As the current virus crisis proves yet again, there are few certainties in life. Income insecurity, however, does not have to be one of the uncertainties.

The current crisis shows in sped-up video that if we do not eliminate income insecurity, the way we are all economically intertwined will mean income insecurity for some will lead inexorably to income insecurity for many.

A universal basic income program (UBI) that ensures the essential economic well-being of all Canadians would solve this problem, now and forever. It would do so by making sure people have exactly the thing they do not have when they experience income insecurity: money, or at least an amount of it each month to meet basic needs.

Basic income programs can work simply and one could be easily passed into law immediately. The most common designs have these two core features:

1. Every adult citizen receives a set monthly amount of money, deposited directly into their bank account. The amount should be set according to maintaining that adult at least above a relative poverty line, not one arbitrarily set, but one set against the middle-income bracket for Canadians. This is because poverty in any given society is relative to the income of that middle group. Furthermore, as that figure increases, so must the relative poverty line.

2. Each recipient gets to keep a percentage of every dollar they earn as an incentive to work and to reduce the overall cost of the program. There would be a break-even point at which the other part of each dollar earned through employment being clawed back by the government would pay for the individual’s basic income. Traditional graduated taxation would take place on every dollar earned above the break-even point. Therefore, if someone doesn’t actually need the money because they are earning about the break-even point, he or she would only notionally be receiving it.

The program would replace all other government income replacement or supplement programs for those capable of working, resulting in a huge savings in administrative costs because of the elimination of these various inadequate programs.

Most people can easily understand what an end to income insecurity would mean for Canada in normal times, including everything from giving people the economic freedom to start their own businesses to allowing them to turn down low-paying jobs and thus breaking the decades-old stagnation in wages. It would mean massive savings in health-care costs because of the end of poverty and the demons that torment the health of the poor: malnutrition and inadequate clothing and shelter.

It is in times like this crisis, however, that a UBI program would be a true national salvation. Quarantines would not mean financial ruin. Even if most income-producing business ceases, the federal government would be able to use its unique ability to borrow on behalf of all of us to fund our income security through the UBI.

Even more importantly, a UBI would allow us to cope with what is actually a far greater, ongoing and increasingly serious threat to Canadians: automation taking their jobs. It would make automation the harbinger of a far better quality of life for everyone, not of economic disaster for millions of us.

Why must it be universal? Aside from the simplicity of administration, it would eliminate the crippling stigma of income insecurity: while everyone would get it, no one would know who really relied upon it. It would be something that we all share in the same way that we share the cost of our health care. It would be something else that would bind us together as a nation. If we are proud of taking care of each other’s health, imagine how proud we would be if we eliminated poverty, the one truly constant plague in human history?

Now is the time to do it. The need has never been greater and it is in times of common suffering and its aftermath that we are most open to bold, empathetic social change. It is how we got unemployment insurance in the Great Depression and universal medicare after the Second World War.

Let us do this new great thing for our nation.

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