Monthly Archives: March 2020

Governments around the world are preparing to send direct cash payments to all citizens to help them cope with the financial pressures of coronavirus. This strategy is known as universal basic income, but what exactly is it and can it help Britain fight the effects of the coronavirus outbreak?

Universal basic incomeis when governments opt to support the economy from the bottom up by giving money regularly to all citizens, without means testing, to spend how they please. This is unusual as normally governments prefer to cuttaxes, subsidise certain goods and services, or provide debt relief to support people during tough economic times.

Everyone would be paid a cash amount every month from the government regardless of their financial circumstances. Professor Guy Standing, of SOAS University in London, said about 200 a month would be enough to have a significant impact on many peoples lives.

Others have called for a temporary policy, where each British citizen would get 1,000 a month while we fight the economic effects of coronavirus.

One-off payments could be an alternative option.Other countries have already started handing out money in this way.Italy is giving around 500 (470) to each self-employed person andAustralia making a one-off payment of375 to all lower-income workers

Daniel Susskind, of the University of Oxford, said implementing a temporary universal basic income in Britain would be the best way of supporting small businesses, such as pubs and restaurants, that would not benefit from a top-down financial stability package from the Government or Bank of England.

He estimated that handing out 1,000 to every citizen each month would cost the Government about 66bn a month. He added that the implementation would be cheap and quick as there would be none of the bureaucracy that comes with means testing.

Funding people directly could be a more effective wayof helping them keep their livelihoodsintact than making them wait for government support of business to trickle down into the real economy.

Proponents argue that universal basic income is the only way to guarantee a basic standard of living for all citizens and protect them from sudden economic shocks.They say it would also cut costs for government departments as they would no longer need to monitor benefits fraud and carry out time-consuming means testing, which would release more money to be spent directly on citizens.

One scheme could also replace the current complex arrangement of government benefits and tax rebates.

Critics say the money is wasted on the rich as they would hardly notice the extra money so it could be better spent supporting disadvantaged parts of society or public services, such as the National Health Service.

Some argue that guaranteeing a basic standard of living would stifle innovation and disincentivise work, which would in turn affect the economy and reduce government tax income, making the scheme unworkable in the long run.

The International Labour Office, part of the United Nations, estimated average costs of a full universal basic income programme to be 20pc to 30pc of GDP a year. It concluded in 2018 that the money would be better spent on social programmes, supporting public services and investing in infrastructure.

Read more from the original source:

Universal basic income: what is it, how does it work and could it help fight the coronavirus crisis? - Telegraph.co.uk

The Basic Income Network (BIN) Italia has published a petition pleading for the Italian governement and Parliament to immediately install an emergency basic income. There, it can be read:

To the Italian government and Parliament

EXPANDING THE CITIZENS INCOME SCHEME! IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

Right at a time when it is recognised that individuals must act as active and responsible members of their communities, it is necessary to prove we all truly adhere to the idea of a society that fulfils its members real needs. In short, it is time to guarantee the right to existence for all human beings.

Now that we are all facing sudden and unexpected changes, appropriate political and social structures are needed in order to both respond to the current (corona virus) emergency and introduce an universal social protection measure. It is time to simplify the social protection schemes so as to include the whole population, thus guaranteeing each individual access to these protections regardless of whether they are employed or not.

In 2019, Italy introduced a citizens income scheme which, if properly reformed in terms of universal access and less binding criteria, can be an important tool to support people and ensure them the right to access the resources they need to survive.

Therefore, we believe it is urgently necessary to:

Social Welfare is not a cost, but an investment!

The petition has been undersigned and supported by dozens of organizations operating in the Italian territory.

Sandro Gobetti has written 30 articles.

Coordinator BIN Italy and social research

Read more:

Italy: Urgent petition in time of Corona Virus: Expanding the Citizen's Income Scheme! If Not Now, When? - Basic Income News

For many in Britain, quite how radically our lives will be impacted by the coronavirus pandemic is yet to fully sink in. The government has already moved to reassure businesses with emergency measures but a growing number of workers are waiting for comparable support. The policies already announced might help workers indirectly, for example if businesses take out government-backed loans to keep their staff on the payroll, or if landlords take advantage of the moratorium on mortgage payments to suspend demands for rent. But both of these would amount to trickle-down support at the whims of bosses and property-owners rather than a condition of state support.

Already the government appears aware of the shortcomings of its initial economic response, hinting that direct support for renters and workers is on the way. So it seems as relevant as ever to argue that now is not the time for tinkering around the edges, but for big ideas. The chancellor ditched Tory economic orthodoxy to help business through this crisis, so he must be prepared to do the same for workers and the self-employed.

That means introducing an employment protection payment of at least 75% of previous earnings, up to a limit. This should be available for all workers whose employers have had to cease or reduce their business activity; for the self-employed, calculated on average earnings; and for those unable to work due to caring responsibilities. Ireland and Denmark have announced similar schemes already. This would ensure we maintain peoples incomes so they can get through the outbreak and protect their jobs for when we ultimately emerge on the other side.

While the prime minister has suggested the government will legislate to end no fault evictions, this does nothing for those who have lost their jobs, or are self-isolating, and are unable to pay the rent. The government must extend the suspension of mortgage payments to rent payments for those who have lost their jobs or are unable to work. As has been announced in France, there must also be a moratorium on utility bills to ensure people unable to pay arent cut off from fuel or communication. Workers should also be given the right to work from home where possible, particularly those who are immuno-compromised who shouldnt be penalised with a subsequent increase in household bills.

