Catherine Armstrong [1], The University of York, 2023
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Introduction
The Universal Basic Income (UBI) guarantees every adult an income. The Job Guarantee (JG) provides employment to everyone willing and able to work. I argue that while both policies claim significant benefits, the JG is better able to ensure a wide distribution of opportunities for the realisation of important non-financial goods. On this basis, we should favour the JG as a means of achieving a more socially just society. Although a comprehensive argument for either policy must account for economic costs, this is beyond the scope of my discussion (however, proponents of the UBI and JG respectively have accounted for how each might be funded [2]). I also leave aside questions of political feasibility – which are themselves inevitably inextricably linked with cost – to focus on social justice.
First, some definitions. Under a UBI, all adult members of society receive an income, paid at a uniform level at regular intervals by the government. Eligibility for the UBI is not affected by a potential recipient’s wealth [3], their marital or parental status, or – most critically for my purposes – their willingness to work: it is universal. The UBI might be paid at a level below what is sufficient for subsistence (for instance, the Alaska Permanent Fund paid $3284 per person in 2022 (State of Alaska, 2021)), but I focus primarily on a UBI of at least subsistence level.
The second policy under consideration requires slightly more explanation. The JG is a public option for jobs, which would guarantee every job seeker of legal working age the offer of employment at a living wage. Its implementation would eliminate unemployment, defined according to the International Labour Organisation as joblessness on behalf of those ready, able and willing to work (Greenwood, 1999, p.3). To prevent poverty among those who fall outside this category, the JG would be complemented by other forms of targeted income support, such as generous disability and caregivers’ assistance, child benefits and a living retirement income. For caregivers who would still like to take up paid employment, the scheme would also be supplemented with universal professional childcare and after-school activities (Tcherneva, 2020, p.65-66).
Although funded by the central government, the JG is administered locally. Job centres would regularly solicit project proposals from residents, community organisations and local authorities (ibid, p.83). Across many different communities, jobs could be created by scaling up existing initiatives, as well as redefining productive work to include sometimes unprofitable but nonetheless socially valuable activities, particularly in care, local environmental enhancement and small infrastructure projects. JG employees might remove invasive plants, set up tool libraries, provide transport to appointments for the elderly or disabled, and organise various classes and programmes – among hundreds of other possibilities (ibid, p.95).
Many JG positions will also include on-the-job training, credentialing, and education to better enable employees to eventually transition to higher-paid private- or public-sector work. To ensure minimum disruption during transitions, JG jobs must be able to accommodate a flexible number of workers, and as such, would not replace but only supplement permanent public-sector jobs (in, say, emergency services or law enforcement). For instance, the more people (within reason) cleaning plastic off a local beach or helping to create a community garden, the better – but no time-sensitive service essential to society’s operation would be risked if numbers fell. In order to bid workers away from these jobs, though, firms must at least match JG wages and conditions, essentially ensuring an economy-wide living wage floor (ibid, p.45).
The UBI and JG have many benefits in common: most obviously, the ability to greatly decrease poverty. Furthermore, by guaranteeing either income or alternative employment, each would afford workers more ability to turn down low-wage or otherwise unattractive jobs. Another point in both policies’ favour concerns the ‘unemployment trap’. For many who are willing and able to work, the only options available are very low-wage jobs which might yield little or no increase over the means-tested benefits on which they currently rely. Since UBI payments would be unaffected by one’s taking up work, and the JG guarantees a decently-paid job to all who would like one, either policy would help remove this barrier to work.
Important to note here is that although the UBI and JG are not conceptually incompatible, they are usually advocated as alternative rather than complementary policies. This is partly a matter of economic cost; more relevant for my purposes is the question of necessity. I have suggested that both policies would tackle poverty, afford workers more leverage over employers and help mitigate the unemployment trap. Given these overlapping benefits, the implementation of one policy would lessen the need for the other. To decide between the two, then, we should consider whether their differentiating features – the UBI’s universality, and the JG’s direct provision of opportunities for rewarding work as well as income – can afford one policy a significant advantage over the other.
