Something for Everyone? Addressing Conservative Opposition to Universal Basic Income Programmes

Abstract

Trial universal basic income (UBI) programmes in developing nations around the world have yielded positive results with respect to individual health outcomes, income, women’s empowerment, decreased child labour and much more. Concomitantly, UBI trials provide evidence that fears that UBI decreases labour force participation are based more on classist mythology than reality, and, rather, increases employment. Despite these promising results, implementation of UBI programmes will mean overcoming significant partisan political forces. As such, the focus of this commentary is to explore the most prominent barrier to the implementation of UBI programmes in both developing and wealthy nations, namely, conservative political opposition. UBI programmes are generally promoted by liberal politicians and implemented in liberal jurisdictions. However, these programmes can advance outcomes aligned with conservative principles. We chronicle the current and historical conservative opposition to UBI and argue for UBI programmes using common conservative talking points, positioning them as holistic market-based solutions to counter fragmented social services, means to foster vocational opportunities and a catalyst to promote economic growth. A discussion of how reframing UBI programmes to align with conservative principles alters attitudes towards UBI is included. The acceptance of UBI programmes across the political spectrum is paramount for achieving widespread implementation.

In developing nations, universal basic income programmes (UBIPs) may succeed where existing welfare and cash transfer programmes have not for several reasons. First, the universality of UBIPs may be key to decreasing poverty. For instance, despite 34% of the Kenyan population in extreme poverty, living on below $1.90 US dollars per day as classified by the World Bank, only 5.3% of citizens were participating in government-funded cash transfer programmes (Banerjee et al., 2019). Across all low-income countries classified by the World Bank, this figure increases to 11%. Next, evidence from UBIPs in developing nations finds shifting cash transfers from the household to the individual, particularly in trials in which women became UBI recipients, results in improved children’s health, reduced domestic violence and increased empowerment (Hidrobo et al., 2016). Finally, longer-term planning has two particularly beneficial effects in the context of developing nations. First, UBIP trials find evidence that individuals are more likely to put the marginal income back into the economy by spending if they expect to continue receiving the cash benefit in the future. Second, individuals may be more likely to take entrepreneurial risks if they expect to continue receiving UBI payments. On the other end of the economic spectrum, fears of job losses continue to grow in wealthy nations due to advances in automation technology. Specifically, the future of developed economies could look much like the present in developing countries, with few people holding full-time, stable jobs and many working several part-time gigs instead (Banerjee et al., 2019).

In wealthy nations, technological advance- ments such as the automation of routinized tasks, fuel growing concern about reductions in overall employment and income (Cabrales et al., 2020). The World Bank (2016) estimates that 57% of jobs within OECD countries could become automated. Autor and Salomons (2018) found that automation did not decrease the net number of jobs but did negatively impact salaries across four decades. Spurred by these concerns, researchers find evidence validating these fears in the form of reduced wages and in the overall number of jobs across a diverse sample of contents from different countries (Dermont and Weisstanner, 2020). Researchers have begun to explore the impact of UBIPs to close this income gap while reducing poverty at a societal level.

Given the potential of UBI to address growing automation and poverty, political will must drive these programmes. Conservative political parties around the world fuel a perception that UBIPs are analogous to ‘socialism and the re-distribution of wealth’. This perception precludes political debate over the merits of UBIPs. This commentary investigates the origins and primary arguments surrounding conservative opposition to UBI. Specifically, we argue that UBI aligns with conservative ideology as a driver of economic and job growth, as well as offering a market-based solution to social safety nets. For instance, in the United States, UBIPs are often perceived as liberal social policies. Many policy champions identify as ‘liberal’ (Sloman, 2018), and areas that have implemented the programme would be considered ‘liberal leaning’ (e.g., Treisman, 2021). This perception leads conservatives to negatively portray UBIPs. The US Republican Party views UBI programmes particularly harshly. A recent poll found 76% of US conservatives strongly oppose and 13% somewhat oppose their implementation (Gilberstadt, 2020). However, younger, more liberal voters strongly support UBI programmes (67% aged 18–29 favouring). Minorities (73% of Blacks; 63% of Hispanics) tend to support UBI programmes. This suggests that as US demographics change, support for UBIs may rise (Gilberstadt, 2020). Negative sentiments are echoed by right-leaning political parties that span from developing nations to wealthy European countries. Right-leaning German political parties (The Christian Democratic Union; Free Democratic Party), oppose UBIPs (Kagel, 2022). In 2021, an influential group of Conservative Party Members of Parliament in the UK voted against a UBI programme that allocated a £60 weekly payment for all Brits. Similar ideologies are present in developing nations. In 2015, the first donor to a Namibian UBI pilot programme, Hage Geingob, was elected president and created the Ministry for Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare to introduce a nationwide UBI programme. However, conservatives within the ruling coalition argued giving people money would risk making them lazy (Banerjee et al., 2019), and the programme stalled.