All this help is necessary to ensure we protect our health and financial security, and time is of the essence, as the chancellor himself noted on Tuesday when he said: Whatever package or scheme we come up with that we believe will provide the appropriate support, it is important that we can operationalise that at speed. Given the current five-week delay in universal credit payments, and the very low levels of statutory sick pay that are nowhere near the living wage, let me float an obvious and potentially streamlined policy suggestion: universal basic income for all.

A fixed payment made to all, providing everyone with a basic minimum income of at least the real living wage, for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, would also assist employers, who would then top up salaries to the level a worker currently earns. It would provide a basic protection to all, and guarantee much needed consumer spending power to help keep people and businesses afloat through the crisis and until we recover.

This country is facing an unprecedented shock: its time to move mountains. We must actually do whatever it takes to keep people safe and financially supported. People deserve nothing less than the same level of reassurance that the government has already afforded to business.

Rebecca Long-Bailey is the Labour MP for Salford and Eccles and a candidate for the Labour party leadership

Read more:

It's time to move mountains to protect people we need universal basic income - The Guardian

Iain Duncan Smith has rejected suggestions that workers should be given a universal basic income during the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that it would be a "disincentive to work".

The former work and pensions secretary said the proposal, floated by Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey on Wednesday, was also "unaffordable".

Under the proposed policy, people would receive a universal flat payment to help cover their living costs during the pandemic. Ms Long Bailey's proposal is for the rate to be set at the living wage.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

But Sir Iain, said his think-tank the Centre for Social Justice had "ran the numbers" and found that the cost would amount to an "astronomic amount of money" - with a basic payment costing the Treasury around 260 billion a year.

He suggested that the delayed Universal Credit scheme, his main legacy at the DWP, would be a better alternative and "was designed with just such critical moments in mind".

"One proposal being pushed around at the moment is the redundant idea of a Universal Basic Income," Sir Iainwrote in an article for the Telegraph newspaper.

"Let me say now, its unaffordable, impractical, produces massive disincentives for people to work and most importantly wont make any difference to poverty in this country.

"And even if that werent enough, this would not be the moment for such a massive upheaval of our welfare system."

Sir Iain said the taper rate of his own Universal Credit system should instead be lowered to pay more money to people who lose hours due to the pandemic and "put a floor underneath employees as government steps in and takes the strain".

Writing in The Guardian on Wednesday, the Shadow Business Secretary Ms Long-Bailey called for "a fixed payment made to all, providing everyone with a basic minimum income of at least the real living wage, for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic".

The usually busy Royal Mile in Edinburgh is empty as people stay away from public areas amid the coronavirus outbreak on 13 March

Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

Ho bart's Amusement Arcade in Westward Ho!, Devon is offering toilet roll and soap as prizes in grabber machines

Rob Braddick/SWNS

An empty platform at Farringdon Station in London the morning after the Prime Minister said that Covid-19 "is the worst public health crisis for a generation"

PA

Shopkeepers Asiyah Javed and husband Jawad from Day Today Express, in Stenhousemuir, Falkirk are giving away facemasks, antibacterial hand wash and cleaning wipes to the elderly in a bid to stop the spread of Coronavirus

Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

A usually busy street in Cambridge is empty as people stay away from public areas amid the coronavirus outbreak on 2 March

James Linsell-Clark/SWNS

A hand sanitiser dispenser is seen inside the stadium during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Manchester City at Old Trafford on 8 March

Getty

Maaya Indian Kitchen in Milton Keynes is offerig customers a free roll of toilet paper with every takeaway order

SWNS

Oliver Cooper[L], was sent home from school for selling spurts of handsanitiser to fellow pupils at 50p a time. He poses with mum Jenny Tompkins by their home in Leeds

Ashley Pemberton/SWNS

Empty toilet paper shelves at a supermarket in London on 12 March

EPA

A member of the public is swabbed at a drive through Coronavirus testing site set up in a car park in Wolverhampton

Getty

A passenger wears a protective face mask as she travels on a bus in the City of London

AFP/Getty

A Southampton fan wears a face mask before the match against Newcastle United on 7 March

Reuters

A loudspeaker placed in grounds of St Mary's Catholic Church in Broughattin, Dundalk, County Louth ahead of funeral mass later this morning. The loudspeaker has been placed in the grounds after the Catholic Archdiocese said that funerals and weddings should not exceed 100 attendees within the church building

PA

A hand sanitising station set up outside Cheltenham Racecourse during day four of the Cheltenham Festival on 13 March

PA

People wearing protective face masks walk across London Bridge on 11 March

AFP/Getty

The usually busy Royal Mile in Edinburgh is empty as people stay away from public areas amid the coronavirus outbreak on 13 March

Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

Ho bart's Amusement Arcade in Westward Ho!, Devon is offering toilet roll and soap as prizes in grabber machines

Rob Braddick/SWNS

An empty platform at Farringdon Station in London the morning after the Prime Minister said that Covid-19 "is the worst public health crisis for a generation"

PA

Shopkeepers Asiyah Javed and husband Jawad from Day Today Express, in Stenhousemuir, Falkirk are giving away facemasks, antibacterial hand wash and cleaning wipes to the elderly in a bid to stop the spread of Coronavirus

Katielee Arrowsmith/SWNS

A usually busy street in Cambridge is empty as people stay away from public areas amid the coronavirus outbreak on 2 March

James Linsell-Clark/SWNS

A hand sanitiser dispenser is seen inside the stadium during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Manchester City at Old Trafford on 8 March

Getty

Maaya Indian Kitchen in Milton Keynes is offerig customers a free roll of toilet paper with every takeaway order

SWNS

Oliver Cooper[L], was sent home from school for selling spurts of handsanitiser to fellow pupils at 50p a time. He poses with mum Jenny Tompkins by their home in Leeds