In my view, the JG has such an advantage. To argue this, I refer to Van Parijs’ (2000) justice-based argument for the UBI, which goes roughly as follows. Social justice requires that people have not just formal freedom (for instance, property rights), but the necessary means to make use of that freedom in service of their aims. The UBI, Van Parijs continues, can ‘hardly fail to advance that ideal’. I agree on both points. For many people, certain freedoms (to choose a job in one’s desired field, start a family or pursue personally enriching activities, among others) are rendered essentially theoretical by a lack of income, and a UBI would suffice to make these options real and attainable. For other individuals, though, real freedom to pursue certain aims requires not just additional personal income, but structural community-wide changes which a JG is better able to deliver than a UBI. As such, I think a JG would be able to further advance social justice, so understood.
In Section 3, I detail this argument and propose that the JG offers many individuals the opportunity to realise psychologically and socially important non-financial benefits of work. First, however, I consider and dismiss an argument that the UBI’s universality affords it significant advantages inaccessible to the JG.
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Universality and benefits
Under a UBI, everyone would receive a cash transfer, but the JG has no comparable universality. It does not itself aim to provide an income for even close to everyone: some people are employed elsewhere, but more importantly, not everyone is willing or able to work. The JG, one might argue, provides no assistance to those who fail to meet these conditions, which is made especially problematic by the significant overlap between those unable to work and those most in need of financial support.
Of course, JG advocates acknowledge the need to supplement the scheme with various government assistance programs for those who cannot work. This isn’t a simple solution, however, since such programs are themselves the subject of warranted critique. Barry (2000) describes means-tested government benefits as ‘demeaning [and] demoralising’. There is ample evidence that their recipients are socially stigmatised – in one study, 34% of claimants reported feeling either self-directed stigma or perceived stigma by others (Baumberg, 2016, p.181). Furthermore, around 55,000 people did not claim the Universal Credit to which they were entitled during the COVID-19 pandemic because of worries about how benefits recipients are perceived, with even more citing confusion as to their eligibility or inconvenience involved in the process (Butler, 2021).
JG advocates should not overlook the importance of these considerations. However, I think that three arguments can be made in response. First, at least some of the problems associated with traditional benefit schemes can be mitigated. Eligibility conditions can be made clearer, for instance, and the JG itself could employ people to help make others aware of their entitlements and assist claimants in making applications.
Secondly, it’s inaccurate to suggest that because a JG doesn’t provide income to those who do not or cannot work, it provides them no assistance. As Tcherneva points out, the JG is designed to improve the lives of non-workers as well as workers. In addition to broadly improving the communities in which everyone lives, JG employees would provide services specifically for those with disabilities, the elderly and caregivers (for instance, offering transport to medical appointments and organising specialised programs), which would disproportionately benefit non-workers (ibid, p.66).
Finally, few of its proponents suggest that a UBI could replace the existing benefits system altogether. Depending on its rate, it might be necessary to leave the system wholly intact, only subtracting the UBI amount from benefits payments (Van Parijs, 2000). Even for a UBI set at subsistence level or above, we must ask: subsistence for whom? A universal cash payment by its nature cannot be sensitive to individuals’ different needs. As Anderson (2000) points out, some people are much less able than others to convert income into opportunities – in particular, those who have or whose dependents have disabilities or special needs. Some such individuals will still require targeted income assistance even with a UBI on which many able-bodied people without dependents could live fairly comfortably. Such a UBI would undoubtedly help many people out of the benefits pool, but it would not empty it.
