Universal basic income (UBI) is a
social welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet Basic needs, basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refe ...
proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive an unconditional
transfer payment
In macroeconomics and finance, a transfer payment (also called a government transfer or simply transfer) is a redistribution of income and wealth by means of the government making a payment, without goods or services being received in return. Th ...
, that is, without a
means test
A means test is a determination of whether an individual or family is eligible for government assistance or welfare, based upon whether the individual or family possesses the means to do without that help.
Canada
In Canada, means tests are use ...
or need to work. It would be received independently of any other income. If the level is sufficient to meet a person's basic needs (i.e., at or above the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...
), it is sometimes called a full basic income; if it is less than that amount, it may be called a partial basic income.
No country has yet introduced either, although there have been
numerous pilot projects and the idea is
discussed in many countries. Some have labelled UBI as
utopian
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
due to its historical origin.
There are several welfare arrangements which can be considered similar to basic income, although they are not unconditional. Many countries have a system of
child benefit
Child benefit or children's allowance is a social security payment which is distributed to the parents or guardians of children, teenagers and in some cases, young adults. A number of countries operate different versions of the program. In most co ...
, which is essentially a basic income for guardians of children.
Pension
A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...
may be a basic income for retired persons. There are also quasi-basic income programs that are limited to certain population groups or time periods, like
Bolsa Familia Bolsa or Pelota may refer to
*Bolsa de Valores (disambiguation), a stock exchange in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries
*Bank of London and South America
*La Bolsa, a town in Uruguay
*Juan Bolsa, a character in the US TV series ''Breaking B ...
in Brazil, which is concentrated on the poor, or the Thamarat Program in Sudan, which was introduced by the transitional government to ease the effects of the economic crisis inherited from the Bashir regime. Likewise, the
economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching economic consequences including the COVID-19 recession, the second largest global recession in recent history, decreased business in the services sector during the COVID-19 lockdowns, the 2020 stock ...
prompted some countries to send direct payments to its citizens. The
Alaska Permanent Fund
The Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) is a constitutionally established permanent fund managed by a state-owned corporation, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC). It was established in Alaska in 1976 by Article 9, Section 15 of the Alaska Stat ...
is a fund for all residents of the U.S. state of Alaska which averages $1,600 annually (in 2019 currency), and is sometimes described as the only example of a real basic income in practice. A
negative income tax
In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level pay money to the state while earners below it receive money, as ...
(NIT) can be viewed as a basic income for certain income groups in which citizens receive less and less money until this effect is reversed the more a person earns.
Early historical examples of basic income-like events date back to antiquity, and first proposals to introduce an unconditionally paid income for all citizens were developed and disseminated between the 16th and 18th centuries. After the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, public awareness and support for the concept increased. At least since the mid-20th century, basic income has repeatedly been the subject of political debates. In the 21st century, several discussions are related to the debate about basic income, including those regarding
automation
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...
,
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
(AI), and the future of the necessity of work. A key issue in these debates is whether automation and AI will significantly
reduce the number of available jobs and whether a basic income could help prevent or alleviate such problems by allowing everyone to benefit from a society's wealth, as well as whether a UBI could be a stepping stone to a
resource-based or
post-scarcity economy
Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.
Post-scarcity does not mean that scarc ...
.
History
Antiquity
In a 46 BC
triumph
The Roman triumph (Latin triumphus) was a celebration for a victorious military commander in ancient Rome. For later imitations, in life or in art, see Trionfo. Numerous later uses of the term, up to the present, are derived directly or indirectl ...
,
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
general and dictator
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
gave each
common Roman citizen 100
denarii
The denarius (, dēnāriī ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the antoninianus. It continued to be minted in very sm ...
. Following
his assassination in 44 BC, Caesar's will left 300
sestertii
The ''sestertius'' (plural ''sestertii''), or sesterce (plural sesterces), was an ancient Roman coin. During the Roman Republic it was a small, silver coin issued only on rare occasions. During the Roman Empire it was a large brass coin.
The n ...
(or 75 denarii) to each citizen.
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
, emperor of
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
from 98–117 AD, personally gave 650 denarii (equivalent to perhaps US$260 in 2002) to all common Roman citizens who applied.
16th to 18th century
In his ''
Utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
'' (1516), English statesman and philosopher
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...
depicts a society in which every person receives a guaranteed income. In this book, basic income is proposed as an answer to the statement "No penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it's their only way of getting food", stating:
instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief, and then a corpse.
Spanish scholar
Johannes Ludovicus Vives (1492–1540) proposed that the municipal government should be responsible for securing a subsistence minimum to all its residents "not on the grounds of justice but for the sake of a more effective exercise of morally required charity." Vives also argued that to qualify for poor relief, the recipient must "deserve the help he or she gets by proving his or her willingness to work." In the late 18th century, English
Radical
Radical may refer to:
Politics and ideology Politics
*Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change
*Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...
Thomas Spence
Thomas Spence ( 17508 September 1814) was an English RadicalProperty in Land Every One's Rightin 1775. It was re-issued as ''The Real Rights of Man'' in later editions. It was also reissued by, amongst others, Henry Hyndman under the title o ...
and English-born American philosopher
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
both had ideas in the same direction.
Paine authored ''Common Sense'' (1776) and ''The American Crisis'' (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
. He is also the author of ''Agrarian Justice'', published in 1797. In it, he proposed concrete reforms to abolish poverty. In particular, he proposed a universal social insurance system comprising old-age pensions and disability support and universal stakeholder grants for young adults, funded by a 10% inheritance tax focused on land.