Ashley Pemberton/SWNS

Empty toilet paper shelves at a supermarket in London on 12 March

EPA

A member of the public is swabbed at a drive through Coronavirus testing site set up in a car park in Wolverhampton

Getty

A passenger wears a protective face mask as she travels on a bus in the City of London

AFP/Getty

A Southampton fan wears a face mask before the match against Newcastle United on 7 March

Reuters

A loudspeaker placed in grounds of St Mary's Catholic Church in Broughattin, Dundalk, County Louth ahead of funeral mass later this morning. The loudspeaker has been placed in the grounds after the Catholic Archdiocese said that funerals and weddings should not exceed 100 attendees within the church building

PA

A hand sanitising station set up outside Cheltenham Racecourse during day four of the Cheltenham Festival on 13 March

PA

People wearing protective face masks walk across London Bridge on 11 March

AFP/Getty

She said the system would "assist employers, who would then top up salaries to the level a worker currently earns" and "would provide a basic protection to all, and guarantee much needed consumer spending power to help keep people and businesses afloat through the crisis and until we recover".

She added: "This country is facing an unprecedented shock: its time to move mountains. We must actually do whatever it takes to keep people safe and financially supported. People deserve nothing less than the same level of reassurance that the government has already afforded to business."

Excerpt from:

Coronavirus: Iain Duncan Smith says dont bring in universal basic income during pandemic as it would be disincentive to work - The Independent

While theres widespread agreement that we need an immediate, massive stimulus and targeted economic supports to deal with the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus, theyre clearly not enough. We also urgently need to think long-termboth about the all-too-predictable things that got us into this crisis, and how we can refashion our economy and society as we eventually emerge.

Guiding our own thinking is a basic public-health principle that should have long been our standard for all economic and social policy: We protect ourselves when we protect others. We are being asked right now to limit contact, to work remotely, and to do this mostly to shield those who are most vulnerable. We are being asked to dig deep into government coffers and bear the future burden of debt so that we can bring quick relief for those often left at the margins. And we are asking businesses to step up (or forcing them to step up) to their responsibilities and adjust schedules, offer paid sick leave, and understand family demands.

But why is this good for a crisis and not for daily life? While we should stand together by staying physically apart in this time of pandemic, we need to give up the sort of social distance that has allowed so many to ignore homelessness, immigration uncertainty, and rural poverty. We need to come out of this troubling moment with a deeper commitment to each other. We need to realize that an ethos of mutual caring and support not only leads to better health outcomes, but also helps to generate a more vibrant and resilient society.

We need a new solidarity economics.

Our lack of social solidarity has been a key contributor to our vulnerability to the coronavirus outbreak.

Unprecedented levels of inequality have left large numbers of Americans unprepared for an emergency, with nearly half of the U.S. population unable to handle just a $400 emergency expense. That inequality has also distorted our health care system, where we can provide world-class end-of-life care to the wealthy, but have underinvested in the basic infrastructure of our public-health system, leaving us dangerously unprepared for massive testing and waves of hospitalization.

Partly driving that inequality and partly resulting from it has been a low level of inclusion. Long before we were told to practice physical distance, we were already practicing an acute form of social distance: Increasingly, we have been sorted by income, race, and politics. It has become easy for some groups to ignore homelessness or incarceration or economic despair, seeing those as issues facing others. And that hurts all of usfor example, research shows that when there is a rise in the racial generation gap (the difference between the racial composition of the old and the young), public investment in education falls. That damages the economy as a whole.

Exacerbating the gaps between groups has been a problem with information. The lack of accountability of our social media systems, driven by the drive for super profits in winner-take-all markets, has contributed to the proliferation of misinformation and conflicting advice. Fake news crosses the ideological spectrumno, Donald Trump does not actually own stock in a company the Centers for Disease Control uses for COVID-19 tests, nor did U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hold back coronavirus funding to run negative ads about Republicans, both popularly shared stories. But profiteering from political and social polarizationthe basic business model of Fox Newshas been allowed to take deep root.

Not entirely new but certainly pushed along by the factors above has been a miserly commitment to social insurance. We have looked the other way as businesses expanded gig jobs with few if any benefits. We have settled for a limited social safety net that seems more aimed at saving dollars than saving lives. As a result, we have 28 million people without health insurance, and 44 million more with inadequate health insurance that imposes high deductibles and co-pays, preventing people from getting the treatment they need. With no mandated policies for paid sick leave, millions of people continue to have to work while ill, disproportionately including many workers in our restaurants and grocery stores, which contributes to the rapid spread of the coronavirus.

And while it may seem odd to say about an economy that has spawned Google, Facebook, and Amazon, we have a serious problem with innovation. We spend billions on speeding up the delivery of consumer goods but have failed to mount the infrastructure needed to solve the problem of homelessness. We are developing medicine to treat diseases of the wealthy, but neglect research on infectious diseases that kill millions in poor countries of the global South. We are forging ahead with the development of high-end electric vehicles even as we continue to allow environmental hazards to wreak havoc on the health of marginalized communities.

In short, just as Hurricane Katrina revealed the underlying inequities and vulnerabilities baked into the economic, social, and physical landscape of New Orleans, the COVID-19 crisis is shining a light on deeply rooted problems in America. Moving forward will require not just emergency actions but attention to and alignment with efforts to fundamentally restructure how we build and sustain our economy.

