Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The pitfalls of a cash income support scheme -Prabhat Patnaik

The pitfalls of a cash income support scheme -Prabhat Patnaik

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Feb 17, 2019   modified Modified on Feb 17, 2019
-The Telegraph

For starters, it would alter the prices at which such support was calculated for ensuring a basic real income

With Rahul Gandhi’s announcement of the Congress’s “historic decision” to adopt an income guarantee scheme, the idea of a universal basic income, mooted in the Economic Survey two years ago, has suddenly got a fillip. It appears attractive at first sight: its universality avoids the discrimination, exclusion and jockeying that typically accompanies targeted schemes; and any break from the current callousness towards the poor is always welcome. The problem, however, is with the fact of cash support; a break from present callousness must take a form different from cash support, and cash support can actually be a trap as it forestalls any such alternative. Indeed cash support can become an excuse for the State to wash its hands of the poor by giving them every year a certain sum of cash whose real value cannot be guaranteed and would dwindle over time, instead of adopting measures for building up a Welfare state.

But what, it may be asked, is wrong with cash support? At any set of ‘effective prices’ (including all kinds of open and hidden price subsidies), a cash income corresponds to a certain real income. A universal basic real income therefore can be guaranteed through ensuring adequate cash incomes through the provision of cash support. Why then cavil at cash support?

There are, first of all, practical problems. Since different groups face different effective prices, the cash incomes at which they get the same basic real income will differ across them; and making intricate calculations for each group is almost impossible. Then the practical problems of handing over cash support to crores of households across the country are almost insurmountable, unlike the provision of universal ‘kind support’ in the form of, say, common neighbourhood government schools, or government healthcare facilities under a national health service. In addition, however, there are theoretical pitfalls of cash support.

Please click here to read more.

The Telegraph, 13 February, 2019, https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/universal-basic-income-and-the-pitfalls-of-a-cash-income-support-scheme/cid/1684366?ref=opinion_opinion-page


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close