Early 20th century
Around 1920, support for basic income started growing, primarily in England.
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
(1872–1970) argued for a new social model that combined the advantages of socialism and anarchism, and that basic income should be a vital component in that new society.
Dennis and Mabel Milner, a Quaker married couple of the Labour Party, published a short pamphlet entitled "Scheme for a State Bonus" (1918) that argued for the "introduction of an income paid unconditionally on a weekly basis to all citizens of the United Kingdom." They considered it a moral right for everyone to have the means to subsistence, and thus it should not be conditional on work or willingness to work.
C. H. Douglas was an engineer who became concerned that most British citizens could not afford to buy the goods that were produced, despite the rising productivity in British industry. His solution to this paradox was a new social system he called
social credit
Social credit is a distributive philosophy of political economy developed by C. H. Douglas. Douglas attributed economic downturns to discrepancies between the cost of goods and the compensation of the workers who made them. To combat what he ...
, a combination of monetary reform and basic income.
In 1944 and 1945, the
Beveridge Committee
The Beveridge Report, officially entitled ''Social Insurance and Allied Services'' (Command paper, Cmd. 6404), is a government report, published in November 1942, influential in the founding of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It was draft ...
, led by the British economist
William Beveridge
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 194 ...
, developed a proposal for a comprehensive new welfare system of social insurance, means-tested benefits, and unconditional allowances for children. Committee member Lady Rhys-Williams argued that the incomes for adults should be more like a basic income. She was also the first to develop the
negative income tax
In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level pay money to the state while earners below it receive money, as ...
model.
Her son Brandon Rhys Williams proposed a basic income to a parliamentary committee in 1982, and soon after that in 1984, the Basic Income Research Group, now the Citizen's Basic Income Trust, began to conduct and disseminate research on basic income.
Late 20th century
In his 1964
State of the Union
The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning of each calendar year on the current conditio ...
address, U.S. President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
introduced legislation to fight the "
war on poverty
The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national p ...
". Johnson believed in expanding the federal government's roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies. In this political climate the idea of a guaranteed income for every American also took root. Notably, a document, signed by 1200 economists, called for a guaranteed income for every American. Six ambitious basic income experiments started up on the related concept of negative income tax. Succeeding President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
explained its purpose as "to provide both a safety net for the poor and a financial incentive for welfare recipients to work."
Congress eventually approved a
guaranteed minimum income
Guaranteed minimum income (GMI), also called minimum income (or mincome for short), is a social-welfare system that guarantees all citizens or families an income sufficient to live on, provided that certain eligibility conditions are met, typical ...
for the elderly and the disabled.
In the mid-1970s the main competitor to basic income and negative income tax, the
Earned income tax credit
The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depends ...
(EITC), or its advocates, won over enough legislators for the US Congress to pass laws on that policy. In 1986, the Basic Income European Network, later renamed to
Basic Income Earth Network
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
(BIEN), was founded, with academic conferences every second year.
Other advocates included the
green political movement, as well as activists and some groups of unemployed people.
[Blaschke, Ronald (January 2010)]
"The basic income debate in Germany and some basic reflections"
In the latter part of the 20th century, discussions were held around automatization and jobless growth, the possibility of combining economic growth with ecological sustainable development, and how to reform the welfare state bureaucracy. Basic income was interwoven in these and many other debates. During the BIEN academic conferences there were papers about basic income from a wide variety of perspectives, including economics, sociology, and human right approaches.
21st century
In recent years the idea has come to the forefront more than before. The
Swiss referendum about basic income in Switzerland 2016 was covered in media worldwide, despite its rejection. Famous business people like
Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Bori ...
,
Pierre Omidyar
Pierre Morad Omidyar (born Parviz Morad Omidyar, June 21, 1967) is a French-born Iranian-American billionaire. A technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist, he is the founder of eBay, where he served as chairman from 199 ...
, and
Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American businessman, attorney, lobbyist, and politician. Yang was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary. He is the co-c ...
have lent their support, as have high-profile politicians like
Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
and
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard (; born April 12, 1981) is an American politician, United States Army Reserve officer and political commentator who served as the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021. Gabbard was the firs ...
.
In 2019, in California, then-Stockton Mayor
Michael Tubbs
Michael Derrick Tubbs (born August 2, 1990) is an American politician who is currently serving as a special adviser for economic mobility and opportunity for Governor Gavin Newsom. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 79t ...
initiated an 18-month pilot program of guaranteed income for 125 residents as part of the privately-funded S.E.E.D. project there.
In the US 2020 Democratic Party primaries, political newcomer Andrew Yang touted basic income as his core policy. His policy, referred to as a "
Freedom Dividend", would have provided American citizens US$1,000 a month.
On January 21, 2021, in California, the two-year donor-funded Compton Pledge began distributing monthly guaranteed income payments to a “pre-verified” pool of low-income residents, in a program gauged for a maximum of 800 recipients, at which point it will be one of the larger among 25 U.S. cities exploring this approach to community economics.
Beginning in December, 2021,
Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...
piloted "Growing Resilience in Tacoma" (GRIT), a guaranteed income initiative which provides $500 a month to 110 families. GRIT is part of the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
's Center for Guaranteed Income Research larger study. A report on the results of the GRIT experiment will be published in 2024.
