A proposed provincial pilot project to replace Ontario’s poverty-level welfare payments and top-up low-wage workers with a no-strings-attached basic income received a thumbs-up during recent online and public consultations. Ontarians also shared their views on which communities to include in the pilot and how a basic income should be delivered. But anti-poverty activists who attended most of the public consultations say welfare rates should be increased immediately to the proposed basic income amount. Finland launched a guaranteed income pilot in January this year, the Netherlands and Kenya are developing projects while a California company is planning a five-year pilot. But in a referendum last summer, Switzerland rejected a universal basic income of about $3,300 a month out of fears it would bankrupt the country and encourage idleness.

Source: thestar March 16, 2017 23:26 UTC