Thread by @ArmineYalnizyan

A jobs guarantee won't help all, but the answer is not "universal".
The answer is welfare reform, unsayable since the attack on welfare in the early 1990s.
Not everyone, but a lot of people say "minimum income" and mean, essentially, more adequate welfare. The difference../2.

https://twitter.com/duncancameron/status/1252886622997266432

Some differences in welfare reform vs minimum income:
1. Administrative mechanism: Minimum income, through tax system, is more efficient, less invasive, but a) still prone to eligibility rules and b) may not be sufficiently timely for welfare needs, emergency need for income./3

1 (a) You can't avoid eligibility thresholds for minimum income.
Who gets how much when you are of working age, even if you can't work, is the issue.
Asset considerations remain (could you have $500K in an RRSP and ask for welfare cuz you can't find work?) /4

1 (b) Eligibility thresholds also can't avoid the question of how much you can earn on top of the minimum income. At what earnings will people who provide the min income (mostly workers) say you need to pay some of it back. At what point do we say this person needs no support? /5

1 (c) You can see eligibility thresholds re assets and earnings are really tricky, and prone to changing, just like welfare, based on political mood.
Covid19 makes it seem we're all in this together, but post Covid we'll be increasingly reliance on working age ppl due to ..../6

2. Increasing reliance on working age population: Population aging was a reality pre Covid19, with labour and skills shortages already widespread in some industries and regions.
Minimum income allows people some choice in how much to engage in paid labour market. .../7

2(a) How a minimum income/welfare (evenEI) interacts with labour force participation has always been the issue.
Now this tension is torqued up, because we've got the smallest working age cohort since the early 1960s supporting those too young, too old, too sick to work, BUT.../8

This time the dependency ratio (working age adults per non-working age population) is going to be a reality for decades, not years, and with a background rate of economic growth of half what was the case in the early 1960s. SO.../9

3 It's really important to build social solidarity, not increase tensions, between people who can and can't work.
Plus, the growing share of the population on low and fixed incomes will not love wage increases if it triggers inflation.
Solt'n: more and better public services./10

3(a) Anybody with any exposure to how welfare works for the past 1/4 century knows the critical role of non-income supports (dental, vision, drug, some transit, some child care, some training). And that moving off welfare means loss of those supports.
Part of "welfare wall". /11

3 (b) Not only was some of the animosity around those receiving welfare to"stay home" geared towards giving them money in the "tax cuts and welfare cuts" early 1990, but anger that they barely made more than what people on welfare received but didn't get drugs, dental,etc /12

3(c) These public supports literally put more money in your pocket, just like giving you cash.
People on low income need both.
People with middle incomes need better more high quality, publicly funded services they can rely on.
Which brings me to my last point. (Sorry!) /13

4. Basic/minimum income supporters have varying or no answer about what more money for cash in your pocket means to provision of other services.
Few talk about costs or answer the question: who's in, who's out (which is ALWAYS relevant, and the answer is never "universal")/14

4 (a) What Covid19 revealed is that too many people are exposed to economic calamity with the stripped back 2-speed system of welfare and EI we had going into the crisis.
The rules around CERB ($2K flat benefit every 4 weeks, but not for everyone) point to a way forward BUT /15

4 (b) We will still need to wrestle with who's in, who's out of CERB. We will still need to wrestle with the difference between stabilizing income collapse during a massive economic downturn (better EI) and assuring a minimum income for the most vulnerable (welfare reform) AND/16

4(c) We will still need to provide better publicly funded basic services and supports for EVERYONE. Because we all need safe and affordable housing. High quality child care. Broader health care coverage (drugs, dental, vision, mental health). Better transit./17

4(d) The list of basics is not long, but it is key. And providing more publicly insured, high quality, afforable care, through enterprises that aren't trying to make a profit wherever possible, is key to a better future and, yes, "more money in your pocket".
Last point /18

(Before I get there, 2 tweets ago was not the full list of basics, but almost. Add communication/information as a basic need/service, and equal access to safety and justice)

Last point:
/19

Minimum income will help some, but it will never be enough because it just feeds into old market reasoning: all you need is more money in your pocket.
You, we all, need so much more than cash.
We need essential services.
Don't ask for minimum anything.
Work towards meeting needs.