Response to COVID-19
As a response to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
and related
economic impact
An economic impact analysis (EIA) examines the effect of an event on the economy in a specified area, ranging from a single neighborhood to the entire globe. It usually measures changes in business revenue, business profits, personal wages, and ...
, universal basic income and similar proposals such as
helicopter money
Helicopter money is a proposed unconventional monetary policy, sometimes suggested as an alternative to quantitative easing (QE) when the economy is in a liquidity trap (when interest rates near zero and the economy remains in recession). Althoug ...
and
cash transfer
A cash transfer is a direct transfer payment of money to an eligible person. Cash transfers are either unconditional cash transfers or conditional cash transfers. They may be provided by organisations funded by private donors, or a local or re ...
s were increasingly discussed across the world. Most countries implemented forms of partial unemployment schemes, which effectively subsidized workers' incomes without a work requirement. Around ninety countries including the United States, Spain, Hong Kong and Japan introduced temporary direct cash transfer programs to their citizens.
In Europe, a petition calling for an "emergency basic income" gathered more than 200,000 signatures, and polls suggested widespread support in public opinion for it. Unlike the various stimulus packages of the US administration, the EU's stimulus plans did not include any form of income-support policies.
Pope Francis
Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...
has stated in response to the economic harm done to workers by the pandemic that "this may be the time to consider a universal basic wage".
Basic income vs negative income tax
The diagram shows a basic income/negative tax system combined with
flat income tax
A flat tax (short for flat-rate tax) is a tax with a single rate on the taxable amount, after accounting for any deductions or exemptions from the tax base. It is not necessarily a fully proportional tax. Implementations are often progressiv ...
(the same percentage in tax for every income level).
Y is here the pre-tax salary given by the employer and ''y is the net income.
''Negative income tax''
For low earnings there is no income tax in the negative income tax system. They receive money, in the form of a negative income tax, but they don't pay any tax. Then, as their labour income increases, this benefit, this money from the state, gradually decreases. That decrease is to be seen as a mechanism for the poor, instead of the poor paying tax.
''Basic income''
That is however not the case in the corresponding basic income system in the diagram. There everyone typically pays income taxes. But on the other hand everyone also gets the same amount in basic income.
''But the net income is the same''
But, as the orange line in the diagram shows, the net income is anyway the same. No matter how much or how little one earns, the amount of money one gets in one's pocket is the same, regardless of which of these two systems is used.
Basic income and negative income tax are generally seen to be similar in economic net effects, but there are some differences:
* ''Psychological''. Philip Harvey accepts that "both systems would have the same redistributive effect and tax earned income at the same marginal rate" but does not agree that "the two systems would be perceived by taxpayers as costing the same".
[Philip Harvey, "The Relative Cost of a Universal Basic Income and a Negative Income Tax" (2006).]
* ''Tax profile''.
Tony Atkinson
Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson (4 September 1944 – 1 January 2017) was a British economist, Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, and senior research fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.
A student of James Meade, Atkinson vir ...
made a distinction based on whether the tax profile was flat (for basic income) or variable (for NIT).
* ''Timing''.
Philippe Van Parijs
Philippe Van Parijs (; born 1951) is a Belgian political philosopher and political economist, best known as a proponent and main defender of the concept of an unconditional basic income and for the first systematic treatment of linguistic jus ...
states that "the economic equivalence between the two programs should not hide that the fact that they have different effects on recipients because of the different timing of payments: ''ex-ante'' in Basic Income, ''ex-post'' in Negative Income Tax".
Perspectives and arguments
Automation
One central rationale for basic income is the belief that
automation
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...
and robotisation could result in
technological unemployment
Technological unemployment is the loss of jobs caused by technological change. It is a key type of structural unemployment.
Technological change typically includes the introduction of labour-saving "mechanical-muscle" machines or more efficie ...
, leading to a world with fewer paid jobs. A key question in this context is whether a basic income could help prevent or alleviate such problems by allowing everyone to benefit from a society's wealth, as well as whether a UBI could be a stepping stone to a
resource-based or
post-scarcity economy
Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.
Post-scarcity does not mean that scarc ...
.
U.S. presidential candidate and nonprofit founder
Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang (born January 13, 1975) is an American businessman, attorney, lobbyist, and politician. Yang was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary. He is the co-c ...
has stated that automation caused the loss of 4 million manufacturing jobs and advocated for a UBI (which he calls a
Freedom Dividend) of $1,000/month rather than worker retraining programs. Yang has stated that he is heavily influenced by
Martin Ford. Ford, in his turn, believes that the emerging technologies will fail to deliver a lot of employment; on the contrary, because the new industries will "rarely, if ever, be highly labor-intensive".
Similar ideas have been debated many times before in history—that "the machines will take the jobs"—so the argument is not new. But what is quite new is the existence of several academic studies that do indeed forecast a future with substantially less employment, in the decades to come.
Additionally, President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
has stated that he believes that the growth of artificial intelligence will lead to increased discussion around the idea of "unconditional free money for everyone".
Economics and costs
Some proponents of UBI have argued that basic income could increase
economic growth
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate of ...
because it would sustain people while they invest in education to get higher-skilled and well-paid jobs.
[Tanner, Michael. "The Pros and Cons of a Guaranteed National Income." Policy Analysis. ]Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Indust ...