This is not to downplay the significant good such a reduction implies. However, a JG would also substantially reduce the number of people reliant on traditional government assistance. Those on job-seekers’ benefits would find immediate and decently-paid work with a JG. Furthermore, many people who would currently like to but do not work due to disabilities, caregiving responsibilities and mental health issues are unable to do so because of contingent factors, such as a fiercely competitive job market, discriminatory hiring practices and a lack of accommodative opportunities. Conversely, the JG is flexible to all job-seekers’ circumstances and guarantees them work which suits their abilities and needs. Ultimately, both the JG and UBI would need to be supplemented with additional income support to some extent, but both would significantly reduce the number of people reliant on it. There is no fatal argument against the JG here.
Accepting this, one might argue that the JG’s lack of universality robs it of a different but related advantage. Even if the UBI cannot eliminate the need for additional income support, perhaps it can nonetheless eliminate the associated stigma. After all, there is no longer an out-group ‘recipients of government assistance’ which can be conveniently demonised, since everyone now receives a UBI. Surely this will result in a shift in attitudes regarding those who need additional support?
This is plausible, but I think it may be easy to overstate. For one, we all currently receive government benefits in some form – universal health care (in the UK), the legal system, indispensable public goods like roads and street lighting – but knowledge of this has not prevented social stigma against those who require financial assistance such as Universal Credit. Admittedly a UBI would involve a somewhat more direct and obvious transfer of benefits, but I doubt this would entirely counteract the pervasive tendency towards stigmatisation. Secondly, although the very wealthy are technically among the recipients of the UBI, functionally speaking they will lose more than they gain from its implementation if it is funded via progressive taxes, as many proponents advocate. As such, there would be at least one segment of the population able to easily psychologically differentiate themselves from and continue to stigmatise recipients of government assistance.
To be clear, stigma is an issue of social attitude which cannot be wholly rectified by any economic policy; that the UBI would probably reduce stigma is one of its strengths. However, I think that a JG is likely to result in a similar reduction. As above, the JG prioritises work which benefits the elderly, those with disabilities, and other groups disproportionately unable to work. It frames not just the meeting of these individuals’ material needs but the enrichment of their lives as valuable work deserving of a wage and social recognition, and in doing so, instils an ethos of respect for both caregivers and care recipients. This kind of ethos is antithetical to the social attitudes which result in stigma against those in need of financial assistance, and would likely have some counteractive effect.
Ultimately, the UBI would lead to a difference in degree rather than kind, both in reducing (but not eliminating) the need for targeted benefit programs, and in reducing (but not eliminating) the stigma faced by recipients. The JG, I think, can do the same on both counts. In the face of a stalemate, I proceed to a positive argument for the JG.
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Non-monetary goods of work
The JG offers work to those who would be jobless otherwise. This is especially beneficial because unemployment is self-perpetuating: firms are often reluctant to hire those who have been unemployed for a long period. By helping people maintain technical and employability skills, the JG protects against long- as well as short-term unemployment (Tcherneva, 2020, p.29). The UBI does not offer the same.
Is this cause for concern, though? The problem with unemployment, one might argue, is that it reduces income, and the UBI guarantees that. But this would be an oversimplification. Jobs can – and, many argue, should – provide workers with more than money. Gheaus and Herzog (2016, p.70-2) argue that justice is concerned with the distribution of not just income but also opportunities to make a social contribution, find community, attain some form of excellence, and receive social recognition. The authors call the foregoing the ‘non-monetary goods of work’: they cannot be bought, and their status as ‘goods’ is justified by significant evidence that they are widely valued by workers. Furthermore, while possible (at least in principle) to attain these goods in many different domains of life, work is a privileged context for their realisation.
This latter point is, I think, especially clear with regard to social contribution. As the authors point out, the workplace is the paradigmatic setting for ‘social encounters aimed at producing utility’ (ibid, p.76). While much socially contributory work is unpaid (consider childcare and housework), there is a natural expectation that if one is paid to do something then it should be worth doing, that something has gone array if it isn’t. Psychological research reflects this: both UK and EU28 workers who felt their jobs weren’t useful scored significantly lower on the WHO Five Well-Being Index than those who believed otherwise (Soffia et al, 2022, p.833). Furthermore, many people are willing to give up higher salaries for more meaningful work, with meaningfulness defined in terms of the work’s perceived ‘personal and social significance’ (Hu and Hirsh, 2017, p.2, emphasis added).
