BINS Trustee Jack Scott discusses how Minimum Income Guarantee in Scotland and Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland might bring us ever closer to a full Basic Income.
The Basic Income movement hosts a wide array of attitudes towards the transformative policy proposal which continues to gain traction. What might a Basic Income policy look like in practice? How do we get there? How should it be funded? Proponents might also utilise a number of different arguments when calling for its implementation – framing it as solving distinct problems: poverty, inequality, precarity, injustice, or the rise of automation.
However, serious advocates for Basic Income would do well to remind themselves that there is plenty to agree on. Perhaps most importantly, we ought to agree on the core BIEN definition of Basic Income – that a “Basic Income is a periodic, cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement”. To put it bluntly, if what someone is advocating for does not meet these key characteristics – it is not a Basic Income.
With these key characteristics in mind, I hope that another area of common ground Basic Income advocates should hold is that deliberate moves towards achieving the key characteristics of a true Basic Income should be encouraged and celebrated. Not only this, but such policy initiatives should be leveraged from a campaigning perspective in order to re-emphasise the fatal flaws of the current welfare system or to draw attention to the emancipatory nature of Basic Income-like schemes.
It is against these criteria that I will briefly evaluate two schemes in terms of their potential to galvanise the Basic Income movement and provide exciting opportunities for campaigning and policy advocacy: Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) in Scotland and Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) in Ireland. These schemes differ immensely in many ways – MIG in Scotland a national policy proposal drafted by a Scottish Government-sponsored independent expert group; and BIA in Ireland an existing pilot scheme delivering a weekly income of €325 to 2,000 artists. However, both provide unique opportunities which should be seized with the ultimate aim of realising a full national Basic Income in these Celtic nations and beyond.
Minimum Income Guarantee, Scotland
Firstly, let us look at MIG in Scotland. Whilst this Basic Income-esque idea is purely abstract until it is taken forward by the (future) Scottish Government – there is a lot of information in the final report and roadmap which outlines how MIG might be delivered. Therefore, we can examine how this implementation might resemble characteristics of a Basic Income.
The Minimum Income Guarantee: a roadmap to dignity for all
Although the report details several stages in the roadmap which will be necessary prior to the realisation of their ambition of MIG in Scotland – if achieved, that ambition would almost certainly be a move closer to Basic Income. Payments would be periodically made to individuals and the guarantee would seemingly universally apply to the population – in line with the BIEN characteristics of a Basic Income. The tone which the report speaks about the need for payments to individuals is especially encouraging:
Crucially, a Minimum Income Guarantee payment will ensure that everyone can access their own income through an independent payment rather than the current single household payment. This will help reduce intra-household financial and economic abuse which is enabled within the existing UK system and experienced most harshly by women and disabled people. (page 11)
However, it is on the characteristics which it falls short of Basic Income where the opportunities lie. Firstly, MIG is not unconditional as it requires income means-testing so as individuals can be ‘topped-up’ to the minimum guarantee level. The inefficiencies and injustices of means-tested welfare are widely documented in writing on Basic Income – but to put it simply: if you really wanted to guarantee a person’s income, why not make payments automatic, regardless of income? Additionally, a common criticism against minimum income guarantees is that they disincentivise work as the topped up amount will be taken away as individuals take up additional paid work. However, this seems to be addressed to an extent in the proposal: “The payment will taper gradually to reduce as other sources of income increase, to support progression and to ensure that people gain financially by taking extra hours of paid work” (page 11).
Second, and related to this, throughout the report there is a very heavy emphasis on work. Indeed, in the lede paragraph of the foreword, the report states that MIG “should be delivered through a combination of fair work; reform to services and the cost of essentials; and investment in social security” (page 5). This potentially adds further conditionality of work requirement and seems to suggest that income might be guaranteed not through cash payments – but through work.
The finer details of the report warrant investigation to unpack what this might look like for an MIG in Scotland in practice, and therefore where the opportunities for advocacy and individual action lie. Despite some apparent shortcomings on conditionality and how MIG is paid, the roadmap plan includes a firm commitment to end unfair conditions and punitive sanctions on social security payments – explicitly recognising that they are unproductive and discriminatory (page 49-50). On the roadmap, this includes the recommendation for an interim period where individuals would be topped-up to the MIG level for a limit of 12 out of 60 months (with “no time-limit for disabled people or unpaid carers, and an extended time-limit for parents to care for children”), and the ultimate aim of increasing this time limit until there is no time limit by 2036 (pages 82-84).
All of this taken together, the report seems to propose a social security policy environment whereby individuals can choose to receive something very close to a Basic Income should they want or need to. It is in this way that I believe that the MIG proposal could reap many of the same emancipatory rewards as a full Basic Income and autonomy could be handed back to people. Therefore, if a MIG was implemented in Scotland as the report intends – I believe it is an imperative that people utilise this policy to its full extent, in the interests of moving ever closer to a full Basic Income, and further away from the current broken welfare system. In other words: if it acts like a Basic Income, treat it like one.
