The House of Representatives is considering a legislative resolution authored by the President of the Government Commission, Jesús Manuel Ortiz, to investigate the positive and negative effects of implementing a universal basic income program on the Island.
House Resolution 359 was filed on April 12 and since then has been waiting for approval in that body. Popular representative Sol Higgins Cuadrado is also one of the authors of the legislative measure that responds to the changes in public policy that are taking place in different governments around the world with a single purpose: to end the social inequality that worsened with the covid pandemic. -19.
“What this resolution seeks is to order an investigation into the effect that establishing a monthly basic income program would have in Puerto Rico. We file it because the important thing is to discuss the issue, bring in government agencies and experts on the issue of poverty. What interests us is that we can start a conversation to fight against poverty, “said Ortiz in an interview with THE SPOKESMAN.
He explained that basic income is an initiative used to provide a certain income from the government to a number of families living below the poverty level.
“Unlike the Nutritional Assistance Program (PAN), which is a bureaucratic process to access it, this initiative could be more automatic. This would allow families to have a basic income that can allow them to worry about educating themselves or even improve their job skills. There are different models worldwide, that is why it must be analyzed ”, he said.
Since the pandemic began, different countries of the world, the World Economic Forum and Pope Francis have spoken in favor of the implementation of a universal basic income.
“They are different models and we do not want to impose any, what we want is to open the discussion of the subject. The pandemic illustrated that topic to us and I believe that globally in the 21st century one of the challenges we have is how to adapt to the new labor system due to, precisely, technological unemployment. That is going to require a reinvention of job skills that could lead to unemployment rates from the outset, and that’s one of the many reasons why it seems to me that (universal basic income) is a conversation that needs to be had, ”said Ortiz.
He said that in the discussion of the measure he will seek to integrate the government, the private sector and academia. He also stressed that it is not a “maintenance”.
“It is not a measure that seeks to implement this immediately, but rather to open a discussion where I as a legislator want to know what the budgetary impacts of using a tool like this are (…) I am clear that this has a budgetary impact, but what we want to see what it would be and perhaps from the analysis we can conclude that a pilot program can be implemented, perhaps in small groups such as the elderly or heads of families ”, he said.
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