Bare Minimum? They’re STARVING.
Krishya Nema
B.Sc. Econ (SY)
Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes
Disclaimer: This article has nothing to do with the UK.
Desperate Times Call for…
Starve them. That’s what happens when social value and economic value clash. That’s why most artists, on average, make wages well below the standard. Hans Abbing puts forth several arguments explaining why artists, more often than not, are scraping by. One of the largest disparities he notes is that artists are drawn to the “high status” of art, which leads to ambiguous commercial activities, misguided assumptions that they can “make it big”, and that government subsidies draw artists into the field under the falsehood of financial safety, already worsening an excess supply issue. Most of these reasons can’t be addressed by a scheme, policy, or benefit transfer, which is precisely Abbing’s point.
So in 2022, Ireland decided to do something Hans would most definitely not approve. Ireland decided to get silly with it.
Basic Income for the Arts
For the next part of this article, find your nearest globe and spin it three times, then close your eyes and let your finger land anywhere it wants to. Now, ignore all of that. Welcome to Ireland!
In 2020, the Irish Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, headed by Catherine Martin, set up the “Arts and Culture Recovery Task Force” to assess how the industry should recover from the damage dealt by the pandemic (6 years later, and COVID still haunts us). In their Life Worth Living report it proposed the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA). Ireland thus has gone on to pioneer a policy that aims to provide subsistence income for its artists. Before we assess the effectiveness of the policy, let’s get a grasp on what the policy constitutes.
The BIA pilot scheme ran from 2022 to 2026, with a total budget allocation of €25,000,000. With applications opening in April, and payments starting from September. The scheme proposed weekly payments of €325 for 3 years (an extension period was granted in July 2025, hence payments continued till February 2026). This income was taxable, but dependent on the person’s individual circumstances. The eligibility criteria include: practising artists, creative arts workers, or applicants who have recently completed their training/degree/certification (within the last 5 years).
This allowed creatives from the visual arts, dance, music, theatre, literature, opera, film, circus, and architecture to apply for the pilot programme. It excludes all those professionals in positions or fields where they are not directly contributing to the art created, interpreted, or exhibited. All those in managerial positions, designers, commercial photographers, craft makers, hospitality, journalism, and technical assistance were not eligible.
The pilot received over 9,000 applications, out of which 8,200 met the eligibility criteria. Finally, 2,000 individuals were randomly selected to be in the treatment group and received weekly payments. The control group consisted of 997 respondents who, alongside the treatment group, answered extensive surveys every six months, starting with a baseline survey in October 2022, with regard to the occurrences of the previous six months.
Outcomes
What was the result of providing artists with supplementary income? Note, while the scheme may be named “basic,” experts and respondents alike commented that with the current housing and rent rates, it is not possible to get by on just BIA payments alone, thus prompting the use of the word “supplementary”.
Coming to the overall statistics, when compared to the control group, BIA artists were able to spend up to 11 hours per week more on their creative endeavours than the control group. These 11 hours were broken down into more than 5.3 hours of making work, 2.9 hours on research and experimentation, more than 1 hour on presenting or performing, almost 1 hour on training related to their practice, and 1 hour on management/administration.
The Irish government has presented its analysis of the outcome of the pilot in the document hyperlinked above, broadly summarising, some major outcomes were noted as follows:
pp = percentage points
- The treatment group is 14 pp more likely to have completed new works in the past 6 months; they produced 3.9 pieces more than the control group on average.
- The BIA recipients spend 3.5 weekly hours less than the control group working in another sector.
- The treatment group is more likely to be able to afford basic necessities. As of October 2024, 50% of the control group faced enforced deprivation (respondents couldn’t afford two or more basic items as defined by the Central Statistics Office), whereas 30% of the BIA recipients reported the same. Again, note that the BIA does not guarantee subsistence and is not a livable amount of income. However, these percentages still remain higher than the general population.
- The programme improved the mental health of BIA recipients. Again, as of October 2024, 75% of the control group reported experiencing feelings of depression or discontentment, against 54% of the treatment group.
- The programme allowed the treatment group to invest more (€333), namely in travel, materials, and workspace on a monthly basis, than the control group as per the CBA report 2025.
