The ongoing COVID-19 related suppression of economic activity will impact incomes across the board. Irrespective of how the income is generated (e.g. business, employment, self-employment) the impact can be either positive, negative or uncertain.
- Positive for those whose incomes are not disrupted or are increased due to demand (e.g. PPE manufacturers, health-care staff, delivery drivers).
- Negative for those whose incomes have been disrupted without any relief in sight (e.g. restaurants, people who have been laid off with bad prospects for getting another job).
- Uncertain for those who have been furloughed or laid off but with good prospects for getting a job.
With anything between 6-11% contraction predicted, the majority of the cases should fall in the ‘Uncertain’ category (I predict 4-7%) who will move to either Positive or Negative category over the next year or so.
Why do I say that?
I say it because there will be different responses to the challenges, from restructuring, process improvements to failing fast and even retraining/reskilling (both at individual level and at an organisational level). Depending on how effective a business is at transforming itself to survive, a lot of the people in the ‘Uncertain’ category will quickly transition to the ‘Negative’ category.
One of the main transformation patterns is to carry out process improvements/restructuring with increased automation so that costs decrease and production/service elasticity increases as incomes fall initially but then recover over the medium and long term.
This group of people who jump from Uncertain to Negative is the BIG problem as this can trigger a long term contraction in consumption. How can we help these people reskill and retrain so that they can re-enter the job market? What can we do to support people as the pressure to automate increases as business income contracts?
Universal Basic Income
One possible answer to many of these questions is Universal Basic Income. If we provide people guaranteed support with basics (e.g. food, rent) then we are not only cutting them some slack but also decoupling ‘survival’ with ‘growth’.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a simple concept to understand: all citizens get a basic income every month irrespective of how much they earn. This is guaranteed from the day they turn 18 till the day they die. They may also get a smaller percentage from the day they are born to help their parents with their upkeep.
See this TED Talk by Rutger Bregman for more on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIL_Y9g7Tg0
With UBI a recession will not impact the basics of any household. It will provide a safety net for families and individuals. It will also allow people to develop their skills and innovate.
There are a few wrinkles in this. Firstly, how should we prevent inflation as ‘free money’ is handed out to people? One proposed mechanism is to use a different class of money from the currency of the country. This UBI money cannot be used as a store of value (i.e. can’t be lent for interest), just for limited exchange (e.g. food, rent). This is similar to the US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – also known as ‘food stamps’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program)which can be exchanged for certain types of food. Many other countries have tried this experiment (such as Finland, USA, Canada etc.). This form of money should also ‘expire’ periodically so that people don’t start using them in a ‘money-like’ way.
Another challenge is how do you convert the ‘temporary’ UBI money into ‘permanent’ currency. This is required for the businesses accepting UBI money to be able to pass it down the supply chain (both locally and internationally). For example if you buy all your groceries with UBI money and it is not convertible to currency then how will the grocery shop pay it’s staff and suppliers. What if the suppliers were importing groceries from other countries – how would they convert UBI money to any international currency. In SNAP, the stamps are equivalent to money. It doesn’t have the same impact as UBI as its cost is a fraction of the total US GDP (0.5%).
Still, one should never let a good crisis go to waste! Time to think differently.
Fish Eye View 