Extract from ABC News
Could automation remove the jobs few of us want to do anyway? (ABC Riverland: Anita Ward)
Australia essentially did it during COVID. The world's richest man thinks it's inevitable. And a growing body of research suggests it could be the answer to AI shattering long-held high rates of employment.
A Universal Basic Income, or UBI, is a regular, obligation-free payment, to everyone. There are different models, but those key elements endure in research studies and pilot projects around the world.
"Creating a base that everyone can access without any barriers is really important for a world where things are changing really rapidly," says Ben Spies-Butcher, "and where the kinds of risks people are exposed to are changing as well".
Ben Spies-Butcher thinks the changes AI will bring demand a response like UBI. (ABC News: John Gunn)
The associate professor of economy and society at Macquarie University says the JobKeeper and 'coronavirus supplement' received by millions during the pandemic shows we can create a payment that everyone is entitled to, which would let them live at least a "decent, basic" life.
"It proved that we could do it. Because we actually did it."
We've already had a UBI
The COVID pandemic showed us how society can function even in times of high unemployment — if we support the community with regular payments so they can live.
When COVID forced people to stay home, between 3.6 million and 4 million Australians were supported by the JobKeeper payment.
In addition, a further 2.2 million people who received some form or welfare payment (such as JobSeeker, colloquially called 'the dole') enjoyed a top-up payment called the coronavirus supplement that massively boosted — in most cases essentially doubled — their income.
Australian cities became deserted during COVID lockdowns, with hundreds of thousands of businesses shut. (ABC News: Jim Malo)
At one point, more than 43 per cent of the adult population was receiving a regular, obligation-free payment from the government.
With artificial intelligence threatening to shatter complete sectors and occupations, is it time to talk about a universal basic income to secure our future?
Global research finds UBI has benefit
Research before and after the pandemic has given us a better idea of the positive impact of a basic income.
"COVID showed us how precarious the idea of employment is … how shaky those foundations are," UBI proponent Elise Klein says.
"All of a sudden, so many of us were in very economically insecure situation."
The associate professor of public policy at the Crawford School at the Australian National University says COVID provided a "natural experiment" of the impact of a basic income.
Elise Klein says people's roles are changing dramatically with the use of AI. (ABC News: Tobias Hunt)
"We found that poverty rates for folks that are receiving JobSeeker went from 67 per cent down to 7 per cent, associate professor Klein says.
The research Klein and her colleagues did found the income boost helped people prepare to enter the labour market.
"They were able to have their foot off their neck a bit and and be able to engage into the labour market," she explains.
"To get out of debt, to meet basic needs and, of course, make themselves feel good — it had huge psychological impacts that helped people feel that they had dignity again."
The Stanford University Basic Income Lab has tallied around 160 global UBI experiments in the last four decades. They range in the objective they are focused on, the amount of people in the study and the value of the money they receive.
"The biggest one is actually Give Directly in Kenya that's going on for 12 years and it's working with 20,000 Kenyans, over 200 villages," Klein says.
"Preliminary results from that study are really positive that it's showing huge improvement in people's lives."
The program (now operating in other African countries) found it decreased infant mortality and family violence, while boosting consumption spending, savings and local economic activity.
But the research doesn't convince everyone.
'I don't think it's been a fantastic seven years for advocates of a UBI'
Eight years ago, the ABC investigated the possibility of a universal basic income as a response to a rise in automation and increasing computing power.
At the time, the estimate to give everyone a payment at the level of the unemployment benefit (then called Newstart) was around $240 billion a year — at a time when the overall spend for the Australian government was about $450 billion.
In the live example of COVID, the cost of the JobKeeper wage subsidy was $88.9 billion.
The coronavirus supplement cost more than $20 billion over most of 2020 and part of 2021.
Even if more generous existing benefits, such as the aged and disability pensions, were reduced to the level of a UBI the net cost would still be huge.
"You would still have to find something like a $170-190 billion (annually) in order to fund this scheme," Simon Cowan, research director at think tank the Centre for Independent Studies, estimated at the time.
Far from shifting his view, the experience of the COVID pandemic has hardened it.
