A newly-published report on The Basic Income for the Arts scheme has found the scheme to have positive effects on recipients, such as spending more time on their creative practice, less negative emotions such as depression and anxiety, and being able to ‘make ends meet’ financially.
The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaelteacht, Sport and Media have published a report of the impact of the first year of the Basic Income for the Arts. The research was led by Nadia Fedlkircher and Brian O’Donnell.
The Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) is a pilot research programme. It was developed as a randomised control trial that tracks two groups of randomly selected people: one group is receiving the basic income payment, and the other group (the ‘control’) is not. Since October 2022, the former group, consisting of 2000 artists, have been receiving weekly payments of 325 euro.
The scheme was a recommendation of the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce, which was established to examine how the sector could recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report found that, on average, BIA recipients spent 8 hours more on their creative practice compared to the control group. BIA recipients also invested 550 euro more on average on their craft than the control group, for example on equipment, materials, marketing, and workspaces. BIA recipients were also more likely to score higher in measure of life satisfaction than the control group, and less likely to report feelings of depression or anxiety.
The report identifies “making ends meet” as a key impact of this income, with BIA recipients more likely to be able to ‘make ends meet’ than the control group. One member of the control group is quoted in the report saying: “If people can’t afford basic things like a place to live, how do you expect to focus on creativity and making good quality art work?”