While UBIPs vary in goals, scopes, periods and outcomes, they typically meet three criteria: (1) distributed to individuals, (2) no means testing and (3) no requirements attached to receiving or spending the payment (e.g., seeking employment or attending school) (Treisman, 2021; Van Parijs, 2013). Implemented UBIPs have been short-lived and limited in scope, remaining fringe talking points in many policy circles. Thirty years ago, Van Parijs (1992) argued several justifications for UBIPs that would appeal to policy makers across the political spectrum.

Despite the large and diverse number of countries considering UBIPs, support for their implantation typically breaks down along partisan lines. Obtaining widespread support across the political spectrum is essential for wider adoption. Yet, in the decades since Van Parijs (1992), the level of scepticism remains high and politically skewed. Opposition among conservatives for UBIPs can generally be placed in two categories. First is rational economic concerns over large-scale UBIPs. Given the lack of long-term, robust examples of UBIs, it is difficult to grasp all side effects. The concern is that UBIs will drive people from employment, affecting economic forces such as inflation due to labour supply shifts. Second, many in popular media assume UBIPs make people ‘lazy and dependent’; however, researchers consistently find no support for this belief (Banerjee et al., 2017). This commentary discusses the historical origins of this association and reviews experimental research showing when UBI is reframed to align with conservative ideology, conservative study participants’ opposition to and negative opinions of UBIs significantly weakened. We do not propose that UBIPs will solve unemployment, the inefficiency of the social welfare system and economic growth at once. As society changes and technology advances, overlooking these programmes due to political distaste is dismissive of a potentially valuable economic tool.

I. Economic Concerns Associated with UBI Programmes

Opposition to UBIPs among conservatives for economic reasons primarily falls within two areas: recipients will quit or decrease working hours and inflation will rise. Economists found that, in seven randomized experiments evaluating cash transfer programmes in poor countries, there was no systemic evidence that these programmes discouraged employment or working hours (Banerjee et al., 2015). Others have investigated the validity of these concerns by examining the results of UBIPs across the world. Across 16 systemic reviews of UBIPs in a wide range of countries, UBIPs had little to no impact (Hasdell, 2020). In the United States, examining the North Carolina Eastern Band of Cherokees’ Casino Dividend, which provided unconditional cash transfers of $4,000–$6,000 per year to 16,000 tribe members throughout the 1990s had no effect on labour supply (Marinescu, 2018). Studies found that work hours increased among UBI recipients in Uganda by 17% and Nigeria by 61% (Blattman and Niehaus, 2014). Notably, Finland conducted a nationwide randomized control experiment with a treatment group receiving €560 monthly for two years (2017–2018). Researchers found a statistically significant positive effect on employment in the treatment versus control group (Kangas et al., 2019). However, well-being was substantially higher across several dimensions, such as the UBI group reporting an average life satisfaction of 7.3 compared to 6.8 for the control group. Another significant finding was higher trust in other persons, the legal system and politicians. Social trust is positively associated with cooperation, income levels, economic growth and lower transaction costs (Hovmand and Svendsen, 2017). This experiment also highlighted the challenge policy makers face in terms of how UBIPs should interact with other social programmes such as housing benefits, pensions, welfare programmes, health insurance, child-care and taxation. Specifically, decreased administrative costs can be a benefit of UBIPs due to reduction in compliance costs associated with meeting regulations, determining benefit levels and work search requirements, which are all funded by taxpayers. Since 2017, GiveDirectly has conducted the largest UBI study to date in Kenya. Over 20,000 individuals have received UBI payments in the form of either 2-year, 12-year or lump-sum cash payments. This study improves our understanding of the impact of UBIPs by analysing the psychological and behavioural impact of one-time, short-term and long-term payments. Secondly, this study is particularly important to improving our understanding of the impact of UBIPs in developing nations. Initial results echo the findings from the Finnish UBI trials. Specifically, recipients during the pandemic showed improvements in well-being, hunger, depression and sickness (Banerjee et al., 2020). It remains unclear how a transition away from existing social programmes would be implemented and, as such, represents a significant hurdle to understanding how UBIPs would perform on a nationwide scale.

