The document summarizes a presentation on attitudes toward universal basic income and welfare states in Europe. It discusses research examining the relationship between socioeconomic conditions in 21 European countries and public support for universal basic income. The research found that over 50% of respondents supported universal basic income in their country, but support varied significantly between countries. Countries with more generous social welfare systems had lower levels of support, while countries with greater economic insecurity were more receptive to universal basic income.

1. Attitudes Toward
Universal Basic Income
and Welfare State
in Europe
Soomi Lee
University of La Verne
La Verne Academy Lecture
November 20, 2018

3. Universal Basic Income

4. Today’s Talk
1. Introduce the Universal Basic Income.
2. Deliver my research paper in Basic Income
Studies.
3. Share my experience with a universal basic
income course, HONR 313, Universal Basic
Income: Visions and Policies (Spring 2018).
4. Moving Forward…

5. Universal
Basic Income
(basic income, basic income
guarantee, guaranteed
minimum income, social
dividend)
A periodic cash payment
unconditionally delivered
to all on an individual
basis, without means-test
or work requirement.
(Basic Income Earth Network)

6. Thomas Paine
(1737-1809)
Advocated a citizen's
dividend to all United States
citizens as compensation for
"loss of his or her natural
inheritance, by the
introduction of the system
of landed property"
(Agrarian Justice, 1795).

7. J. S. Mill
“In the distribution, a
certain minimum is first
assigned for the
subsistence of every
member of the community,
whether capable or not of
labour.” (Principles of
Political Economy, 1848)

8. Henry George
Advocated a dividend to be
paid to all citizens from the
revenue generated by a land
value tax. Progress and
Poverty, 1879.

9. Bertrand Russell
“... a certain small income,
sufficient for necessaries, should
be secured to all, whether they
work or not, and that a larger
income … should be given to
those who are willing to engage
in some work … When education
is finished, no one should be
compelled to work, and those
who choose not to work should
receive a bare livelihood and be
left completely free.” (Roads to
Freedom, 1918)

10. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I am now convinced that the
simplest approach will prove to
be the most effective—the
solution to poverty is to
abolish it directly by a now
widely discussed measure: the
guaranteed income.” (Where
Do We Go from Here: Chaos or
Community? 1967)

11. In 1968, 1,200
economists signed a
letter calling for the
US Congress to
introduce in that year
a system of income
guarantees and
supplements.

12. Milton Friedman’s
Negative Income Tax
• Reduce Government Bureaucracy
• Utilize the Efficiency of
Free Markets
• End the Welfare Trap
• To Enable Work
• Justice & Equality

13. Experiments in the 1960s-80s
• The New Jersey Income Maintenance
Experiment, 1968–1972 (1357 families)
• The Rural Income Maintenance Experiment in
Iowa and North Carolina, 1969–1973 (809
families)
• Gary, Indiana, 1971–1974 (1800 families)
• Seattle and Denver, 1971–1982 (4800 families)
• Manitoba, Canada, 1974-1979

14. Richard Nixon,
Family Assistance Plan
(On August 8, 1969)
Proposed the Family
Assistance Plan (FAP), which
was based on a negative
income tax model (a $1600
annual income for a family of
four.)

15. Alaska Permanent Fund

17. Artificial Intelligence,
automation, a gig
economy, precarious
labor, a jobless
economy, and Basic
Income

19. Red: corporate profit after tax
Blue: wages and salary / GDP
(1950-2015, FRED)

20. Poverty & UBI
• Cash vs. in-kind transfer
• Take-up rates
• Welfare cliff (work incentives)
• Stigma (dependency, deserving v. undeserving
poor)

22. Economic insecurity
in the midst of
growth and abundance.
What’s our plan for the future?

23. Policy Alternatives???
• Minimum wage & Living wage
• Youth dividend
• Baby bonds
• Federal job guarantee (Kirsten Gillibrand,
Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker)
• The LIFT Act (Kamala Harris)

25. Americans' Support for a UBI

26. “Do you support or not support a universal basic income
program as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because
of advances in artificial intelligence?” N=3297, MOE +/-2, 95%.
48
43
52
52
57
48
All Americans Men Women
Support Do Not Support

27. “Do you support or not support a universal basic income
program as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because
of advances in artificial intelligence?”
54
50
46
38
46
50
54
62
18 to 35 36 to 50 51 to 65 66+
Age
Support Do Not Support

28. “Do you support or not support a universal basic income
program as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because
of advances in artificial intelligence?”
51
42
49
58
Less than a bachelor's degree Bachelor's degree or higher
Education
Support Do Not Support

29. “Do you support or not support a universal basic income
program as a way to help Americans who lose their jobs because
of advances in artificial intelligence?”
28
48
65
72
52
35
Republican Independent Democrat
Support Do Not Support

31. “Attitudes
Towards
Universal Basic
Income and
Welfare State
in Europe”
Examines the relationship
between country-level
socio-economic
conditions and public
attitudes toward UBI in 21
European countries.