We offered the starting frame for solidarity economics in our 2018 publication From Resistance to Renewal: A 12-Step Program for Innovation and Inclusion in the California Economy. There we pointed to a range of policy solutions that seem almost prescient today: Among them were universal basic income funded by a technology dividend, increased investment in basic science, expansion and improvement of the caring economy, full immigrant integration to bring people out of the shadows, rapid de-incarceration and re-entry of the formerly incarcerated, universal health insurance and portable benefits, social-housing programs to ensure long-term affordability, industry-wide wage boards to coordinate labor and business, and realigned tax systems that were both more progressive and more stable.

Just as important as the policy package were our philosophical starting points. We had three central pillars to our thinking.

The first was that the standard economic models of human behavior were outdated. The general assumption by most economists has been that people act purely (or at least largely) out of self-interest. For conservatives, the good news is that the market will coordinate all that selfishness to a blissful outcome, and so limited government is the best recipe. (Hows that working for you today?) On the left, there has been a corresponding take, in reaction to the dominance of laissez-faire. It has featured a strong belief that the state must act to constrain the worst instances of bad behavior and corral the economy into serving the common good.

But as has become evident in this and other crises, people also act out of impulses of solidarity with one another. The challenge is that we have structured our economic and political systems to either reward or tame self-interest rather than to promote our connection with one another. We will obviously need enforcement for people to stay home, but the differences in containment by countries in this crisisChina and South Korea versus Italy and the U.S.have resulted not just from such factors as the strength of government and the social safety net, but also from the balance that different societies strike between communitarian and individualistic values.

The second pillar of our thinking actually flows from the first: The old canard that inequality is perhaps politically unpopular but economically necessary is just thata canard. In fact, a wide range of research studiesincluding from such unexpected sources such as the Cleveland Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fundhave shown that high levels of income disparities, racial segregation, and social fragmentation actually tend to limit the sustainability of growth in income and jobs. It turns out that mutuality matters.

We have, of course, been practicing just the opposite. Weve had a dog-eat-dog economic system in which short-term thinking dominates and venture capital is too often vulture capital. When societies and regions invest in all their members, by contrast, basic productivity rises. When there are trusting relations between economic and social actors, consensus on how to grow the economy increases. When businesses treat their employees, customers, and suppliers with dignity and respect, profits are stable and consistent. And as we now know from the principle of public health, when we protect the most vulnerable, we protect everyone.

The third pillar of our thinking was that the purpose of our economy is not just to generate GDP. Prosperity mattersbut so do security and community. Indeed, that was the secret of getting out of the Great Depression: Keynesian demand management to drive growth; the extension of a sense and the reality of security through, well, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and, eventually, the adoption of employer-based benefits like health insurance; and the reconnection of disparate parts of the nation through investments like the Tennessee Valley Authority.

We need that sort of triadprosperity, security, and communityin what will amount to this generations version of economic catastrophe and New Deal response. That response needs to be altered to fit our times. Growth can no longer come at the cost of the environment. The safety netas is evident from this crisisneeds to be universal and not employer-based, especially given the changing nature of work. And while the New Deal excluded African Americans and other people of color from a range of protections, partly to secure the support of Southern Democrats, this time we must ensure that community means all of us.

We are facing an immediate need to think long-term. In the same way that we need to flatten the contagion curve by spreading out the impact of the coronavirus, we also need to flatten the economic curve, linking short-term interventions with longer-term programs that provide security for families and community, strengthen connections between people and places, and grow employment and the economy.

To do this, policy needs to be brought together under another three-part frame: Lift the bottom, grow the middle, and tame the top.

For lifting the bottom, we need to provide immediate assistance to the most vulnerable among us, while using those interventions to build support for longer-term solutions. In the field of health, for example, we need now to provide a guarantee that everyone, regardless of income, availability of insurance, or immigration status, will be fully covered for the costs of testing and treatment for COVID-19, while using this to build the case for universal health insurance. We need targeted interventions for those most vulnerablepeople with disabilities, seniors, those with chronic illness, the poor, the homeless, and those incarceratedto build back the social safety net ravaged by Democrats and Republicans alike. Moreover, we should devise programs that include the undocumented and stress the public-health risks that have resulted from a broken immigration system that forces so many families away from needed services and into the shadows.

We should also now be providing paid sick days for everyone, including home health care providers, food-chain workers, and delivery drivers, who are providing essential services in our crisis, and are also highly vulnerable to being infected and further spreading the virus. But we should just as urgently stress that paid sick days and paid family leave be made permanent. Cash payments now are critical for people in need, as leaders across the political spectrum apparently realize. But rather than one- or two-time payments, we can and should guarantee a minimum basic income to all in need through the end of the economic crisis. That, in turn, can help us better understand the long-term benefits of some form of universal-income guarantee. Housing for the homeless, eviction moratoriums, and rent freezes are also needed now and can become the basis longer-term for much-needed rent stabilization and social-housing policies.

We need to think, too, about all parts of the working classfor example, those who work in what we call the caring economy. The coronavirus has made clear that those caregivers taking care of the most vulnerable are some of the most vulnerable themselves. What if we recognized and invested in them, providing training and better access to telemedical care and advice, and raising professional standards and wages. Wed improve our health care provision, reduce our vulnerability to future disease outbreaks (including simply the seasonal flu), and grow middle-wage jobs.

Or what if we devoted serious attention to the potentials of remote education and lifelong learning? The coronavirus crisis has made clear how not to develop remote-education opportunities, throwing teachers and professors immediately into having to run classes online with few resources, training, or curriculum support. But if done properly, remote education can play a critical role in making lifelong learning accessible to working people. As a percentage of GDP, we spend the lowest on adult workforce education out of all but two OECD countriesMexico and Chile. Most European countries spend two to five times as much as we do; Denmark spends nearly ten times as much. Investing resources here could both help our immediate education crisis and expand our middle class long-term.

