A basic income for everyone can, in some cases, aggravate precariousness instead of reducing it, according to the conclusions drawn by researchers from the Center for Social Policy at the University of Antwerp, quoted on Wednesday in The standard.
An increase in poverty can occur, for example, if social benefits are reduced too much to finance the basic income. “In this way, the means are withdrawn from the lower strata of society to share them with everyone.“, explains researcher Elise Aerts, who wrote an article on this subject with Ive Marx and Gerlinde Verbist. The principle of a basic income is that it is universal, and therefore that wealthy households are also entitled to it.
The researchers investigated the effects that various formulas of a basic income would have in Belgium and the Netherlands. If the basic income were at a level equal to the poverty line (1,230 euros in Belgium, 1,235 euros in the Netherlands), then the number of precarious people in Belgium would only decrease by a third, and barely a quarter. in the Nederlands. Research also points out that a lower basic income is better at reducing precariousness, provided that it is financed by the elimination of tax advantages.