32. Gap in the literature
on public attitudes toward UBI
• Despite the heightened interest, public attitudes
to UBI are not well understood.
• This is an important gap to fill because public
opinion is a key element to transforming an idea
to a public policy.
• Systematic research on this subject has, to date,
been minimal.
• Difficult to compare public attitudes toward UBI
across countries to explain why some countries
are more receptive than others.

33. Latest Round of ESS
• The 8th Wage of the European Social Survey (ESS)
asked respondents whether they support an
introduction of UBI to their country.
• This paper includes 21 countries: Austria,
Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France,
Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,
Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
and the United Kingdom.

34. The Questionnaire on UBI
“Some countries are currently talking about introducing a basic income
scheme. In a moment I will ask you to tell me whether you are against or in
favor of this scheme. First, I will give you some more details. The highlighted
box at the top of this card shows the main features of the scheme. A basic
income scheme includes all of the following.
• The government pays everyone a monthly income to cover essential living
costs.
• It replaces many other social benefits.
• The purpose is to guarantee everyone a minimum standard of living.
• Everyone receives the same amount regardless of whether or not they are
working.
• People also keep the money they earn from work or other sources.
• This scheme is paid for by taxes.
Overall, would you be against or in favor of having this scheme [in your
country]?”

35. Data
• Respondents chose one of the following:
Strongly against, Against, In favor, Strongly in
favor. To simplify the analyses, I recoded the
four-point scale responses to a binary
variable.
• N=36,355 in 21 counties.

36. Findings
1. Approximately 51.2 percent of respondents
support an introduction of a UBI scheme to
their country. The 95 percent confidence
interval ranges between 50.4 and 52,
indicating that a statistically significant
majority support UBI.

37. Findings
2. The support levels for UBI greatly differ
across countries.

39. Findings
3. Did you notice the surprisingly low support
for UBI in Nordic countries?!?
• The survey results underline the caution by
Raventos (2007).

40. Social Protection and Support for UBI
• Relationship between support for UBI and
overall social safety net spending
• Relationship between support for UBI and
means-tested program spending
• Relationship between support for UBI and
non-means-tested program spending

41. Correlation coefficient = -0.89(p<0.05)

42. Correlation coefficient = -0.28 (p>0.05)

43. Correlation coefficient = -0.68 (p<0.05)

44. A Sense of Economic Security and
Support for UBI
• Since countries with the most generous and
universalistic welfare systems must provide a
greater sense of economic security to
individuals and households, it is important to
examine the relationship between economic
security and support for UBI.

45. The United Nations special rapporteur on
extreme poverty and human rights
UBI is one of the viable proposals to replace or
supplement existing social protection systems
because it recognizes economic insecurity as a
fundamental threat to all human rights (United
Nations Human Rights Council 2017).

46. Jobs and Economic Security
• Traditionally, the general public’s economic
security is deemed to be associated with
conditions in the job market. Having a job implies
financial stability and security.
• While these traditional measures are not
irrelevant, the approach has been questioned
because of the changing nature of the labor
market, such as the polarization of job quality
and the growth of precarious jobs (Kalleberg
2011).

47. Changing Labor Market and UBI
• One’s employment status is no longer an
indication of economic security (Shafique
2018) and therefore, UBI supporters argue
that UBI is necessary to prepare for the
changing labor market.
• Nevertheless, it is unclear whether people
who have a sense of economic insecurity
would necessarily demand a basic income
policy.

48. Correlation coefficient = 0.69 (p<0.05)

49. Correlation coefficient = 0.78 (p<0.05)

50. Economic Insecurity, Social Safety Net,
and Support for UBI
• “Social income” comes from various sources.
• For most people, income comes from social
transfers and wages.
• The modern social contract dictates that the
two are complementary: When people cannot
work for various reasons, the government
transfers income from social insurance or
assistance programs.

52. Discussion
• Contrary to the belief that countries with
greater social protection and universalistic
welfare state would be more sympathetic to
UBI policy, the analyses in this paper show
that it is not necessarily true.
• People who are happy about their social
welfare programs may not want to replace
their current welfare state with UBI.

53. • UBI are more receptive than we think in
countries with a weak social welfare system.
People in those countries may be open to a
UBI scheme as a way of strengthening their
weak social safety net.
• The feasibility of an introduction of UBI can be
much higher in countries where households
are economically insecure and government
policies are inadequate.

54. HONR313.
Universal
Basic Income:
Visions and
Policies

55. UBI as a Window to the Society
• Social justice & freedom; the nature of work
(non-paying work); the future of work (the
precariat); poverty, inequality, and economic
insecurity; welfare policies; financing UBI (tax
policies and the Alaska model); objections to
UBI; political feasibility; alternatives; UBI in
developing countries; UBI pilots.

56. What is Next?
• Scholarship
– During the sabbatical leave in Spring 2019, conduct research on public
attitudes toward UBI at the individual level.
• Teaching
– Continue offering Universal Basic Income: Visions and Policies in
Spring 2020.
– Seminars with expanded audience (United Way, Los Angeles Catholic
Worker, etc.)
• Engagement
– The United States Basic Income Guarantee Network.
– 2019 North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress (June 15-16,
Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, NY)

57. Thank you!

58. Pilot programs around the world
• https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-
income-ubi-pilot-programs-around-the-world