This would mean exercising your power to quit the ‘bullshit job’ you’ve always hated (but have needed to pay for living costs) – safe in the knowledge you wouldn’t be sanctioned whilst you take some time off and rethink how you’d like to better use your limited time on this planet. It would also mean demanding the MIG amount be increased if after you’ve left your job it is still not enough to live comfortably on. To do this would not be exploiting a loophole for individual advantage, but rather using a policy for its intended purpose – “dignity for all”. It would give people the power to say no to unscrupulous work and put pressure on employers to provide better working conditions and pay. Because if they don’t, workers will simply withdraw their labour.
To go even further, I would even argue that choosing to not exercise such powers available to you would be to squander the transformative potential of a policy like MIG and would perpetuate all the worst parts of the current welfare system. So, if MIG is realised in Scotland, treat it like a Basic Income, and before long, we might see it become one.
Basic Income for the Arts, Ireland
On the other side of the Irish Sea (and down a bit), an existing Basic Income trial for artists has already yielded extremely positive results in the Republic of Ireland. The BIA scheme was introduced by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport following a recommendation to support the recovery of the arts sector from the COVID-19 pandemic – and saw 2,000 individual artists (randomly selected from applicants) unconditionally paid €325 in cash on a periodic, weekly basis.
Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Research Scheme 2022 – 2026
Rather than looking at the abstract of what could be as with MIG in Scotland – this scheme is already making a difference to artists’ lives in Ireland. Indeed, an impact assessment of the first two years of the trial found that recipients of BIA (compared to the control group) are: more likely to continue working in the arts, spend more time on their creative practice, can afford basic necessities more, are generally more satisfied with their life and less likely to feel depressed, invest more money into the arts sector, are less likely to cite caring responsibilities as reasons for not engaging in artistic practices, and spend more time on leisure activities. These findings will be familiar to Basic Income advocates who have long argued that the policy will produce such effects. And lo and behold – when individuals are given it, their lives are demonstrably improved.
However, it is again in the areas where BIA falls short of a full, national Basic Income, where further opportunities for Basic Income advocacy exist. I argued in the July BINS Newsletter that it is “vital we expand the evidence on how a Basic Income will be crucial for distinct sectors and groupings. However, as the list grows of such groups arguing for Basic Income trials for them alone (care leavers in Wales, farmers in the UK, artists in Ireland, screen freelancers in Scotland) – it only further underlines that to maximise transformative potential in our societies – we need a Basic Income for all.”
It is certainly not my intention to criticise a programme which was aimed at solving a sector-specific issue on the grounds of not being universal. Rather, I believe that overwhelmingly positive impacts experienced by artists should not be treated as exceptional to the arts sector – but that they can and should be generalised across sectors and populations. This means not just expanding BIA to more recipients, but using the argument that every single person on this planet has creativity in them – and that they deserve to engage in the practice of something they love, without it being at the expense of the ability to pay their bills.
Extremely encouragingly, the Irish Government have already signalled they are moving in this direction, announcing in October 2025 that they intend to make the scheme permanent, with a view to potentially accept 200 more applicants and broaden the eligibility criteria so that other artistic disciplines can apply. If you are an artist in Ireland who didn’t get the chance to take part in the trial, contact your TD to let them know how life-changing this scheme would be for you. If you are anyone in Ireland who has wished you worked fewer hours so you could pursue more creative endeavours, contact your TD and explain why the scheme should be expanded and broadened. Or if you fall into one of those categories but don’t live in Ireland – contact your elected official anyway and point them to how transformative something like BIA could be where you live.
Finally, another positive impact from BIA which might be used to further make the case for a full Basic Income comes from the kind of work people engage in when they are given cash with no strings attached. One BIA recipient interviewed for the impact assessment stated “Having the time to explore new things, having the time to actually sit down and make my work, without having to shoehorn it into any Arts Council applications has been liberating” (page 51). This suggests that recipients not only had more time to make art, but they could make the art they wanted to without having to adjust their brief to secure funding. At scale in the arts and cultural sector – this might produce more art which challenges oppressive power structures, rather than pandering to them. And if this logic were expanded to other sectors, it may see increased familiarity of engaging with work which is of value to individuals and communities – not simply in service of a ‘productive capitalist economy’. This can only leave people wanting more of the good life, rather than the slave-to-the-boss life.
Both MIG in Scotland and BIA in Ireland are incredibly encouraging projects on the road to the realisation of a full Basic Income. This horizon may seem distant at present. But as such policy proposals and trial schemes show – if we seize the opportunities which they present, then we could be moving in the right direction.
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