to a household.

Just because you live here, a citizen or a permanent resident.

Our economy can handle this requirement by paying the Basic Income to everyone.

No question asked.

What do we have now for free no question asked ?

Basic education, healthcare and internet (in cities).

Free transportation only to babies and seniors.

Free water is limited, free sanitation is almost not available.

You can get some free food and clothes in most communities.

Free shelter is available only to special categories of people.

Why do we need a basic income guarantee

Have you every tried to spend one night in the city without any money, even at warm summer time? You are not allowed to stay in parks after dawn. Even if you try some retail space with chairs who is open 24H (like McDonald), there is a good chance a security guy would wake you up and say you cannot sleep there. They will probably ban you for the second night.

The basic fear of having no space to stay for a night or of being hungry for couple days or even uncertainty of where you have to go on the first of the next month if you miss your rent payment – it creates the chronic, physiological stress.

Even living constantly in poverty, having to meet your ends every week, being deeply hurt by interest payments on your credit cards – it downgrades you dramatically, reduces to a clot of pain.

You become vulnerable, incapable to do simple things, crooked, sick - you stop being human under this animal fear for your being.

We have to stop and prevent this from happening ! We live in the rich, economically developed country, member of G7 etc.

If we take this animal fear from human shoulders, if we relieve her from this constant stress – we retrieve another human being to full happy life.

People in poverty will straighten up, get filled with positive creative energy. They will have spare time to ponder about the next step to the happy life.

Crime rates will reduce, women will stop selling their bodies fox sex, teenagers will have more time to learn new things, etc.

The money from BIG payments will return right back into the economy as payments for goods and services. It is much better for everybody then some quantitative easing (QE) for troubled financial institutions.

Our community, province, country will benefit from it.

Benefits for business – new lower minimum wage.

A relieved human being with guaranteed basic income can do anything:

lie on a couch and watch TV, sing on the street, volunteer within her community, launch a new start-up, spend more time with kids or sick parents – you name it.

You do not have anymore to commit reprehensible acts at the risk of being punished.

If you do nothing, you will eventually feel boredom and ennui and in few weeks will probably look for fresh opportunities.

You may decide to go back to work, to earn additional money for better education or more classy widgets or more ritzy vacation. You may consider to take a part-time (on call) job or to work for a lower paycheck regarding into it as the additional, optional money.

That will create opportunities for small businesses to hire more people for a lower wage.

We need to facilitate these employment options by reducing the minimum wage for businesses.

What is the purpose to set a minimum wage ? – to help low-income families.

Now, when a person receives her basic income from government coffers, she is already protected, her basic needs are met. The minimum wage becomes the minimum supplement to the basic income.

The market will eventually balance the labour demand and offer, but we have no more reasons to force businesses to pay substantial wage.

For example;

If the BIG is $1,200 – and you work full time 150 hours/month, then the BIG is equivalent to the guaranteed $8/hour, so the minimum wage should be reduced by $8 and be $15 - $8 = $7/hour (all numbers are just for an example).

So, the business will save this money on wages, become more profitable, produce more and probably reduce prices on their goods and services.

It is a win-win situation.

Sources of funds for the basic income guarantee

As some of you may know, about 60% of the Federal budget and 40% of provincial budgets comes from personal income taxes and GST/PST charges.

21% of federal budget is spent on OAS, GIS and child benefits, another 11% on healthcare.

The BIG would be some kind of replacement for OAS, GIS payments and child benefits (for kids age 6 to 18). It means that BIG should be paid from the Federal budget.

Provincial budget should add some provincial BIG as the adjustment to local conditions. For example, the food in BC is more expensive than is Ontario, therefore some extra dollars should be included in BC residents' BIG.

The B.C. Early Childhood Tax Benefit (BCECTB) for babies up to 6 years old should be another provincial BIG adjustment paid to one of parents.

How “no question asked” BIG should be implemented

If you were OAS or GIS recipient – you are just switched to BIG payments.