One of the major objectives of this measure is to retain Irish talent in the arts sector, the idea was that a basic income would give creative professionals the option to stay, instead of being forced to quit due to financial constraints. According to data (October 2024 will remain the reference period), the number of individuals who did not work in the arts sector in the previous six months rose from 6% to 13.5% in the control group. The percentage of individuals for the same in the treatment group stayed stable at 4 – 5.5%.
So… did it work?
A policy that meets all of its objectives, receives little to no public backlash, doesn’t burden the government financially, and is sustainable for the long term…is nothing short of utopian. The BIA wasn’t HORRIBLE by any means; it recouped more than its net cost, for every €1 of public money invested in the pilot, society received €1.39 in return. The net cost of the BIA pilot went from €105 million to under €72 million due to tax generated and savings on social welfare payments. So, cost-benefit analysis-wise, the BIA is doing alright.
But that’s not enough. What did the people, for whom this scheme was designed to uplift, think? Overall, the BIA became a small door to freedom. The BIA recipients were 10 percentage points more likely to sustain themselves through artistic endeavours, have greater choice in choosing projects better suited for them, and negotiate wages and prices. Their incomes from artistic work increased, and dependence on social protection declined. In the public consultation, which accrued 17,000 responses, 97% of the general public advocated for the permanence and expansion of the BIA.
These numbers, though statistically significant, still feel small. An admirable effort, truly, but one that helps artists scrape by the bare minimum. So far, the main concerns with the programme are that it covers a very small sample of 2,000 artists and that the €325 payment is insufficient. Furthermore, there has been no specification regarding support for artists with disabilities, who already face significant barriers to networking, opportunities, and representation.
According to the same public consultation report, 47% of respondents feel that instead of random selection, recipients should be selected on the basis of economic need. Which, seeing from the CBA report, seems to be a wise decision, as artists from lower-income households benefited the most from the weekly payments. Out of the rest, 37.5% felt that selection should be merit-based. Additionally, the average response for the duration of the programme was 5 years.
Ctrl + C then Ctrl + V?
The BIA, as per the pilot programme, can be understood as an unconditional benefit transfer. Can policies like this be exported to countries like India?
To answer this question, it’s imperative to take a look behind the scenes and understand the political and social backdrop in which the BIA was introduced. First and foremost, the three-party coalition government formed in Ireland in 2020 had put out a broad push for a trial of the Universal Basic Income scheme (UBI). While the BIA doesn’t fit all the necessary criteria to be called a BIA, it fits the central political framework for a UBI and the long-lasting debate in Irish policy circles on such a scheme.
It was largely brought forward by a culmination of factors, such as the relatively low cost (making it politically feasible), advocacy from the interest group, recent political reshaping, and a previous history of schemes that offered direct payments to support artists such as Aosdána and the Social Welfare Scheme for Professional Artists on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JA). Most importantly, the BIA is distinct from other basic income schemes (not like other girls!!) in the sense that it enjoyed majority support from the general Irish public and not just concerned artists.
So coming back to the question, a policy like this isn’t suited for the Indian social and political climate. Not right now. Firstly, India has bigger fish to fry. I don’t mean to say that the arts are less worthy of financial and government aid, but the national appreciation for arts and culture that has translated into policy in Ireland is not as present in India. As a developing country, other sections of the workforce, such as farmers, labourers, gig economy workers, and unemployed educated youth, remain at the forefront of employment-related schemes.
Furthermore, the Irish government enjoys a budget surplus, something India is far from. As per budget allocations (2025-26), the Ministry of Culture was allocated Rs. 3,360.96 crore (0.066% of total budget), out of which a majority has gone to the Archaeological Survey of India. Much of our current grants, schemes, and financial aid is focused on keeping culture and tradition alive, prioritising traditional/classic art forms. Not to mention, India hosts a HUGE population of artists (8% of the working population), in all forms. A BIA scheme would be a massive monetary burden we cannot afford to fund by raising taxes or increasing debt, especially noting India’s small taxpayer base.
And……Scene!
The BIA, in all senses of the word, was the bare minimum, almost. Guaranteeing subsistence income for all is a miracle feat not yet achieved. An economic transformation of the arts in India must start and end with a change in societal outlook. Change how the arts are perceived, and Bob’s your uncle.