On April 29, 2006, the "Women's Economic Justice Report on Guaranteed Livable Income" was released.

This 72-page report documents over 40 interviews held with women between September 2005 to April 2006 to examine these questions:

• What would the benefits of Guaranteed Livable Income be to women? To family and community? To children?
• How would it impact health, equality, spirituality, politics, peace and the environment?
• How do the benefits of GLI compare with the impacts of poverty?
• How does GLI compare with the goal of jobs as a solution to poverty?
• What are the barriers and strategies to achieving a GLI?
• What are the concerns about what could go wrong?
• What community initiatives would complement a GLI?

This report also contains the article The Strong Case for a Guaranteed Livable Income; data on women's income specially acquired for the project from Revenue Canada; and where to learn more or get involved. This project was funded by Status of Women Canada BC/Yukon Region.

Background:

A Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI) is an unconditional and universal income, administered by federal governments and granted to individuals to ensure that no person's income falls below what is necessary for health, life and dignity.

In the past it was called a Guaranteed Annual Income; today, some groups call it a Basic Income. It is a concept that has been promoted by people such as Thomas Paine (1796), Martin Luther King Jr. (1968), Pierre Berton (1968) as well as being one of the recommendations in Canada's Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1972. Today there are over 25 countries in the world with active guaranteed income groups including in Europe, Africa, South America, New Zealand, Australia, the U.S and Canada.

A Guaranteed Livable Income would create a peaceful, effective way to address human needs for health and ability to provide care for self, family, community and the environment.

This is the second publication of the Women's Economic Justice Project. The first publication, the 32-page GLI Reader (with historic and current quotes on GLI from around the world) and more copies of this report are available on request from the project coordinator. Presentations are also available for groups of 10 or more.

Email:

Cindy L’Hirondelle, Coordinator, Women's Economic Justice Project, swag@pacificcoast.net

or

Mail:

c/o Victoria Status of Women Action Group,
Box 8484 Victoria BC, V8W 3S1

Phone: (250) 383-7322,
Email: swag@pacificcoast.net,
Website: www.pacificcoast.net/~swag

Relevant Links:

Livable Income For Everyone: http://www.livableincome.org/evidence.htm

WISE BC: http://www.wise-bc.org/newsfile/w-Mar2206.html

The town without poverty: http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/story/mb-dauphin-gia-20051205.html

Basic Income Canada: http://www3.sympatico.ca/francislerner/

Basic Income Earth Network (has e-newsletter):
http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/BIEN/Index.html
http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/BIEN/Resources/Links.htm

2006 Basic Income Earth Network Congress:
http://www.epri.org.za/bienpage.html

Martin Luther King Jr. writings on guaranteed income:
http://www.progress.org/dividend/cdking.html

South Africa Basic Income Coalition: http://www.big.org.za/
Namibia: http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/6585.html

Brazil: http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=974

http://www.sacc-ct.org.za/suplicy.html
http://www.barcelona2004.org/eng/actualidad/noticias/html/f045393.htm
http://www.nodo50.org/redrentabasica/textos/index.php?x=255


Ireland's CORI commission's paper on guaranteed income
http://www.cori.ie/justice/basic_income/greenpaper/gpstatement.htm
http://www.cori.ie/justice/budget/2004/article_povertytrap_1203.htm

New Zealand Basic Income Trust: http://www.geocities.com/caeruit/

US Basic Income Guarantee Network (has e-newsletter): http://www.usbig.net/

BIG vs. the Corporate media: http://www.counterpunch.org/swanson02282005.html

Citizen's Income (UK): http://www.citizensincome.org/

Basic Income Australia: http://www.basicincome.qut.edu.au/

Belgium - VIVANT: http://www.vivant.org/

Germany: http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/BIEN/Resources/German_Debate.htm

Argentina (Red Argentina de Ingreso Ciudadano): http://www.ingresociudadano.org/

Netherlands (Vereniging Basinkomen): http://www.basisinkomen.nl/

Separating Income from Work, by Jim Smith, LA Labor activist: http://www.lalabor.org/GAI.html

Why Unions should campaign for a Basic Income by Guy Standing, International Labour Organization
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/ses/index.htm

Sally Lerner article on Basic Income: http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/jbl07610.htm

Basic Income Studies Journal: http://www.bepress.com/bis/

Embrace the End of Work, send humanity on a paid vacation: http://archives.betterhumans.com/Columns/Column/tabid/79/Column/227/Default.aspx

Helen Keller: Put your husband in the kitchen 1932
"is it too much to expect that our ingenuity can reorganize our economic system to take advantage of the machines which we have created? It is largely up to the men - the statesmen and the captains of industry; and, if they are unable to accomplish the task, we women shall have to send them into the kitchen for a few lessons in common-sense economics." http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=193&SubTopicID=18&DocumentID=1209

The World's Wasted Wealth: http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/win98/fe_win98saveourwealth.html

Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice, 1785:
"Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufacturers... To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age." http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/paine_agrarianjustice_02.html

Other recent (Apr. 06) guaranteed income news from around the world:
http://newsdaily.ca/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=5205

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