PI proposals only work when there is an already strong social safety net, but there isn’t one now.
Wispelaere and Striton 18 [Dr Jurgen De Wispelaere is a former occupational therapist turned political theorist and policy scholar. He is an ISRF Political Economy Research Fellow and a Policy Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research (University of Bath). *Dr. Lindsay Stirton, PhD, was appointed Professor of Public Law at the University of Sussex in 2015; “The Case Against Participation Income— Political, Not Merely Administrative”; 5/7/18; the political quarterly, vol 89, issue 2; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-923X.12513]//dollinger
Critics might be tempted to conclude that debating PI has become redundant at a time when a fully unconditional basic income appears to be gaining ground with decision makers and the general public alike. If, two decades ago, interest in PI was justified primarily by an urgent need to reform meanstested benefits at a time when unconditionality was deemed an insurmountable political barrier, many would argue it has become obsolete now that governments across Europe are on the verge of experimenting with schemes to make the basic level of unemployment assistance unconditional. To be sure, this is merely a first step, but an important one nonetheless: it opens up the possibility of introducing basic income at very modest levels rather than taking the roundabout way of the PI approach.
Leaving aside the question of whether existing levels of support for basic income are sufficient to build a robust coalition, we want to focus briefly on the idea of basic income as a complement to existing social security schemes. In his 1996 article, Atkinson wrote:
citizen’s [or basic] income is usually seen as an alternative to social insurance—as a replacement for the Beveridge principle of social security. In my judgement, this is a mistake: the aim of citizen’s income should rather be to cut dependence on means-tested benefits. Complementing, rather than replacing, an improved social insurance scheme, it could reduce the number of people who have to rely on income support or family credit, and help low-wage workers without need for a scheme like earnings top-up.17
Atkinson’s main reason for viewing basic income as complementary to contributionbased and earnings-related social security is that ‘[t]here remains strong support for social insurance’. Moreover, such strong support is ‘not without foundation’ as the differentiation across ‘the typical social insurance scheme is not arbitrary’ and primarily relates to differences in labour market status.18
As the basic income debate matures and has become more embedded in social policy discussions related to ongoing reforms in social protection, the question of how much of the existing welfare state arrangements a basic income should replace is taking on more urgency. The main issue, in our view, is that basic income may be very well suited to plugging the (all too many) gaps in income support for those most vulnerable to labour market and related socio-economic risks, but, given real world concerns of affordability, may offer little by way of income security or standards of living to those higher up the income ranks. Retaining a semblance of the standard of living one is accustomed to when facing unemployment or moving into precarious work is better accomplished by the sort of earnings-related benefits that form part of a comprehensive social security scheme.
At the same time, in the past decade such schemes have been progressively hollowedout, in some cases blurring the distinction between flat rate assistance and earningsrelated insurance support.19 This itself may explain some of the ambiguity in Inequality as to how far PI can operate as a complement to existing schemes.20 In Inequality, Atkinson correctly insists social insurance needs to be restored and simultaneously adapted to changing labour market circumstances by raising benefit levels and increasing coverage. But this can and should happen in conjunction with a basic income paid out to all at a modest flat rate level.