From: Basic Income Conversation <info@basicincomeconversation.org>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2022 at 12:00
Subject: NEW BI REPORT: Record low poverty at no net cost.
To: <peterchallen@gmail.com>

Peter Challen, Today we’re publishing new research showing that a modest basic income could reverse the poverty and inequality rises of the last 45 years at no net cost. Read the report now The most common question that we get asked in the Basic Income Conversation is “How would we pay for this?”.  As of today we can say, “You don’t. It doesn’t have to cost the public purse anything.” Our new paper lays out a fiscally neutral scheme that involves no additional calls on the public finances and no net increase in taxation: the cost of the extra payments would be exactly offset by the extra revenue from internal changes in tax rates and National Insurance Contributions. The gains of this modest scheme are concentrated among the poorest income groups, and the gains are incredible: Child poverty falls by more than a half taking it to below the historic level achieved in 1977. Working-age poverty falls by just over a quarter. Pensioner poverty falls by 54%. This takes the level of pensioner poverty to well below the lowest post-1961 rate of 14% in the early 1980s. The Gini coefficient – a measure of inequality – falls by 12.5%, taking it back towards the peak equality achieved in the 1970s. Despite the scale of the current crises, we keep being told that our problems are too big, too complex, there are too many obstacles, and it’s just too expensive to take care of people. The human cost of our problems is unfathomably and heartbreakingly big. The cost of transforming people’s lives is not. Thanks to this paper, we’re laying out exactly why and how implementing a basic income is eminently doable. Read the report Tackling Poverty: The power of a universal basic income outlines this model as part of a series of papers exploring the effect and efficacy of a basic income on the health of young adults. We are very proud of all of the work that we publish, but this paper is a huge step for us, and for the basic income movement.This research represents the most substantive attempt yet to assess the impact of a UBI scheme, and the greater income security it provides. This report shouldn’t sit on the shelf. That’s why we’ve already taken to the Cross Party Parliamentary and Local Government working group on UBI already. We’ve talked to councillors, MPs, MSPs, and metro mayors about it.  But the conversation needs to reach people outside of our circles – way outside. Take the conversation to Facebook Take the conversation to Twitter What this paper shows is that while universal basic income might be a radical idea, implementing it doesn’t take a revolution.Basic income has never been just an economic policy, and Basic Income Conversation has always known there is no stronger data or more compelling evidence on the need for a basic income than the things we experience each day.   Join us on Wednesday 1st June at 5.30pm to have a new kind of conversation, centering our stories and our experiences. Have the big conversation Hope to see you soon. All the best,  Basic Income Conversation