Ireland tries universal income for artists

Lisa Tierney-Keogh staged her first play as a playwright when she was 22, at Ireland’s Crypt Arts Centre, a now-defunct theater underneath Dublin Castle.

Now 48, she continues to work as a playwright. For about two decades she worked at odd jobs and served as a waitress to keep writing. But just before her play This Beautiful Village was scheduled to tour nationally, the pandemic struck. “COVID collapsed theater in Ireland, and it hasn’t recovered,” Tierney-Keogh said.

When Ireland’s Department of Culture announced a basic income program pilot in 2022, she applied. “[The money] came at a very dark time for me,” said Tierney-Keogh.

Last month, Ireland announced it is making the pilot program permanent, paying up to 2,000 professional creatives around $380 per week for three-year periods. Artists are eligible to participate in multiple terms but not consecutive ones. The government is focusing on artists due to concerns the field has yet to recover from strict pandemic-era lockdowns. Irish creatives specializing in almost any art form—literature, dance, even circus arts—can apply starting in May.

Basic income programs guarantee payments to certain demographic groups, usually for a limited period of time. While Ireland may be the first country to launch a nationwide basic income program targeting artists, other countries—including the United States—have considered similar programs, many of which sprouted out of post-pandemic experiments. Some politicians and advocacy groups would like to see guaranteed income programs become permanent and more comprehensive. But many conservatives argue that even limited income programs haven’t substantially boosted productivity and that giving everyone unconditional cash would cost too much to be sustainable.

Ireland launched its Basic Income for the Arts pilot program in 2022 “to address the earnings instability that can be associated with the intermittent, periodic, and often project-based nature of work in the arts,” according to a news release. According to a 2022 study, the median annual income for Irish artists is about $17,000. Applicants were required to complete a survey, but funding did not come with any productivity stipulations.

Similarly, New York launched a program in 2022 that paid 2,400 artists $1,000 a month for 18 months. The Empire State’s Guaranteed Income for Artists initiative distributed more than $46 million to local artists. The idea isn’t limited to artists: In Los Angeles, nonprofit Rising Communities provides 100 local moms with $500 per month as part of an ongoing project.

In October, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., reintroduced the Guaranteed Income Pilot Program Act. She has proposed the bill four times since 2020. The nationwide program would provide 10,000 individuals ages 18-65 with cash payments for three years.

Artists have not always earned income primarily on the sales of their creative products. Throughout history, artists have often been supported by wealthy patrons, whether kings, nobles, or the Catholic Church. In Ancient Greece, state officials often commissioned artists to work on major public projects.

But the idea of a universal basic income for artists is linked to modern schemes ostensibly aimed at preventing poverty. Such programs have received scrutiny over whether they ultimately encourage productivity or discourage it.

According to a February working paper from the American Enterprise Institute, over 122 guaranteed basic income pilot programs in the United States allocated roughly $480 million to 40,000 participants between 2017 and 2025. Many of the programs operated on a small scale—about one-third provided payments for 100 or fewer participants.

Kevin Corinth, an AEI senior fellow and one of the authors of the report, explained these programs aim to alleviate poverty. With fixed payments, the argument goes, people might be in a better position to pursue their careers and side hustles. “It’s in theory possible that providing people some more cash would enable them to work more,” Corinth said. But, after analyzing the data from guaranteed income programs in America, Corinth found basic income payments had a “moderately negative” effect on employment.

Still, according to a cost-benefit analysis of Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts Scheme, “society” received about 1.39 euros in benefit for every euro invested in the program, or around $1.60 for every $1.15.

Another argument in favor of basic income programs: extra money benefits children. In 2022, Washington state’s Department of Social and Health Services found that guaranteed income improved enrollment and attendance. Corinth agrees that children benefit when their families receive government funding. “However, it does seem to matter how those resources are provided,” he said. “The best evidence we have of more resources helping kids is when those resources are attached to work.”

Despite the limited evidence of the success of basic income programs, some groups believe everyone, not just artists, should be eligible. Although universal basic income remains a fairly fringe idea, “I think there is growing support,” Corinth said. Pope Francis even advocated for the idea in a 2020 letter.

Popularized by 2020 presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, a universal basic income would provide a monthly stipend for each American citizen. Yang’s Freedom Dividend, for example, proposed giving all Americans $1,000 a month with no conditions. Yang argued that the money could support the economy in the event that artificial intelligence programs replace human employees.

Allison Schrager, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, says it’s premature to prescribe universal basic income for the problem of AI-related job loss. “We’ve never seen a job impact like that,” she said. “It makes more sense to retrain [workers] and get them into other jobs.”

Arguments about a theoretical AI job takeover aside, universal basic income would be unreasonably expensive, costing several trillion dollars per year.

“There’s this idea that if people don’t have to work at Starbucks, they’ll become Mozart or something,” Schrager said, adding that’s not necessarily a fair assumption.

Lisa Tierney-Keogh received her last Basic Income for the Arts pilot program payment in February. “For some people it was literally a financial lifeline,” she said. “And I know people who are no longer receiving it that are now leaving the arts.”

Tierney-Keogh argues that supporting artists is good for her country in the long run. “Irish culture has had a big impact on the world,” she said. “But if you don’t support those artists then there’s no culture. And if there’s no culture, then people will stop coming to your country.”

She thinks the program could do more to support the creative community if it paid artists continually, as long as they work toward creating art, but she suggests adding some kind of income cap for recipients.

For Tierney-Keogh, the money helped to offset the cost of expenses like medical bills. She doesn’t plan on abandoning her writing now that the payments have stopped. “I’ve got to have more hustles on the table,” she said.