Simon Cowan says free money sounds great but finding that extra money will be the problem. (ABC News: John Gunn)
"It's probably confirmed some of my scepticism about UBI," he says now.
"I think also we've probably seen an increasing amount of evidence about what people would do in terms of receipt of that payment and how it would influence their behaviour."
Normally, superannuation is quarantined until people reach a certain age, usually 65.
Cowan points to studies that show people who were allowed to withdraw super under emergency provisions in COVID spent it on gambling, alcohol and take-away food.
"People who got access to cash where there was no obligation connected to it, when it wasn't earmarked for anything in particular, they spent it on leisure activities ... a lot of people just spent it on things that gave them short-term benefit," he says, while acknowledging that some people paid down debt and that COVID confinement reduced people's ability to spend money outside of their house.
"There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but from the perspective of a policy reform, particularly an enormously expensive one, it's hard to imagine that there's a strong societal benefit."
But it's not all bad
On the flip side, Cowan says studies in the US show benefits to cash payments like a UBI.
"For example, there are some young mothers who, rather than going back into the workforce and putting their kids into childcare, they take access to that money and use that to stay home and spend more time with their kids," he observes.
"Students or potential students, some of those people will decide to stay at school or go to university rather than go out and work, so there is a benefit in terms of some of the reductions of those pressures."
But, in his view, none of this outweighs the potential cost — immense billions of dollars would need to be raised from new forms of tax.
"Whenever we talk about the benefits of UBI we also have to talk about the downsides that would come with raising the money to pay for it."
Cowan also disputes concerns about technological changes — such as AI — leading to a structural shift in the number of people employed.
Despite a decade of worry about automation, the unemployment rate in 2022 was the lowest for almost five decades and the percentage of participation in the workforce is at almost the highest level on record.
But will it stay there?
'How many people are in meaningless jobs': UBI advocate
Above the Clyde Hotel, next to the University of Melbourne, members of Basic Income Australia are meeting around a large table.
Drinks on me? Michael (left) and Josh say Universal Basic Income (UBI) promises an obligation-free, regular payment that is enough to meet your basic needs.
Downstairs, screaming fans are watching a tense football finals match.
Upstairs, Michael Haines is explaining why he thinks a UBI will be needed, soon.
"People are going to lose their jobs and we're going to have to find a way through the transition and a UBI actually offers us that opportunity," he says.
"It will make sure, not only that people have the money to live, it will mean that money then circulates through the economy and supports the businesses who will otherwise miss out on sales."
He's not alone. Tesla and SpaceX tech billionaire Elon Musk is an advocate, even though he would probably be one of those most heavily taxed to fund a UBI.
"I think ultimately we will have to have some kind of universal basic income, I don't think we're going to have a choice," he told an audience in 2017.
This year he said AI would eliminate most human jobs.
Elon Musk has been a prominent advocate for a universal basic income in the past. (AP: Jose Luis Magana)
"There will be universal high income. I'd say there's about an 80 per cent chance that AI advances will lead to a situation where humans will not need to work and will have all they need."
Back at the pub, software engineer Owen Miller brings his work mindset to the problem of labour, productivity and the likelihood that AI will rewrite the jobs landscape.
Owen Miller, seated on the left in a colourful shirt, says a UBI will provide meaningful lives to all citizens.
"It seems so necessary. I mean you see how many people are in just meaningless jobs, immoral jobs," he says.
"People have a good sense of what they're best at in life. They shouldn't be forced to take these short-term moves … just to get by."
The group's founder, Josh McGee, says people often think a UBI will be needed because of advances in technology, such as AI.
Some members of Basic Income Australia like management consultant Chao (right) see UBI as an inevitable response. (ABC News: Barrie Pullen)
He sees it the other way around.
"We should have a UBI to enable more automation," he argues.
"I'm a big advocate for what I call a 'Department of Automation', a government agency which would automate people out of their jobs as its objective."
Already, many jobs could be automated.
But our thin safety net (for example, Australia's unemployment benefits are amongst the lowest in the OECD) means political and personal pressure to maintain employment.
"We can't (automate) unless people aren't scared of it. Taking away that fear would allow us to move faster as a country," McGee argues.
"If the safety net was there, people would say, 'Yes.'"
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