, 12 May 2015, Web. 2, 7 March 2016.[Sheahen, Allan. Basic Income Guarantee: Your Right to Economic Security. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.] However, there is also a discussion of basic income within the
degrowth
Degrowth (french: décroissance) is a term used for both a political, economic, and social movement as well as a set of theories that critique the paradigm of economic growth. It can be described as an extensive framework that is based on crit ...
movement, which argues against economic growth.
Advocates contend that the guaranteed financial security of an UBI will increase the population's willingness to take risks, which would create a culture of inventiveness and strengthen the entrepreneurial spirit.
The costs of a basic income is one of the biggest questions in the public debate as well as in the research and depends on many things. It first and foremost depends on the level of the basic income as such, and it also depends on many technical points regarding exactly how it is constructed.
While opponents claim that a basic income at an adequate level for all citizens cannot be financed, its supporters propose that it could indeed be financed, with some advocating a strong
redistribution and restructuring of bureaucracy and administration for this purpose.
American economist
Karl Widerquist argues that simply multiplying the amount of the grant by the population would be a naive calculation, as this is the gross costs of UBI and does not take into account that UBI is a system where people pay taxes on a regular basis and receive the grant at the same time.
According to Swiss economist
Thomas Straubhaar
Thomas Straubhaar (born August 2, 1957) is a Swiss economist and migration researcher. He is a professor for international economic relations at the University of Hamburg.
Life and career
Straubhaar was born on August 2, 1957 in Unterseen, Bern ...
, the concept of UBI is basically financeable without any problems. He describes it as "at its core, nothing more than a fundamental tax reform" that "bundles all social policy measures into a single instrument, the basic income paid out unconditionally."
He also considers a universal basic income to be socially just, arguing, although all citizens would receive the same amount in the form of the basic income at the beginning of the month, the rich would have lost significantly more money through taxes at the end of the month than they would have received through the basic income, while the opposite is the case for poorer people, similar to the concept of a progressive
negative income tax
In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level pay money to the state while earners below it receive money, as ...
.
Work
Many critics of basic income argue that people in general will work less, which in turn means less tax revenue and less money for the state and local governments.
Although it is difficult to know for sure what will happen if a whole country introduces basic income, there are nevertheless some studies who have attempted to look at this question:
* In negative income tax experiments in the United States in the 1970 there was a five percent decline in the hours worked. The work reduction was largest for second earners in two-earner households and weakest for primary earners. The reduction in hours was higher when the benefit was higher.
* In the
Mincome
Mincome, the "Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment", was a Canadian guaranteed annual income (GAI) social experiment conducted in Manitoba in the 1970s. The project was funded jointly by the Manitoba provincial government and the Canadian fede ...
experiment in rural Dauphin, Manitoba, also in the 1970s, there were slight reductions in hours worked during the experiment. However, the only two groups who worked significantly less were new mothers, and teenagers working to support their families. New mothers spent this time with their infant children, and working teenagers put significant additional time into their schooling.
* A study from 2017 showed no evidence that people worked less because of the
Iranian subsidy reform (a basic income-reform).
Regarding the question of basic income vs jobs there is also the aspect of so-called welfare traps. Proponents of basic income often argue that with a basic income, unattractive jobs would necessarily have to be better paid and their working conditions improved, so that people still do them without need, reducing these traps.
Philosophy and morality
By definition, universal basic income does not make a distinction between "deserving" and "undeserving" individuals when making payments. Opponents argue that this lack of discrimination is unfair: "Those who genuinely choose idleness or unproductive activities cannot expect those who have committed to doing productive work to subsidize their livelihood. Responsibility is central to fairness."
Proponents usually view UBI as a fundamental human right that enables an
adequate standard of living which every citizen should have access to in a modern society. It would be a kind of foundation guaranteed for everyone, on which one could build and never fall below that subsistence level.
It is also argued that this lack of discrimination between those who supposedly deserve it and those who don't is a way to reduce
social stigma
Social stigma is the disapproval of, or discrimination against, an individual or group based on perceived characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of a society. Social stigmas are commonly related to culture, gender, rac ...
.
In addition, proponents of UBI may argue that the "deserving" and "undeserving" categories are a superficial classification, as people who are not in a regular gainful employment also contribute to society, e.g. by raising children, caring for people, or doing other value-creating activities which are not institutionalized. UBI would provide a balance here and thus overcomes a concept of work that is reduced to pure gainful employment and disregards sideline activities too much.
Health and poverty
The first comprehensive systematic review of the health impact of basic income (or rather unconditional cash transfers in general) in low- and middle-income countries, a study which included 21 studies of which 16 were randomized controlled trials, found a clinically meaningful reduction in the likelihood of being sick by an estimated 27%. Unconditional cash transfers, according to the study, may also improve food security and dietary diversity. Children in recipient families are also more likely to attend school and the cash transfers may increase money spent on health care.
A 2022 update of this landmark review confirmed these findings based on a grown body of evidence (35 studies, the majority being large
randomized controlled trials
A randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical te ...
) and additionally found sufficient evidence that unconditional cash transfers also reduce the likelihood of living in
extreme poverty
Extreme poverty, deep poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, includi ...
.
The
Canadian Medical Association
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA; french: Association médicale canadienne, AMC) is a national, voluntary association of physicians and medical learners that advocates on national health matters. Its primary mandate is to drive positive ch ...
passed a motion in 2015 in clear support of basic income and for basic income trials in Canada.
Advocates
Pilot programs and experiments
Since the 1960s, but in particular since the late 2000s, several pilot programs and experiments on basic income have been conducted. Some examples include:
1960s−1970s
* Experiments with
negative income tax
In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level pay money to the state while earners below it receive money, as ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
in the 1960s and 1970s.