Relatedly, a job might be meaningful in virtue of its personal significance by encouraging a worker’s pursuit of excellence. Gheaus and Herzog understand excellence as a relation between one and one’s work, which includes both the development of one’s skills and the accomplishments resulting from their exercise (2016, p.74). For instance, a craftsman might exhibit excellence through beautiful works, as well as the artistic or technical skills necessary for their creation. Studies suggest that jobs with characteristics amenable to individuals’ attaining excellence (such as skill variety and opportunities for feedback) are associated with higher job satisfaction and motivation (Fried and Ferris, 1987, p.287-322).
Gheaus and Herzog also emphasise community, that is, the experience of doing an activity with other people to whom one stands in relatively free and equal relationships. Community is valued in many contexts, but working together constitutes a specific experience: partaking in collective, sustained efforts which result in joint accomplishments (2016, p.76). This makes the workplace an obvious setting to realise this good, and again, there is psychological evidence to attest to its significance – in one survey, 92% of respondents cited workplace friendships as an important factor in their willingness to remain at a company (Mason, 2022).
Finally, many people desire social recognition for the work they do (Gheaus and Herzog, 2016, p.78). Interestingly, social recognition also serves to bolster the realisation of other goods: knowing that others will appreciate the excellence of one’s eventual achievements can motivate one to hone one’s skills, and one’s own feeling of having contributed socially can be confirmed by others’ recognition. In all, the non-monetary goods of work offer important benefits for an individual’s psychological and social well-being.
Accepting this, an argument for the JG emerges: while a UBI delivers only income, the JG also provides opportunities to realise these non-monetary goods. For one, all JG jobs must be socially contributory to be implemented in the first place; this is their defining feature. They are typically community-based, often involving working with other employees towards a joint endeavour (for instance, a small infrastructure project) or directly engaging with other community members (say, playing music for care home residents). Furthermore, since the JG centres collaborative work and its projects are decided via participatory democratic decision-making, problems of unjust hierarchy which can be inimical to the development of equal relationships are less likely to emerge.
What about excellence? Although some JG jobs will inevitably involve relatively simple tasks, others require specialist skills. Further, the inclusion of training and education programs is obviously conducive to workers’ long-term pursuit of excellence. Finally, while the implementation of a JG cannot entirely change the social perception of certain kinds of work as less impressive than others, a JG job would almost certainly garner one more social recognition than no job at all. Further, recall that the JG involves redefining productive work to emphasise community-enhancing activities which might have previously been considered the remit of volunteers. As I argued in Section 2, this would plausibly contribute to some shift in societal attitude towards valuing this work more highly.
These features of the JG are comprehensively beneficial. For someone facing unemployment, the JG would provide opportunities to realise important non-monetary goods as well as needed income. For someone whose current job provides few such opportunities, the JG provides another option for their consideration. Furthermore, the new-found need to compete with JG jobs for workers will incentivise firms to make their job positions more attractive; this will likely have knock-on effects on not only wages but the availability of non-financial goods. Conversely, in delivering income only, it seems that the UBI offers less.
One can object, fairly, that this comparison is myopic. While the UBI does not directly deliver opportunities to realise these non-monetary goods, it can essentially buy individuals more free time in which to realise those same goods outside of work. The workplace is a privileged context for their realisation, yes, but not the only possible context. In fact, part of the reason for Gheaus and Herzog’s arguing that these goods should be distributed widely and fairly within the jobs market specifically is because work is non-optional and extremely time-consuming for most people. Thus, adequate opportunities for the realisation of these goods outside of work are unlikely – but a UBI might change exactly this (ibid, p.80).