Finally, we also need to tame the top. In the short term, that means ensuring that any public benefits to major corporations are conditioned on their maintaining employment levels; these should be in the form of loans, not grants, and should eliminate buybacks as an option for any company receiving assistance. A repeat of the financial crisis bailout is neither viable not desirable. Any stimulus legislation needs to prioritize employees, not profitsnot just now but in the long run.

Taming the top also means ensuring that the American public actually benefits from our nearly $700 million collective investment in coronavirus research that constitutes the basic science for developing a vaccineand that the results of such research be guided by policies of global solidarity and public health, rather than narrow nationalism and profiteering, which are already beginning to raise their ugly heads. In the longer term, it means restoring reasonable tax rates for our top-income earners, which were at 70 percent at the height of American prosperity in the 1950s and have now dropped so low that the top 400 income earners pay a lower tax rate than anyone else.

Ultimately, what a solidarity economics framework reminds us is that caring for others is not just the morally right thing to do. It both reflects our better angels and provides better outcomes for society at large. Whats true in a crisis is also true in the long haul: A deep commitment to mutuality and the common good is the right thing to do for both public and economic health.

View post:

Solidarity Economicsfor the Coronavirus Crisis and Beyond - The American Prospect

In a Queens apartment, a laid-off busboy has no idea if he will make next months rent or feed his family. An out-of-work waitress in Amsterdam, though, can count on the government to cover 90 percent of her wages. As a Malaysian florist anxiously burns through her savings, cafe owners in Brussels receive about $4,300 to make up for lost revenue.

Weeks of layoffs and lockdowns have made clear that poor and working-class people will bear a disproportionate share of the pain from the coronavirus pandemic. In cities around the world, work has stopped. Bills have not. And no end is in sight. But the first wave of government rescue packages has exposed another reality: The pain will depend largely on where people live.

The disparity reflects not only the worlds differing safety nets, but also the contrasting views of a governments role in a crisis. Should it pump cash into the economy? Bail out businesses? Replace lost income for workers? Those questions are at the heart of a protracted debate over a nearly $2 trillion rescue package being negotiated in Washington.

I dont know what Im going to do. Oh my God, said Jose Luis Candia, 34, who lost his two jobs busing tables at high-end Manhattan restaurants. His wife gave birth to their third daughter a month ago. Friends have donated money for groceries. He does not know how he will pay rent or what will happen if he cannot.

Half a world away, in Copenhagen, workers in Mr. Candias situation face a different reality. The Danish government has promised to cover 75 percent to 90 percent of salaries if businesses do not lay off their employees. Better to pay to keep people employed than to pay for the disruption caused by mass layoffs and unemployment, the government has said.

I live from paycheck to paycheck, said Sebastian Lassen, 25, a coffee shop manager in Copenhagen. He feared the uncertainty, he added, but never considered that the government would allow so many workers to fall into poverty. We didnt come to the thought that, OK, maybe well be on the street, he said.

The Netherlands will pay up to 90 percent of wages for companies hit hard by the pandemic, with extra provisions being developed for restaurants. Everybody here believes that the government will take responsibility for the situation, and I believe that too, said Athina Ainali, a 25-year-old waitress for one of Amsterdams many shuttered restaurants.

Washington is divided over how to dole out recovery aid. Proposals have included one-time $1,200 payments. The biggest chunk of money, about $425 billion, is set aside for central bankers to use largely as they see fit. Economists say they expect that will include buying corporate debt and stabilizing financial markets. Democrats say the proposals do not do enough to expand unemployment benefits, provide food assistance or relieve student debt.

New York restaurant owners and workers are calling for aggressive action, including doubling unemployment benefits (which currently cover only about 50 percent of wages, even for minimum-wage employees) and providing rent abatement for displaced employees.

What distinguishes the United States from other countries is not the nature of the bailouts. Its the underlying structure, said Carol Graham, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies safety nets. People are more vulnerable from the get-go, even in normal times. You throw a shock like this at the system? Its about as bad as it could get.

American workers face extra anxiety over medical costs. The United States, unlike most of the developed world, does not guarantee health care.

While countries like Denmark have famously robust safety nets, even the Conservative government in Britain has, after years of austerity, adopted a similar approach. For the first time in our history, the government is going to step in and pay peoples wages, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, said last week. The plan, which is still being developed, will pay up to about $2,900 a month to workers who have lost hours but are not laid off.

The center-right government in Germany will spend more than $40 billion to help small businesses cover basic needs to stay afloat during the crisis. That is in addition to a program aimed at larger companies, called kurzarbeit, or short-time working, that covers lost wages for employees who are sent home, to avoid laying them off. Economists expect about two million workers to receive aid under the program, more than during the financial crisis a decade ago.

We have a security net, and people dont fall below the security net, said Dierk Hirschel, the chief economist of ver.di, one of Germanys largest trade unions. But people are going to lose income, and in a traumatic way.

The German development bank, KfW, has promised an all-but-unlimited supply of business loans. There will be no upper limits for the amount of credit that the KfW can give out, Peter Altmaier, the minister of the economy, said.

Even with the rush to save jobs, uncertainty remains. Britains plan may come too late for workers who have already been laid off. If they cannot find jobs soon, they will most likely fall into the nations welfare system, which can pay as little as $300 a month. I do not know where to go from here, said Delphine Thomas, 20, who was laid off from a movie theater in Liverpool.

South Koreas employee-retention program covers 70 percent of wages or more, and the government recently loosened the rules to make more businesses eligible. But part-time workers, contractors and the self-employed receive fewer protections. Some may be eligible for one-time cash payments. Labor advocates want those workers to have the same benefits as full-time employees.