Concerns that UBIPs will precipitate inflation are less clear because few UBIPs have been conducted on nationwide scales for prolonged periods. Two large-scale studies on pricing and inflationary effects associated with UBIPs in Kenya and Mexico found that inflation was less than 1% (Cunha et al., 2015). Other studies showed increased work hours and consumption among beneficiaries (Kangas, 2019). Since the inception of the Alaskan Permanent Fund Dividend in 1976, which provides about $1,600 annually to residents, Alaska has had the lowest inflation of any US state.

II. The ‘Lazy’ Myth Associated with UBIs

It may be surprising given today’s political landscape that the first formal attempt to create a US federal programme guaranteeing income for families, regardless of employment status, was spearheaded by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970. Although a conservative, he argued that guaranteed income for families was ‘the perfect marriage of liberal and conservative politics’ (Bregman, 2016). Additionally, prominent stalwarts of economic conservativism such as Milton Friedman advised Nixon to create UBIPs. Interestingly, 1,200 economists signed a letter published in the New York Times calling for UBIPs that gave every American enough income to be at least poverty level (Taylor, 2020). With leading economists and a conservative president holding the viewpoint that UBI aligned with conservative principles as recently as the 1970s, what led to this drastic shift?

A potential answer begins in the English village of Speenhamland in 1795. Suffering from the ripples of the French Revolution and years of poor harvests, magistrates gathered, agreeing to create a UBI-like programme. Specifically, poor and ‘industrious men and their families’ alike would have their income supplemented up to a subsistence level (Bregman, 2016). In the summer of 1830, riots broke out with agricultural labourers demanding a living wage. Addressing the situation, the 13,000-page Royal Commission Report concluded that the Speenhamland system was an utter failure. This resulted in the common tropes regarding laziness and decreased working hours associated with UBIs today. Importantly, historians in the 1960/70s uncovered that most of the report was written prior to collecting the data. Only 10% of surveys were completed, the answer choices were fixed in advance, and most people interviewed were local aristocrats not programme beneficiaries.

Martin Anderson delivered a report to President Nixon using the Royal Commission Report as evidence of the negative outcomes of UBIs. After receiving Anderson’s report, Nixon altered his rhetoric, promoting ‘joblessness’ as a choice and introducing a provision that unemployed individuals would have to register with the Department of Labor to receive guaranteed income. Nixon though privately unconcerned about individuals’ employment wanted the Family Assistance Plan passed to benefit over 13 million Americans living in poverty (Bregman, 2016). Using the Royal Commission Report, Senate Republicans promoted rhetoric focused on UBIs discouraging individuals from working to defeat the bill. President Ronald Reagan argued, using author George Gilder and conservative sociologist Charles Murray’s ideas based on the Speenhamland myth, that UBIPs decrease the work ethic of the poor.

III. Championing UBI Programmes

UBIPs are not monolithic, as various nations or societies view/utilize these programmes differently due to economic conditions, culture or political beliefs. Developing countries may employ UBIPs to fight poverty. Socialist nations may view UBIPs as an extension of existing social programmes. Individualistic nations may view UBIPs as opportunities to increase creativity/innovation through reduced reliance on corporate employment. This commentary discusses three situations (market-based approach, vocational opportunity and economic growth) where UBIPs might be championed in a manner that appeals to a wide range of policy makers and stakeholders.