For a fairer comparison, imagine a generous UBI which frees up enough time for the majority of people to devote to the pursuit of these goods. I think a problem remains. Recall the objective of the UBI, as enumerated by Van Parijs: to grant people real as opposed to merely formal freedom by providing them the necessary means to achieve their aims. For the aim of attaining the goods of work and their associated benefits, some people will inevitably require more than extra time (or, indeed, income). Consider the following example.
Suppose that John lives in a community with ample material and social resources: accessible public transit, green spaces, thriving local businesses, a sense of community. With the implementation of a UBI, he can substantially cut his hours at his (unfulfilling) job and devote that time to other goals: there, ready in his local area are volunteering projects with which he can help, language and art classes he can attend, clubs to join and events at which he can socialise. While it might still be preferable for his job to deliver some or all these goods, this is now much less plausibly a requirement of social justice: after all, the UBI has afforded him time to take up the abundant opportunities elsewhere.
Now imagine that Jack and Jane live in a very different community – there is very little community space (perhaps only a convenience store within walking distance), almost no green space, and the sense of community is undermined by a high crime rate. Jack cannot find work; Jane works long hours at a poorly paid and unrewarding job. Suppose that a UBI is implemented. Now, Jack no longer needs job-seekers’ benefits, and Jane can afford to cut her hours – but compared to John, their opportunities for realising the non-monetary goods of work are still substantially limited by the material realities of their community.
A JG, by contrast, would open valuable projects tailored to this community’s specific needs, directly facilitate participation and financially incentivise social contribution. Jack would receive not only income but a chance to contribute, develop skills and forge new relationships. Jane could cut her hours or even quit her job entirely, and take up a part- or full-time JG job in which to pursue the goods of work. Furthermore, her original employer and other firms similarly situated would now have to compete for workers with living-wage, rewarding jobs. This would require that they either improve their working conditions – likely including opportunities for the realisation of non-monetary goods – or raise wages significantly. Workers whose employers take the latter approach could afford to work fewer hours. And, since the JG provides opportunities not just for its own workers but others in the community – for instance, setting up classes and programmes through which one might realise excellence and community – this discretionary time can be used in meaningful and enriching ways. Ultimately, a JG would result in the community-wide proliferation of opportunities to realise important goods.
One might counter that a UBI would – eventually – mitigate the problem facing communities such as Jane’s by funnelling money to its residents. The crime rate would fall with the poverty rate, and with more money, people would be more willing and able to start small businesses, co-operatives and local initiatives. I don’t doubt that there is some truth to this. Note, however, that it leaves community enrichment entirely up to individuals’ discretion. Surely it is also possible that with more money, many people will simply move, leaving those for whom the UBI income translates into fewer opportunities (many of those who live with disabilities or addictions, for example) to an even more depleted community. There is no comparable systemic change as brought by the JG, and therefore, a diminished advance in social justice.
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Conclusion
While the implementation of either policy would advance social justice, I think the JG offers a significant advantage unavailable to the UBI. By providing socially-valuable employment as opposed to isolated income, the JG offers a tangible and immediate opportunity for people to realise the goods of work and all their psychological benefits – regardless of the initial state of the communities in which they live. The JG is certainly not a panacea, and careful attention needs to be paid to supplementary income support, especially for non-workers. However, the need for such support and the associated stigma are unfortunate realities with which either policy would have to contend to some extent. Ultimately, in terms of promoting the realisation of psychologically important goods, as well as socially and environmentally enriching society at large, I think the JG has enormous promise.
[1] Catherine Armstrong is currently studying for an MA in Political and Legal Philosophy at the University of York.
[2] E.g., Tcherneva, 2020, p.67-80; UBI Works, 2022.
[3] Many proponents argue for the UBI to be funded via progressive taxes, such that wealthier individuals would lose money in real terms from its implementation, but everyone would receive an identical cash transfer.
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