* The province of
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
, Canada experimented with
Mincome
Mincome, the "Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment", was a Canadian guaranteed annual income (GAI) social experiment conducted in Manitoba in the 1970s. The project was funded jointly by the Manitoba provincial government and the Canadian fede ...
, a basic guaranteed income, in the 1970s. In the town of
Dauphin,
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
, labor only decreased by 13%, much less than expected.
2000−2009
* The basic income grant in
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
launched in 2008 and ended in 2009.
* An independent pilot implemented in
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...
,
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
launched in 2009.
2010−2019
* Basic income trials run in 2011-2012 in several villages in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, whose government has proposed a guaranteed basic income for all citizens.
It was found that basic income in the region raised the education rate of young people by 25%.
*
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
introduced a national basic income program in autumn 2010. It is paid to all citizens and replaces the gasoline subsidies, electricity and some food products, that the country applied for years to reduce inequalities and poverty. The sum corresponded in 2012 to approximately US$40 per person per month, US$480 per year for a single person and US$2,300 for a family of five people.
* In
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, the ''ingreso mínimo vital'', the income guarantee system, is an economic benefit guaranteed by the
social security in Spain
The social security system (Spanish: ''seguridad social'') in Spain is its principal system of social protection. The concept of social security first appeared in Spain in 1883 under the Committee for Social Reform, it was expanded several times du ...
, but in 2016 was considered in need of reform.
*In
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
the Youth Allowance Program was started in 2016 in the City of
Seongnam
Seongnam () is the fourth largest city in South Korea's Gyeonggi Province after Suwon and the 10th largest city in the country. Its population is approximately one million. Seongnam is a satellite city of Seoul. It is largely a residential cit ...
, which would give every 24-year-old citizen 250,000
won (~215 USD) every quarter in the form of a “local currency” that could only be used in local businesses. This program was later expanded to the entire Province of
Gyeonggi
Gyeonggi-do (, ) is the most populous province in South Korea. Its name, ''Gyeonggi'', means "京 (the capital) and 畿 (the surrounding area)". Thus, ''Gyeonggi-do'' can be translated as "Seoul and the surrounding areas of Seoul". Seoul, the na ...
in 2018.
* The
GiveDirectly
GiveDirectly is a nonprofit organization operating in East Africa that helps families living in extreme poverty by making unconditional cash transfers to them via mobile phone. GiveDirectly transfers funds primarily to people in Kenya, Uganda, ...
experiment in a disadvantaged village of
Nairobi
Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...
,
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
, the longest-running basic income pilot as of November 2017, which is set to run for 12 years.
* A project called Eight in a village in
Fort Portal
Fort Portal or Kabarole is a city located in the Western Region of Uganda. It is the seat of both Kabarole District and historically of the Toro Kingdom.
Location
Fort Portal in Kabarole District is located approximately by road, west of Kampal ...
,
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
, that a nonprofit organization launched in January 2017, which provides income for 56 adults and 88 children through mobile money.
* A two-year pilot the
Finnish government
sv, Finlands statsråd
, border =
, image = File:Finnish Government logo.png
, image_size = 250
, caption =
, date =
, state = Republic of Finland
, polity =
, coun ...
began in January 2017 which involved 2,000 subjects In April 2018, the Finnish government rejected a request for funds to extend and expand the program from
Kela (
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
's
social security
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
agency).
* An experiment in the city of
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
,
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
launched in early 2017, that is testing different rates of aid.
* A three-year
basic income pilot that the
Ontario provincial government,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, launched in the cities of
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to:
People
* Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname
** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland
** Lord Hamilt ...
,
Thunder Bay
Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population ...
and
Lindsay in July 2017. Although called basic income, it was only made available to those with a low income and funding would be removed if they obtained employment, making it more related to the current welfare system than true basic income. The pilot project was canceled on 31 July 2018 by the newly elected
Progressive Conservative government under
Ontario Premier Doug Ford
Douglas Robert Ford Jr. (born November 20, 1964) is a Canadian politician and businessman who has served as the 26th and current premier of Ontario since June 2018 and leader of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party since March 2018. He ...
.
*In
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, in 2018 a non-profit initiative GoodDollar started with an objective to build a global economic framework for providing universal, sustainable and scalable basic income through new digital asset technology of blockchain. The non-profit aims to launch a peer-to-peer money transfer network in which money can be distributed to those most in need, regardless of their location, based on the principles of UBI. The project raised US$1 million from
eToro
eToro is an Israeli social trading and multi-asset Investment management, investment company that focuses on providing Financial trading, financial and copy trading services. Its headquarters are located in Central District (Israel), Central I ...
.
* The
Rythu Bandhu scheme
Rythu Bandhu scheme also Farmer's Investment Support Scheme (FISS) is a welfare program to support farmer’s investment for two crops a year by the Government of Telangana. The government is providing 58.33 lakh (5.8 million) farmers ₹5000 per ...
is a welfare scheme started in the state of
Telangana, India
Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 35 ...
