Utopia begins to come to life. The Universal Basic Income experiment in Catalonia, one of the demands of the CUP to invest Pere Aragonès, is practically ready to see the light. For two years, the Generalitat will pay 800 euros per month per adult and 300 euros per month per minor in their charge to 5,000 Catalans, to see how their lives, their towns, their use of public services change, but above all to demonstrate that this path, that of universal basic incomeis the only real way to end the poverty and precariousness.
Similar experiments have been carried out worldwide, but none with the characteristics of the Catalan pilot test. There will be 2,500 beneficiaries chosen at random. The others 2,500 will be neighbors of two towns between 1,200 and 1,400 inhabitants of two different provinces. As soon as the budgets are approved, or the project has guaranteed the more than 40 million required per year, it will begin to communicate who the beneficiaries are. EL PERIÓDICO has had access to the plans for this experiment that must begin before summer 2023.
The Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an idea, driven by a group of world-renowned economistswhich considers that states should give all people a minimum amount to prevent them from living under the poverty line. Unlike the existing social benefits, the Basic Income is granted to all citizens (regardless of your income) and from here, each one decides if he wants to work to increase his capital or not. in Catalonia, the main social entities are already pointing to it as the necessary solution to the significant increase in povertyalthough in order to address it, a far-reaching fiscal reform is essential.
Before it becomes a reality for the population as a whole, the Generalitat wants to study whether it is feasible to apply the UBI, and above all, what impact it can have on people’s lives. A year ago, the Government appointed Dr. Sergi Raventós at the head of the Office of the Pilot Plan to Implement the RBU, which is attached to the Department of the Presidency. Today an expert in data analysis, a sociologist, a jurist and an economist are already working in it who, with the advice of the Catalan Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies, they have developed how the pilot is going to be.
randomly chosen
How will this experience work? On the one hand, the pilot plan office will randomly choose 2,500 people let them live in a thousand homes. Each person over the age of 18 in these households You will receive 800 euros per month, regardless of your employment or work reality. Y for each minor in their care, 300 euros are added.
Any Catalan can receive a letter from the Administration notifying them that they have been chosen to participate in this pilot plan. The only ones exempt from this project are people who earn more than 40,000 euros gross per year or who pay wealth tax. It is the richest 10% of the population in Catalonia. If the universal basic income were real, this group would have to pay so many taxes that the benefit would not be paid to them. “What we cannot create a tax policywe have decided to leave them out”, says Raventós. The chosen ones will have to answer the letter and say ‘yes, I do’. If not, they will be left out of the experiment.
“We have decided to make this exhibition to focus on the individual elements that cause income in a home“, explains Raventós. women who suffer violence will feel more empowered to denounce their aggressors? Will it improve youth emancipation? Workers they will reduce their working hours to spend more time with their family? Will more people choose quit work and study to change sectors or fulfill a dream they could never afford? will they decide have children?
Two lucky towns
At the same time, two towns have been selected where people registered for at least one year, With the exception of the 10% highest income, they will also receive this benefit. Knowing which municipalities will be is the biggest secret that Raventós keeps: “We don’t want people to start registering now to try to benefit,” he says.
They will be towns of between 1,200 and 1,400 inhabitants and whose characteristics be similar to the Catalan average as to unemployment rate, average net income per person, inequality index, users of social services, hospitalizations, access to high school… To select them, a statistical method called Synthetic Controlwhich not only pays attention to whether the current parameters coincide with the Catalan average, but also follow the trends of recent years.
Two municipalities have been chosen to avoid unforeseen events that annul the results: for example, that one wins the lottery. will be avoided towns with a high presence of second homesscattered nuclei and must be in different provinces. In turn, there will be between three and five more towns with very similar characteristics that will serve as controls. Your neighbors will not receive the rent and will be surveyed to see what happens compared to the municipalities that do receive the rent.
In the chosen towns, the process is doubly interesting. Apart from seeing the effects on the lives of families, it will be possible to measure What impact does rent have on the community?. Will crime fall? Are the requests in social services reduced and their workers stop being collapsed? What effects it has on health? Is there an increase in visits to the private psychologist? I know create more business or entities? “It can also decrease with depopulation,” says Raventós.
The answers to these questions will be obtained with participant surveys and with interviews in focus groups. In total, they will be given four surveys: one before starting to collect rent, another during, a third when the experiment ends in 2025, and a fourth when two or three months have passed.
World pioneer project
The Catalan experiment is truly anomalous because it has these two aspects, the community and the family. The vast majority of tests that have been carried out so far have focused on in very specific groups. In finland, 2,000 unemployed who were given 560 euros more per month. In Ireland, with artists. In Barcelona, a currency was tested for users of social services. In Wales experimented with young people left in care. In United States the target was homeless people. In Namíbia it was tested with a village, with 100 dollars.
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“We apply the criterion of universality and sufficiency: everyone receives it and we are talking about amounts that are very close to the poverty lineit is the first time that something like this has been done in the whole world”, underlines Raventós. That is why world-renowned scientists have been interested in this initiative. They have been complained about in forums in Berlin, Athens, Austria or Mexico. economist guy standing, one of the forerunners in studying the UBR, will be part of the scientific committee that will analyze the Catalan plan. There will also be a Ethics Committee by the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Now all that remains is to iron out the last details. Wait for the budgets to be approved or, failing that, for formulas to be found to guarantee the almost 100 million euros that the project needs. The plan office is in constant dialogue with the ‘conselleries’ of Economy and Social Rights to measure the impact and possible effects. With the seconds, for example, they are agreeing what will they do with the people who collect social aid. If among those chosen there are beneficiaries of the Guaranteed Citizenship Income, they must stop collecting it during the two years that the experiment lasts to receive the basic income, but it must be guaranteed that when the test ends they can have it again. They are also negotiating with the Tax agency to try to make the basic income tax exempt. Ultimately, what this experiment will measure is not just whether the end of poverty is far off, but how free money makes us. “People will be able to start making decisions, they won’t have to bow their heads“, predicts Raventós.