Business owners, too, face uneven support depending on the country. Elias Calcoen and his partner opened a cafe in Brussels eight months ago. It has been closed for more than a week, but the citys government is offering small businesses immediate $4,300 payments, plus $1,300 a month in federal aid for displaced self-employed workers.

We have no kids, we are in good health and the Belgian government is not leaving us by ourselves, Mr. Calcoen said. There are many people who are in a much worse position.

Brenda James-Leong, a florist in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, says she has been burning through savings while her store is closed. The Malaysian government has offered monthly assistance to the unemployed and lump payments to workers in certain sectors. If the government is doing anything for small businesses like mine, it has not been communicated as of now, she said.

Such apprehension is common, even in countries with generous aid programs. Ursula Waltemath, who owns Restaurant Brace in Copenhagen with her husband, has converted from fine dining to takeout. With schools closed, their 3-year-old daughter shadows them everywhere. At this rate, she figures they can survive three months, even with the government paying a portion of salaries.

It sounds amazing, and it is, to have this help, she said. But even 25 percent of all employee salaries, and rent and basic expenses, is a fortune if you have zero income.

Reporting was contributed by Anna Schaverien, Su-Hyun Lee, Jack Ewing and Melissa Eddy.

See the original post here:

Covid-19s Economic Pain Is Universal. But Relief? Depends on Where You Live. - The New York Times

Much of the U.S. economy has effectively shut down as America increasingly takes the coronavirus pandemic seriously. Retail stores and restaurants across the country are vacant. The entertainment and hospitality industries are on hiatus.

While necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19, this will have grave consequences for the economy as well as for the tens of millions of workers who depend on hourly wages to buy food, medicine and put a roof over their heads.

The Trump administration is finally taking it seriously too and asking Congress to pass an US$850 billion stimulus package, including sending $1,000 checks directly to all adult Americans. Some lawmakers are pushing for larger payments and over several months.

This is welcome news. As a macroeconomist specializing in income inequality, I know direct payments are just what low-wage Americans suddenly without a paycheck need to endure the crisis, which could last many months.

Unlike the 2008 financial crisis, this is an economic crisis hitting working-class and low-income Americans hardest.

Professional, salaried workers are able to work from home. They will continue to get regular paychecks and be in a good position to weather the economic storm created by the coronavirus. Professionals who lose some income likely have some savings to rely on until the economy recovers.

On the other hand, the waiters, retail clerks, hospitality industry employees and other hourly workers who make up nearly 60% of the U.S. labor force will be without work for an indefinite amount of time and rely on an unemployment insurance program that is far too stingy.

Furthermore, low-income Americans typically live paycheck to paycheck with virtually no savings. A recent survey by the Federal Reserve found that 40% of households couldnt come up with $400 to meet an unexpected expense.

Compounding this problem is excessive household debt, now exceeding $14 trillion. Highly indebted households are more vulnerable during an economic downturn. Their debt obligations must be paid, even when their income drops. My own research has found that many households were in financial distress well before the coronavirus hit. Now they are much more likely to default on loan repayments.

The bottom line is that people need money to survive.

Whats more, the U.S. economy needs people to spend money.

Consumer spending accounts for 70% of economic activity. It was already slowing and will slow much further now that people are losing their jobs and incomes.

Like the coronavirus, the problem of households in financial distress must be contained before things spiral out of control. Millions of retail clerks and bartenders suddenly without a job for several months cant spend and cant keep the economy growing. Their spending is others income, which means more companies will lose sales and other workers will lose their jobs.

They also wont be able to repay their debts, whether a mortgage, auto loan or credit card. When lots of indebted consumers cant repay their loans, financial institutions are at risk of going under, leading to a real financial crisis, as Italy now appears to be experiencing.

Thats what makes quick payments to Americans so vital.

Unlike many other forms of stimulus, the U.S. can send citizens $1,000 very easily and without delay the Trump administration hopes to do this within a couple of weeks. Ideally, it does it with no questions asked, no strings attached and for many months.

Its basically just a temporary form of what entrepreneur Andrew Yang talked about a lot during his run for the presidency, and its hardly new. When done on a permanent basis, its known as a basic income guarantee and has been proposed by a variety of people, from liberals like Yang to conservatives like economist Milton Friedman.

While people have an urgent need for money to simply pay bills and buy food now, the basic income guarantee is usually pushed as a longer-term solution to reducing poverty and inequality, as well as to offset the expected declines in employment as a result of automation and other technologies in the coming decades.

Its unclear for how long the White House wants to send out checks, but in my view they should be sent out each month until the economic crisis ends so that people can pay the rent, pay utilities and buy food.

A check in the mail is so very vital right now, but its not enough.

The U.S. should also expand unemployment benefits and other social insurance programs. Small businesses whose customers have vanished will need more support so that they can survive. And some industries, like airlines, may need a bailout.

But $1,000 would be a good down payment to help Americans already struggling and losing their jobs.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read our newsletter.]

Go here to read the rest:

Trump's right: Congress should give Americans $1,000 right now to fight the coronavirus recession - The Conversation US

These are some of the holes in the government policy. The government needs to act swiftly to the low-paid, self-employed and homeless and also needs rules to prevent abuses.

The UK governments response to the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic has been disjointed. A good example is last weeks announcement that government grants will cover 80% of the salary of retained workers up to a total of 2,500 a month.