, in May 2018, aimed at helping farmers. Each farm owner receives 4,000 INR per acre twice a year for
rabi Rabi may refer to:
Places
* Rábí, a castle in the Czech Republic
* Rabí, a village in the Czech Republic
* Räbi, a village in Estonia
* Rabi, Panchthar, a village development committee in Nepal
* Rabi Island, a volcanic island in northern F ...
and
kharif
Kharif crops, also known as monsoon crops or autumn crops, are domesticated plants that are cultivated and harvested in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh during the Indian subcontinent's monsoon season, which lasts from June to November depending o ...
harvests. To finance the program a budget allocation of 120 billion INR (US$1.55 Billion as of May 2022) was made in the 2018–2019 state budget.
2020−present
* Swiss non-profit Social Income started paying out basic incomes in the form of mobile money in 2020 to people in need in
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...
. Contributions finance the international initiative from people worldwide, who donate 1% of their monthly paychecks.
* In May 2020,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
introduced minimum basic income, reaching about 2% of the population, in response to COVID-19 in order to "fight a spike in poverty due to the coronavirus pandemic". It is expected to cost state coffers three billion euros ($3.5 billion) a year."
* In August 2020,
Mein Grundeinkommen, a project in Germany started that gives a 1,200 Euros monthly basic income in a lottery system to citizens who apply online. The
crowdsourced
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
project will last three years and be compared against 1,380 people who do not receive basic income.
* In October 2020, HudsonUP was launched in
Hudson, New York
Hudson is a city and the county seat of Columbia County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 5,894. Located on the east side of the Hudson River and 120 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, it was named for the rive ...
, by The Spark of Hudson and Humanity Forward Foundation to give $500 monthly basic income to 25 residents. It will last five years and be compared against 50 people who are not receiving basic income.
* In May 2021, the government of
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, which has devolved powers in matters of Social Welfare within the
UK, announced the trialling of a universal basic income scheme to "see whether the promises that basic income holds out are genuinely delivered".
From July 2022 over 500 people leaving care in Wales were offered £1600 per month in a 3 year £20 million pilot scheme, to evaluate the effect on the lives of those involved in the hope of providing independence and security to people.
Payments with similarities
Alaska Permanent Fund
The Permanent Fund of Alaska in the United States provides a kind of yearly basic income based on the oil and gas revenues of the state to nearly all state residents. More precisely the fund resembles a
sovereign wealth fund
A sovereign wealth fund (SWF), sovereign investment fund, or social wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, or in alternative investments such ...
, investing resource revenues into
bonds,
stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
s, and other conservative investment options with the intent to generate renewable revenue for future generations. The fund has had a noticeable yet diminishing effect on reducing poverty among rural Alaska Indigenous people, notably in the elderly population. However, the payment is not high enough to cover basic expenses, averaging $1,600 annually per resident in 2019 currency
(it has never exceeded $2,100), and is not a fixed, guaranteed amount. For these reasons, it is not always considered a basic income. However, some consider it to be the only example of a real basic income.
Wealth Partaking Scheme
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
's Wealth Partaking Scheme provides some annual basic income to permanent residents, funded by revenues from the city's casinos. However, the amount disbursed is not sufficient to cover basic living expenses, so it is not considered a basic income.
Bolsa Família
Bolsa Família is a large social welfare program in Brazil that provides money to many low-income families in the country. The system is related to basic income, but has more conditions, like asking the recipients to keep their children in school until graduation. As of March 2020, the program covers 13.8 million families, and pays an average of $34 per month, in a country where the
minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. Bec ...
is $190 per month.
Other welfare programs
*
Pension
A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...
: A payment which in some countries is guaranteed to all citizens above a certain age. The difference from true basic income is that it is restricted to people over a certain age.
*
Child benefit
Child benefit or children's allowance is a social security payment which is distributed to the parents or guardians of children, teenagers and in some cases, young adults. A number of countries operate different versions of the program. In most co ...
: A program similar to pensions but restricted to parents of children, usually allocated based on the number of children.
*
Conditional cash transfer: A regular payment given to families, but only to the poor. It is usually dependent on basic conditions such as sending their children to school or having them vaccinated. Programs include
Bolsa Família
Bolsa Família (, ''Family Allowance'') was a social welfare program of the Government of Brazil, part of the Fome Zero network of federal assistance programs. Bolsa Família provided financial aid to poor Brazilian families. In order to be el ...
in Brazil and
Programa Prospera in Mexico.
*
Guaranteed minimum income
Guaranteed minimum income (GMI), also called minimum income (or mincome for short), is a social-welfare system that guarantees all citizens or families an income sufficient to live on, provided that certain eligibility conditions are met, typical ...
differs from a basic income in that it is restricted to those in search of work and possibly other restrictions, such as savings being below a certain level. Example programs are
unemployment benefits
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployment, unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are fun ...
in the UK, the
revenu de solidarité active
The Revenu de solidarité active (RSA) is a French form of in work welfare benefit aimed at reducing the barrier to return to work. It was implemented on 1 June 2009 by the French government.
RSA replaces the Revenu minimum d'insertion; its goal i ...
in France and
citizens' income in Italy.
Petitions, polls and referendums
* 2008: An official petition for basic income was launched in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
by
Susanne Wiest
Susanne Wiest (born 16 January 1967) is a German activist for the unconditional basic income.
A childcare worker, Susanne Wiest is known in Germany for having launched a petition to the German Parliament asking for the implementation of a basic ...
. The petition was accepted, and Susanne Wiest was invited for a hearing at the German parliament's Commission of Petitions. After the hearing, the petition was closed as "unrealizable".
* 2013–2014: A
European Citizens' Initiative
The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) is a European Union (EU) mechanism aimed at increasing direct democracy by enabling "EU citizens to participate directly in the development of EU policies", introduced with the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007. The ...
collected 280,000 signatures demanding that the
European Commission
The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
study the concept of an unconditional basic income.
