{"id":515112,"date":"2021-08-23T13:17:28","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T11:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=515112"},"modified":"2021-08-23T13:17:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T11:17:28","slug":"unions-want-a-basic-income-grant-in-south-africa-from-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/515112\/unions-want-a-basic-income-grant-in-south-africa-from-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Unions want a basic income grant in South Africa from next year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Organised labour has called for the permanent introduction of a basic income grant in South Africa from 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), National Congress of Trade Unions (Nactu) and the Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) held their mid-year Nedlac organised labour school this week to assess progress on the implementation of key policy interventions in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>In a post-meeting statement, the unions welcomed the reinstatement of the special R350 Covid-19 grant until March 2022 and said that this should be the first step towards a universal income.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It must now be made permanent and be used as a foundation for a basic income grant.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It must be extended beyond March 2022 and adjusted in line with the food poverty level. The government needs to provide for its extension and enhancement in the October medium-term budget policy statement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The push for a universal income comes after the Department of Social Development published a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/514048\/governments-plan-to-give-basic-income-to-everyone-in-south-africa-and-it-wants-tax-hikes-to-fund-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">green paper<\/a><\/strong> proposing the introduction of a basic income grant fund through additional taxes.<\/p>\n<p>The department said that the government has been severely criticised for the value of the Covid-19 R350 social relief of distress grant.<\/p>\n<p>While many appreciated the Covid relief, being 40% below\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.statssa.gov.za\/publications\/P03101\/P031012020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the poverty line,<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>it makes a tiny dent as many people are still experiencing hunger and starvation, it said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe options for the value thus depend on what objectives the state would like to achieve first, including, inter alia: reducing hunger, reducing poverty and improving the standard of living of our people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The green paper proposes the following options, depending on what objectives government would like to achieve first:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Reduce hunger<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 With this option, the grant value would have to be around the Food Poverty Line (FPL). As of the 2020 adjustments, this is\u00a0<strong>R585 a month<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Reduce poverty<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 This option would require the grant value to be pitched around the lower-bound poverty line (LBPL). As of the 2020 adjustments, this is\u00a0<strong>R840 a month<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Improve people\u2019s standard of living<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 \u00a0In this case, the value should be significantly higher, but at least starting at the upper-bound poverty line (UBPL). As of the 2020 adjustments, this is\u00a0<strong>R1,268<\/strong>\u00a0a month.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cStudies done on a decent standard of living suggests income of around\u00a0<strong>R7,500 per person, per month<\/strong>. This is an aspirational value that government should strive to achieve through a mix of transfers, labour and economic policies,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n<p>A microsimulation for universal income support at the level of the food poverty line (R585) suggests that the financial cost will be approximately<strong>\u00a0R200 billion and will require a 10-percentage point increase on income taxes.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt face value, these amounts appear to be astronomically high and even impossible,&#8221; the department said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the majority of the population, depending on the level of the transfer, it is likely that the benefit received will be larger than their increase in taxes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe wealthiest deciles of the population will only see a slight reduction in income on average, and the impact of this may be reduced if phased in over a period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/514528\/food-items-you-are-paying-a-lot-more-for-in-south-africa-right-now\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Food items you are paying a lot more for in South Africa right now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Organised labour has called for the permanent introduction of a basic income grant in South Africa from 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":271497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[1470,26],"class_list":["post-515112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-cosatu","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515112"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":515120,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515112\/revisions\/515120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}