This late conversion to helping people to pay their bills and thereby keep businesses afloat is most welcome, but there are omissions that require urgent attention. Some examples:

There is little help for the UKs five million self-employed people working as carpenters, electricians, diggers, gardeners, tax drivers, self-fillers, cleaners, home helps, sole traders, owner managers and freelance journalists. The only help offered by the government is that every self-employed person can now access, in full, Universal Credit at a rate equivalent to Statutory Sick Pay for employees.

The Chancellor said: Im strengthening the safety net for self-employed people too, by suspending the minimum income floor, a measure used by the Department for Work and Pensions to calculate the amount of Universal Credit. There are complex conditions.

The Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is 94.25 per week. Even if someone goes through he hurdles of claiming the Universal Credit, they will only receive about 400 a month.

As the government is committed to providing the wage subsidy through HMRC, it could adopt an alternative approach. The income of the self-employed often fluctuates. HMRC could estimate average annual income and then apply the 80% test and 2,500 ceiling.

The government proposals hit the poorest the hardest. The current rate of the national minimum wage (NMW) for a 25-year-old is 8.21 an hour rising to 8.72 an hour from 1 April 2020. Many on and around the NMW will only receive 80% of their normal wage unless their employer pays the other 20%. If employers do not do that, the poorest workers face a wage cut of 20%. The government guarantee needs to cover 100% of the NMW. This could be done by to establishing a floor for the wage subsidy or a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

The governments wage support does little for 320,000 homeless people in the UK, many of whom may be outside the tax net altogether. A UBI would help them.

The current tax free personal allowance for the purpose of income tax is 12,500 a year. Some 42% of adults have an income below that threshold. The low-paid often do not submit tax returns and thus cannot be helped by a subsidy administered by HMRC. UBI is the best way to help them.

The government scheme only helps employees on payroll at 1st March. This does not offer any help to those who were made redundant just before that or persuaded to take unpaid leave before the Chancellor announced the wage subsidy of 20th March. An equitable solution would be for employers to withdraw the redundancy notices and unpaid leave.

The wage subsidy is not accompanied by any obligations upon the employers and is open to abuse. It could have considered a range of options, including requiring employers to pay 20% of the wage, a promise not to cut staff for the next 12 months or change their employment rights, a curb on executive pay, or a requirement to have employee-directors on boards so that employee interests are explicitly taken into account in the post coronavirus period.

The wage subsidy needs to be accompanied by curbs on dividend payments so that corporations preserve their cash flows to aid survival and recovery rather than using the public resources to enrich a few. Amidst the crisis, on 20th March or earlier, EasyJet paid a dividend of 174m whilst putting staff on unpaid leave. Some 60m went to its co-founder Stelios Haji-Ioannaou. It is hard to reconcile public subsidies with lavish dividends.

Many workers on low pay face wage cuts but are required to pay 100% of their rent, and other bills. There are numerous regional, class, age and income/wealth inequalities, but around 7.5m workers have no savings to fall back on. They can be evicted for non-payment of rents. The government needs to enact legislation to prevent evictions for rent arrears. It also needs to freeze, reduce or waive utility bills for the duration of the crisis.

These are some of the holes in the government policy. The government needs to act swiftly to the low-paid, self-employed and homeless and also needs rules to prevent abuses.

Prem Sikka is Professor of Accounting at University of Sheffield and Emeritus Professor of Accounting at University of Essex. He is a Contributing Editor to LFF and tweetshere.

As youre here, we have something to ask you. What we do here to deliver real news is more important than ever. But theres a problem: we need readers like you to chip in to help us survive. We deliver progressive, independent media, that challenges the rights hateful rhetoric. Together we can find the stories that get lost.

Were not bankrolled by billionaire donors, but rely on readers chipping in whatever they can afford to protect our independence. What we do isnt free, and we run on a shoestring. Can you help by chipping in as little as 1 a week to help us survive? Whatever you can donate, were so grateful - and we will ensure your money goes as far as possible to deliver hard-hitting news.

See the rest here:

Who the government's coronavirus economic measures leave behind - Left Foot Forward

It was abundantly clear after the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak reached Jabalpur, Lucknow, Bhilwara and a reported case from a slum in Mumbai that Indian public policy needed to include the neglected informal sector workforce: The most important stakeholders for politicians.

People across the world are dealing with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, including several shocks that ravaged economies.

The impact of the epidemic is nuanced and multi-layered.

There is no question that what we are about to see is a hyphenated reality: The one that lies in the co-existence of independence-interdependence of local and global economies and more bluntly, globalisation and de-globalisation.

Global and local supply chain disruptions loom across the world, devastated travel and tourism industries, global aviation bracing for impact, tanking stock markets, cancelled events and postponement of several elections are some of the impacts the world is facing.

The crisis ahead is complex and exposes deep societal punctures as everyone slides into a cocoon of imminent self-isolation.

Several state governments in India announced comprehensive packages, keeping in mind the needs of the poor.

The Delhi government, in addition to a Rs 50 crore package in its 2020-2021 budget, announced free lunch and dinner to the homeless, free ration and double pension.

The state governments of Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, West Bengal, Kerala, Rajasthan, etc, all announced urgent welfare measures, keeping in mind the problems of the urban and rural poor.

The working classes, the urban poor and migrant labourers make the economy tick. They, however, bear the brunt each time an unexpected shock hits them.

These shocks have dire consequences: Economic dislocation, long-term livelihood shocks, occupational and social displacement.

Labourers and migrant workers were seen leaving for their native homes, according to media reports and visuals seen on social media.

They leave for the possibility of finding family support, cheaper food, accommodative social structures and a community sense, compared to a fairly alienated urban eco-system.

The existence of the anonymity of the city could not have been more obvious.

The alienated luxuries of exercising work from home or calling in sick are not options for those who struggle for daily wages and live hand-to-mouth.