* 2015: A citizen's initiative in Spain received 185,000 signatures, short of the required number to mandate that the Spanish parliament discuss the proposal.
* 2016: The world's first universal
basic income referendum in
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
on 5 June 2016 was rejected with a 76.9% majority.
Also in 2016, a poll showed that 58% of the EU's population is aware of basic income, and 64% would vote in favour of the idea.
* 2017: ''Politico''/Morning Consult asked 1,994 Americans about their opinions on several political issues including national basic income; 43% either "strongly supported" or "somewhat supported" the idea.
*2018: The results of a poll by
Gallup conducted last year between September and October were published. 48% of respondents supported universal basic income.
*2019: In November, an Austrian initiative received approximately 70,000 signatures but failed to reach the 100,000 signatures needed for a parliamentary discussion. The initiative was started by Peter Hofer. His proposal suggested a basic income of
€
The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...
1,200 for every Austrian citizen.
*2020: A study by
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
found that 71% of Europeans are now in favour of basic income. The study was conducted in March, with 12,000 respondents and in 27 EU-member states and the UK. A
YouGov
YouGov is a British international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, headquartered in the UK, with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. In 2007, it acquired US company Polimetrix, and sinc ...
poll likewise found a majority for universal basic income in
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
and a poll by
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
found that 51% of Americans aged 18–36 support a monthly basic income of $1,000. In the UK there was also a letter, signed by over 170
MPs and
Lords from multiple political parties, calling on the government to introduce a universal basic income during the COVID-19 pandemic.
*2020: A
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American think tank (referring to itself as a "fact tank") based in Washington, D.C.
It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the w ...
survey, conducted online in August 2020, of 11,000 U.S. adults found that a majority (54%) oppose the federal government providing a guaranteed income of $1,000 per month to all adults, while 45% support it.
*2020: In a poll by
Hill-HarrisX
''The Hill'' is an American newspaper and digital media company based in Washington, D.C. that was founded in 1994.
Focusing on politics, policy, business and international relations, ''The Hill''s coverage includes the U.S. Congress, the presid ...
, 55% of Americans voted in favour of UBI in August, up from 49% in September 2019 and 43% in February 2019.
*2020: The results of an online survey of 2,031 participants conducted in 2018 in Germany were published: 51% were either "very much in favor" or "in favor" of UBI being introduced.
*2021: A
Change.org
Change.org is a worldwide nonprofit petition website, based in California, US, operated by the San Francisco-based company of the same name, which has over 400 million users and offers the public the ability to promote the petitions they care abo ...
petition calling for monthly stimulus checks in the amount of $2,000 per adult and $1,000 per child for the remainder of the COVID-19 pandemic had received almost 3 million signatures.
See also
*
Citizen's dividend
Citizen's dividend is a proposed policy based upon the Georgist principle that the natural world is the common property of all people. It is proposed that all citizens receive regular payments (dividends) from revenue raised by leasing or taxing ...
*
Economic, social and cultural rights
Economic, social and cultural rights, (ESCR) are socio-economic human rights, such as the right to education, right to housing, right to an adequate standard of living, right to health, victims' rights and the right to science and culture. Econ ...
*
Equality of outcome
Equality of outcome, equality of condition, or equality of results is a political concept which is central to some political ideologies and is used in some political discourse, often in contrast to the term equality of opportunity. It describes a ...
*
Estovers
In English law, an estover is an allowance made to a person out of an estate, or other thing, for his or her support. The word estover can also mean specifically an allowance of wood that a tenant is allowed to take from the commons, for life o ...
*
FairTax § monthly tax rebate
*
Geolibertarianism
Geolibertarianism is a political and economic ideology that integrates libertarianism with Georgism. It favors a taxation system based (as in Georgism) on income derived from land and natural resources instead of on labor, coupled with a mini ...
*
Global basic income
Global basic income or world basic income is the concept of giving everyone in the world a guaranteed minimum income of money on a regular basis. The proposal usually suggests that the basic income be unconditional. Global basic income is part of ...
*
Happiness economics
The economics of happiness or happiness economics is the theoretical, qualitative and quantitative study of happiness and quality of life, including positive and negative affects, well-being, life satisfaction and related concepts – typically t ...
*
Humanistic economics
Humanistic economics is a distinct pattern of economic thought with old historical roots that have been more recently invigorated by E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973). Proponents argue for "persons-firs ...
*
Involuntary unemployment
Involuntary unemployment occurs when a person is unemployed despite being willing to work at the prevailing wage. It is distinguished from voluntary unemployment, where a person refuses to work because their reservation wage is higher than the prev ...
*
Job guarantee
A job guarantee is an economic policy proposal that aims to provide a sustainable solution to inflation and unemployment. Its aim is to create full employment and price stability by having the state promise to hire unemployed workers as an emplo ...
*
Left-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism,Bookchin, Murray; Biehl, Janet (1997). ''The Murray Bookchin Reader''. New York: Cassell. p. 170.Goodway, David (2006). '' Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to ...
*
Limitarianism (ethical)
Limitarianism refers to several different types of ethical theory, ethical theories. Though Limitarianism applies differently to varied fields of study, what is always common is an examination of when it is proper, moral or ethical to interfere ...