Children are automatically enrolled into the BIG program starting their six years old anniversary.

If you moved from one province to another – you need to transfer your BIG from one province to another.

Individuals with the previous year income below some threshold are automatically enrolled.

“Rich” people may have three different sources of income:

• individuals working for the government – get their salaries cut to the amount of BIG and are automatically enrolled in BIG;
• a person who was on 21$/H payroll with a small business will probably receive a notice of reduction his hourly rate for $8 (as in our example). He receives BIG payment and may consider to stay or quit without any prejudice;

a person working for $200K salary for a commercial enterprise will have to negotiate her contract while receiving her BIG;

• business owners and investors living on dividends - probably need to apply for BIG.

FAQs

Basic Income Guarantee (BIG)

A traditional list of immediate "basic needs" is food (including water), shelter and clothing.[3] Many modern lists emphasize the minimum level of consumption of 'basic needs' of not just food, water, clothing and shelter, but also sanitation, education, healthcare, and internet. Different agencies use different lists.

The poverty line is then defined as the amount of income required to satisfy those needs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_needs#Canada

Survey of Household Spending to determine the cost of a list of household necessities. The list includes food, shelter, clothing, health care, personal care, essential furnishings, transportation and communication, laundry, home insurance, and miscellaneous

The parliamentary budget office has estimated spending would need to increase $43.1 billion annually to provide every low-income household with an average of $9,421

= ~ 4.5 households

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/liberals-say-they-are-looking-at-ways-to-provide-minimum-income-to-all-canadians

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

https://basicincome.org/

A Basic Income, also called Universal Basic Income (UBI), Citizen's Income (CI), Citizen's Basic Income (CBI) (in the United Kingdom), Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) (in the United States and Canada), or Universal Demogrant, is a periodic cash payment delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement

https://citizensincome.org/citizens-income/what-is-it/

The incomes would be:

• Unconditional: A Basic Income would vary with age, but with no other conditions, so everyone of the same age would receive the same Basic Income, whatever their gender, employment status, family structure, contribution to society, housing costs, or anything else.
• Automatic: Someone’s Basic Income would be paid weekly or monthly, automatically, into a bank account or similar.
• Non-withdrawable: Basic Incomes would not be means-tested. Whether someone's earnings increase, decrease, or stay the same, their Basic Income will not change.
• Individual: Basic Incomes would be paid on an individual basis, and not on the basis of a couple or household.
• As a right: Everybody legally resident would receive a Basic Income, subject to a minimum period of legal residency, and continuing residency for most of the year

Budgets:

1 Canada Federal 338,500,000,000 2018-19 [1]

2 Ontario Provincial 158,464,500,000 2018-19 [2]

3 Quebec Provincial 108,693,000,000 2018-19 [3]

4 British Columbia Provincial 53,600,000,000 2018-19 [4]

Deficit 18.1 bil.$

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tax-dollars-1.4545415

OAS + GIS = $48B 14%

Canada Health = $36B 10.7%

Child benefits = $22B 6.5%

Defence = $25B

Sources:

Personal income tax 49.0%

Corporate Income Tax-dollars 14.4%

GST 11.7%

EI premiums 7.5%

Provincial budget ($B): total 54

personal income 9.84 18.2%

cash transfers from Federal budget 8.93 16.5%

PST 7.43 13.7%

corporate income tax 4.1 7.6%

property tax 2.63 4.9%

FAQ

how much is UBI

how much would it cost

who qualifies for basic income

what is the purpose of basic income

Universal basic income (UBI) is a model for providing all citizens of a country or other geographic area with a given sum of money, regardless of their income, resources or employment status. The purpose of the UBI is to prevent or reduce poverty and increase equality among citizens.

Basic income is a system similar to Social Security, in which all citizens of a country receive a set amount of money on a regular basis. This money is typically provided by the government or a similar public organization. .

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