IV. UBI Programmes as a Market-based Solution

UBIPs can serve as market-based approaches for social safety nets. The lack of specific requirements for spending funds implies individuals have broad discretion. UBIPs would promote individual choice using direct payments, rather than specified vouchers or distribution of public goods.

UBIPs that promote individual responsibility can have long-term positive impacts for individuals and society by providing greater dignity for recipients. A UBI pilot programme in California that provided $500 to participants resulted in increased financial, physical and emotional well-being (Treisman, 2021). The use of personal payment methods can reduce stigmas elicited by using Electronic Benefit Transfer cards—how U.S. governmental benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) subsidies are currently distributed (USDA, 2021). Individuals may benefit from access to more stores and products by reducing restrictions on government issued aid by utilizing cash or debit cards. Direct individual payments can translate to benefits for retailers as customers could purchase products currently restricted by government regulations. For example, SNAP benefits cannot be used to purchase common essential goods such as cleaning supplies, hygiene products, feminine hygiene products, diapers or over-the-counter medicines (USDA, 2021). Direct payments through UBIPs would promote individual responsibility and decision-making, as well as improve corporate retailer’s potential profits—both important conservative positions.

In developing nations, many of the im- poverished populations do not have money to spend in the market, and as such, the market does not serve their needs. For instance, in 2007, Godrej & Boyce, a large appliance manufacturer, endeavoured to understand why in India, a nation where approximately one third of food is lost to spoilage, refrigerator market penetration was only at 18% (Daft, 2015). After exploring this issue more deeply, Godrej & Boyce found that a large traditional refrigerator was not only unaffordable for many families but did not serve their needs, as many homes lacked electricity and the space for a large appliance. In 2010, a battery-powered mini refrigerator was introduced to the Indian rural market for about $69 US dollars, which has seen rapid market growth since. With welfare programmes typically restricting how benefits can be spent, innovative market solutions, such as Godrej & Boyce’s, serving the bottom of the economic pyramid, are unlikely to occur.

Another market-based solution is UBIPs potential to streamline social services. For example, in the United States, social safety nets are generally spread across multiple agencies and programmes—SNAP, administered through the Department of Agriculture; child support welfare, administered through the Department of Health and Human Services; housing subsidies, administered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Medicaid, administered by the states and overseen federally by the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services; supplemental security income, administered by the Social Security Administration; etc. Implementing a single UBI programme would reduce redundancy across departments and programmes, inefficiencies in the various systems and bureaucracy by reducing the necessary number of departments and personnel (Johnson and Roberto, 2020).

Streamlining social services could reduce the size of the federal government and budget, as fewer departments could maintain records and administer payments. It would also reduce potential fraud, as monthly payments would be received by all individuals lessening the potential to ‘game the system’. Both points—small government and eliminating fraud in social services – are consistent with a conservative platform.

V. UBI Programmes Foster Vocational Opportunities

UBIPs can improve vocational opportunities by allowing individuals to pursue formal education or training/upskilling to meet the demands of changing economies. The rise of automation, software, robotics and AI could substantially lower the demand for certain types of labour, particularly unskilled. These shifts signal much of the workforce will need to acquire new skills or trades/professions through training or education. UBIPs could allow individuals who previously could not afford to focus on education/training, the opportunity to gain needed knowledge, skills and abilities that employers are seeking in a post-industrial service economy (Johnson and Roberto, 2020). In developing nations, individuals living in poverty face many of the same constraints and barriers to investing in education and the negative psychological effects of scarcity on spending behaviour. Additionally, individuals in developing economies are severely limited with respect to access to bank loans, with only 5% of Tanzanians and Ugandans having bank loans in 2016 for instance (Banerjee et al., 2019). UBIPs could significantly improve this situation for would-be entrepreneurs as in Sri Lanka for example, a $200 capital grant to microentrepreneurs generated a return on capital of 5.85% (de Mel et al., 2008).