*
Living wage
A living wage is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. This is not the same as a subsistence wage, which refers to a biological minimum, or a solidarity wage, which refers to a minimum wage tracking labor ...
*
Moral universalism
Moral universalism (also called moral objectivism) is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for "all similarly situated individuals", regardless of culture, race, sex, religio ...
*
New Cuban economy
The economy of Cuba is a mixed command economy dominated by state-run enterprises. Most of the labor force is employed by the state. In the 1990s, the ruling Communist Party of Cuba encouraged the formation of worker co-operatives and self-empl ...
*
Old Age Security
The Old Age Security (OAS) (SV; french: Sécurité de la vieillesse) program is a universal retirement pension available to most residents and citizens of Canada who have reached 65 years old. This pension is supplemented by the Guaranteed Income ...
*
Post-work society
In futurology, political science, and science fiction, a post-work society is a society in which the nature of work has been radically transformed.
Some post-work theorists imagine the complete automation of all jobs, or at least the Technologic ...
*
Quatinga Velho
Quatinga Velho, or the Consortiun of Basic Income of Citizenship, is an independent basic income pilot conducted by the NPO ReCivitas who experienced payment of an unconditional basic income via direct democracy and funded by direct donations fr ...
*
Rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...
*
Social safety net
The social safety net (SSN) consists of non-contributory assistance existing to improve lives of vulnerable families and individuals experiencing poverty and destitution. Examples of SSNs are previously-contributory social pensions, in-kind and fo ...
*
Speenhamland system
The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law. It was created a ...
*
The Triple Revolution
"The Triple Revolution" was an open memorandum sent to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and other government figures on March 22, 1964. Drafted under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, it was signed by an array ...
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Universal Credit
Universal Credit is a United Kingdom social security payment. It is means-tested and is replacing and combining six benefits for working-age households with a low income: income-related Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker's ...
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Universal value
A value is a universal value if it has the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people. Spheres of human value encompass morality, aesthetic preference, human traits, human endeavour, and social order. Whether universal values exist is ...
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Universalism
Universalism is the philosophical and theological concept that some ideas have universal application or applicability.
A belief in one fundamental truth is another important tenet in universalism. The living truth is seen as more far-reaching th ...
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Wage subsidy
A wage subsidy is a payment to workers by the state, made either directly or through their employers. Its purposes are to redistribute income and to obviate the welfare trap attributed to other forms of relief, thereby reducing unemployment. It is ...
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Welfare capitalism
Welfare capitalism is capitalism that includes social welfare policies and/or the practice of businesses providing welfare services to their employees. Welfare capitalism in this second sense, or industrial paternalism, was centered on industrie ...
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Workfare
Workfare is a governmental plan under which welfare recipients are required to accept public-service jobs or to participate in job training. Many countries around the world have adopted workfare (sometimes implemented as "work-first" policies) to ...
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Working time
Working(laboring) time is the period of time that a person spends at paid labor. Unpaid labor such as personal housework or caring for children or pets is not considered part of the working week.
Many countries regulate the work week by law, s ...
References
Notes
Further reading
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* Bryce Covert, "What Money Can Buy: The promise of a universal basic income – and its limitations", ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', vol. 307, no. 6 (10 / 17 September 2018), pp. 33–35.
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Benjamin M. Friedman
Benjamin Morton Friedman (; born 1944) is an United States of America, American Political economy, political economist, who is the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign ...
, "Born to Be Free" (review of
Philippe Van Parijs
Philippe Van Parijs (; born 1951) is a Belgian political philosopher and political economist, best known as a proponent and main defender of the concept of an unconditional basic income and for the first systematic treatment of linguistic jus ...
and Yannick Vanderborght, ''Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy'',
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...
, 2017), ''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', vol. LXIV, no. 15 (12 October 2017), pp. 39–41.
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John Lanchester
John Henry Lanchester (born 25 February 1962) is a British journalist and novelist. He was born in Hamburg, brought up in Hong Kong and educated in England; between 1972 and 1980 at Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk, then at St John's College, ...
, "Good New Idea: John Lanchester makes the case for Universal Basic Income" (discusses 8 books, published between 2014 and 2019, comprehensively advocating Universal Basic Income), ''
London Review of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews.
History
The ''London Review of ...
'', vol. 41, no. 14 (18 July 2019), pp. 5–8.
*
*
* Ewan McGaughey,
Will Robots Automate Your Job Away? Full Employment, Basic Income, and Economic Democracy (2018
SSRN part 4(2).
*
Ailsa McKay
Ailsa McKay (7 June 1963 – 5 March 2014) was a Scottish economist, government policy adviser, a leading feminist economist and Professor of Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University.
She was noted for her research on gender inequalities an ...
, ''The Future of Social Security Policy: Women, Work and a Citizens Basic Income'', Routledge, 2005, .
* Paul O'Brien, ''Universal Basic Income: Pennies from Heaven'', The History Press, 2017, .
*
Karl Widerquist, Jose Noguera, Yannick Vanderborght, and Jurgen De Wispelaere (editors).
Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research', Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
*
Karl Widerquist, ed.
Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee (book series), Palgrave Macmillan.
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Karl Widerquist''Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No'' New York, Palgrave Macmillan, March 2013
Early drafts of each chapter are available online for free at this link
External links
Basic Income Earth NetworkCitizen’s Basic Income TrustBasic Income IndiaRed Humanista por la Renta Básica Universal
Basic Income Lab (BIL)Unconditional Basic Income Europe*
Wikiversity:Should universal basic income be established?
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