Over 90 per cent of the countrys total workforce lies in this informal sector, largely excluded from holistic legal and social protection, or poor security benefits.

Social distancing, work from home and hand sanitisation are the most logical elixirs correctly recommended and implemented worldwide.

It is, however, worth understanding why many of our brethren dont have these luxuries, essential in a lockdown situation.

These are isolated concepts when one sees the problem from the lens of the average construction worker, airport staff and garbage collectors sanitising our lives without protective gear.

It beseeches us as a society to look within and understand why these important stakeholders continue to be the most vulnerable.

They act as bridges between rural and urban India. They are the most important economic buffers that help the economy sustain and thrive.

We must be considerate to factor in compassion and incorporate concepts of affordability and accessibility to the fore, if policy is to be overhauled.

This is the minimum urban vocabulary that takes ages to trickle down to the most important stakeholders: People at the wrath of globalisation and its discontents.

How do family members of a household that does not have access to water constantly wash their hands? How does a family of five living in an urban slum practice physical and social distancing?

It is about time that governments come up with a comprehensive plan to protect working classes and the unorganised sector not just at the time of an epidemic, but for the long haul.

Prioritising resource allocation is key which is why governments are now designing packages.

A problem of this magnitude, however, should not be the reason to wake up.

A revamped approach to universal basic income or minimum income guarantee on an emergent basis is perhaps needed.

Such concepts were discussed before the 2019 general elections.

India Inc also needs to step in and prove their societal responsibility and ethical commitments. Anand Mahindra and Reliance Foundation have taken the lead in this regard.

A more serious and empathetic approach to cooperative federalism towards coordinated action between the centre and the states, most importantly, becomes the need of the hour.

We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.

India Environment Portal Resources :

More:

COVID-19 outbreak brings attention back to informal sector - Down To Earth Magazine

The Baidu Inc. map application displays the locations visited by people who have tested positive for ... [+] the coronavirus in an arranged photograph taken in Shanghai, China, on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020. For decades, China has been building and refining the ability to track its citizens' whereabouts and interactions to contain dissent and protest. The state's effort to try to contain the rapid spread of the new coronavirus is now testing the limits of that surveillance system. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

At this point, with half the world in lockdown, it goes without saying that we are living through an episode that will leave an indelible mark on our future. We are no longer just talking about the deaths and the economic crisis the coronavirus pandemic will undoubtedly cause, but about much deeper changes we will have to make to prepare ourselves for a future that suddenly no longer seems so attractive.

The coronavirus has jolted us back to reality. We may have thought we were enjoying the greatest period of well-being in history, but now we know we are vulnerable, that we live on a planet we are destroying and making uninhabitable for our species, and that our activity causes mutations in microorganisms that periodically manifest themselves as dangerous pathogens. The best that this pandemic can provide us with is the evidence that things should not return to the way they were before.

How will we live when we have the pandemic under control? Everything we are learning about the coronavirus should help us prepare better for future pandemics, which there will be. At the moment we know that acting quickly is essential, that covering things up, downplaying the threat or not taking responsibility just makes things worse, and that some countries are doing much better than others in flattening the curve and containing the pandemic. As I commented at the time: the United States was a disaster waiting to happen.

We now know what we only suspected at the beginning of the month: the enormous importance of testing. The more test kits are available, the simpler and the faster they are, the better. The commitment to diagnosing as many people as possible set those countries that are managing to contain the pandemic apart from those that continue to see the number of infections rise.

In addition, we must maintain the lockdown, however difficult. We should listen to somebody who grew up in a society where there were no civil rights, Angela Merkel, talk about how the current situation justifies restricting our movements. And matters will not stop there: people might have been shocked when they saw China use apps and geolocation to control the movements of its population during the spread of the infection, but we now see Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan following suit: their success is being used to justify population control measures that would be completely unacceptable under normal circumstances.

Now, with the pandemic spreading exponentially, the US is considering suspending some constitutional rights, and asking for information from Facebook, Google and other technology companies about to implement measures similar to Chinas, to the extent you can do so in a democratic country. European mobile phone operators are beginning to share their users data with the authorities to identify their customers movements without revealing their identity, so far honoring the GDPRbut that could soon change.

Were going to have to adapt the social contract to facilitate the mechanisms to allow the state to bring populations under greater control by monitoring them without giving up our civil rights when the lockdown is lifted. In the future, health care will change drastically, and monitoring devices will become fundamental. Being able to impose a really effective quarantine without idiots trying to escape to the country, being able to guarantee that an infected person remains isolated or being able to trace the movements of someone during the period they could be acting as a vector of the disease becomes key, but without becoming a police state.

Were going to have to do more if were going to bring the coronavirus under control, and leveraging technology to do so makes perfect sense. Quarantines must be tightened, research must allow us to understand why some people only have mild symptoms while others become seriously ill or die, even if it means sequencing the DNA of all those who undergo testing. And we must accept this as something exceptional, as something to help resolve a crisis, without losing our hard-won civil rights.

The coronavirus has made us aware of many things. Among them, that we can slow down and halt an epidemic. Now, let us act with the same determination to solve a more serious problem: the climate emergency. Let us act to change the way we live and turn ways of alleviating the crisis through subsidies and temporary aid into a safety net system by providing unconditional basic income to keep the entire population above the poverty level, not only in the face of a pandemic, but forever.

Can we ensure that these exceptional measures are not cemented in place? The only way lies in redefining the social contract. That will be just one of the many things we will have to do in the hopefully not-too distant future.

We really need to get our heads round this one

Read more:

Coronavirus, Surveillance And The Redefinition Of The Social Contract - Forbes