UBIPs represent a means to promote individual entrepreneurial activity (D’Mello, 2019). Creativity and innovation can be fostered by UBIPs by reducing constraints on an individual’s time imposed by employment. A small, reliable monthly income may lead potential entrepreneurs to either postpone entering the workforce or increase their willingness to exit the workforce (D’Mello, 2019). Individuals might feel empowered to spend two or three years working on software development or tinkering with an invention while living on UBIs. Incubator programmes could provide inexperienced entrepreneurs with resources to develop new products and services. With reliable UBI payments, entrepreneurs could leverage these resources to promote and develop small businesses or creative pursuits. In 1956, Harper Lee’s friends provided her a small stipend allowing her to quit her job—providing income security and removing the constraints imposed by formal employment (Austin, 2016). Without reliable financial support, it is questionable whether the Pulitzer Prize winner To Kill a Mockingbird would have been written. Income security, provided through UBIPs, supports individuals as they pursue innovations that are valuable to the individual and society.

Conservatives tend to promote skills training, small business, innovation and entrepreneurial activity. Promoting these activities could lower unemployment rates, increasing labour participation. Providing a means to allow people the opportunity to pursue these activities promotes building new businesses and long-term economic benefits.

VI. UBI Programmes Promote Economic Growth

UBIPs can help address economic conditions. Conservatives promote actions that lead communities toward increased economic activity. Empowering individuals to become active contributors in the economy boosts both community and individual outcomes. Individuals who financially engage the marketplace support businesses and pay taxes. Labour market growth has the benefit of improved local economic development through increased consumer spending.

Evidence from Alaska has shown that individuals not only maintain their employment, but the local economy benefits from UBIPs (Jones and Marinescu, 2018). Revenue distributed from the Alaskan Permanent Fund are considered income and subject to taxation. These distributions meet the definition of a UBI, as the funds are provided to all permanent residents (excepting those who are incarcerated or felons) without obligation or means testing. Recipients tend to re-invest the funds locally (Jones and Marinescu, 2018).

UBIPs coupled with employment could allow lower socio-economic status individuals with discretionary spending. These individuals could not only participate at greater rates in the marketplace but combined with wages and UBIs may elevate some to middle-class status (Jones and Marinescu, 2018). Large purchases such as homes and vehicles are particularly notable expenditures for middle-class consumers and key economic drivers. Numerous complementary goods and services accompany these major purchases further driving the economy.

In developing nations, several UBI trials to date have yielded significant, positive economic improvements. For instance, between 2010 and 2011, 6,000 individuals in rural villages in India were given small monthly cash payments. Researchers compared these villages to villages in a control group, finding in the group receiving cash payments, increased wealth, savings and assets, less indebtedness and increased labour supply (Davala et al., 2015).

Middle-class populations are more likely to contribute to a broad range of taxes. The larger pool of taxpayers is preferable to conservatives as the burden of funding governments would be spread across the population. UBIPs alongside steady employment contribute to this outcome by being both taxable income and generating sales taxes. Economic development and shared tax burdens are prominent goals for conservatives.

VII. Conclusions

Researchers have explored how conservatives may alter their opinions of UBIPs and recipients. Using ‘moral reframing’, when UBIPs are framed as policies promoting individual financial freedom and autonomy by giving individuals choices about how best to meet their needs, conservative individual’s support for UBI policies significantly increased. Additionally, conservatives viewed recipients of UBIPs more positively, and less likely to become dependent on UBIPs (Thomas et al., 2021). This indicates that individuals can shift their support for political policies by increasing ‘moral fit’ or the perceived alignment between one’s values and a given policy. Despite the persistent myths of laziness induced by UBIPs, these findings indicate that reframing UBI as aligning with conservative values could be a promising path forward for UBI advocates.

UBIPs are being implemented by both liberal and conservative nations around the world, such as Canada, Finland, Switzerland, Brazil, India, Kenya and several in the Middle East (D’Mello, 2019; Van Parijs, 2013). Recent pilot programmes have reported positive results spurring additional conversation and support (Treisman, 2021). Promoting UBIPs as a market-based solution, a means to foster vocational opportunities and a mechanism for economic growth could persuade conservatives to lend their support. Framing the UBI programme conversation in terms that address the full range of benefits, utilizing terms and ideals that appeal to both liberals and conservatives may attract a broader range of stakeholders. Understanding the full potential of UBIPs that appeal to both ends of the political spectrum is an important step towards attainment.