Universal basic income (UBI)[note 1] is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a minimum income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, i.e., without a means test or need to work.[2][3][4] In contrast, a guaranteed minimum income is paid only to those who do not already receive an income that is enough to live on. A UBI 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), it is sometimes called a full basic income; if it is less than that amount, it may be called a partial basic income.[5] As of 2024, no country has implemented a full UBI system, but two countries—Mongolia and Iran—have had a partial UBI in the past.[6] There have been numerous pilot projects,[7] and the idea is discussed in many countries. Some have labelled UBI as utopian due to its historical origin.[8][9][10]
There are several welfare arrangements that can be considered similar to basic income, although they are not unconditional. Many countries have a system of child benefit, which is essentially a basic income for guardians of children. A pension 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 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.[11] Likewise, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted some countries to send direct payments to its citizens. The Alaska Permanent Fund 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 (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.[12]
Critics claim that a basic income at an appropriate level for all citizens is not financially feasible, fear that the introduction of a basic income would lead to fewer people working, and/or consider it socially unjust that everyone should receive the same amount of money regardless of their individual needs. Proponents say it is indeed financeable, arguing that such a system, instead of many individual means-tested social benefits, would eliminate much more expensive social administration and bureaucratic efforts, and expect that unattractive jobs would have to be better paid and their working conditions improved because there would have to be an incentive to do them when already receiving an income, which would increase the willingness to work. Advocates also argue that a basic income is fair because it ensures that everyone has a sufficient financial basis to build on and less financial pressure, thus allowing people to find work that suits their interests and strengths.[13]
Early examples of unconditional payments to citizens date back to antiquity, and the first proposals to introduce a regular unconditionally paid income for all citizens were developed and disseminated between the 16th and 18th centuries. After the Industrial Revolution, 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 concerning the automation of large parts of the human workforce through artificial intelligence (AI), and associated questions regarding 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.
Ancient Egypt had a strong, unified theocratic state that owned key parts of the Egyptian economy, including granaries that dispensed grain to the public during hard times.[14]
In his Utopia (1516), English statesman and philosopher Thomas More depicts a society in which every person receives a guaranteed income.[17] 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:[18]
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."[19]
18th century
English-born American philosopher Thomas Paine authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution. His essay, Agrarian Justice,[20] was 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, it is also considered one of the earliest proposals for a social security system. Thomas Paine summarized his view by stating that "Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds." Paine saw inheritance as being partly a common fund and wanted to supplement the citizen's dividend in a tax on inheritance transfers.
In 1797, English RadicalThomas Spence published The Rights of Infants[21] as a response to Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice. In this essay Spence proposes the introduction of an unconditional basic income to all members of the community. Such allowance would be financed through the socialization of land and the benefits of the rents received by each municipality. A part of everyone's earnings would be seized by the State, and given to others.
19th century
Henry George proposed to create a pension and disability system, and a broad social support system from a single tax on land and natural resource value. Social support would be distributed to residents "as a right" instead of as charity. George mentioned, but did not stress, the possibility of direct cash distribution of land rent. His ideas gave rise to the economic philosophy now known as Georgism or the "single tax movement", which is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society.[22][23][24] Some Georgists refer to unconditional basic income funded by the single tax as a citizen's dividend in reference to Thomas Paine's proposal from the 19th Century.
Early 20th century
Around 1920, support for basic income started growing, primarily in England.
Bertrand Russell (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.
In the United Kingdom at the end of World War I, 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.[25][26]
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, a combination of monetary reform and basic income.
In 1944 and 1945, the Beveridge Committee, led by the British economist William Beveridge, 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 model.[27][28] Her son Sir 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.[29]
Late 20th century
Milton Friedman proposed the idea of a negative income tax (NIT), which effectively sanctioned a basic income for all, in his book Capitalism and Freedom published in 1962.[25] In his 1964 State of the Union address, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced legislation to fight the "war on poverty". 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 explained its purpose as "to provide both a safety net for the poor and a financial incentive for welfare recipients to work."[30] Congress eventually approved a guaranteed minimum income for the elderly and the disabled.[30]
In the mid-1970s, the main competitor to basic income and negative income tax, the Earned income tax credit (EITC), and 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 (BIEN), was founded, with academic conferences every second year.[31] Other advocates included the green political movement, as well as activists and some groups of unemployed people.[32]
In the latter part of the 20th century, discussions were held around automatization and jobless growth, the possibility of combining economic growth with ecologically 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 rights approaches.
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.[33] Famous business people like Elon Musk,[34]Pierre Omidyar,[35] and Andrew Yang have lent their support, as have high-profile politicians like Jeremy Corbyn[36] and Tulsi Gabbard.[37] The Institute for Public Policy Research predicted that 59% of tasks currently done by humans could be affected by AI in the next three to five years. Universal basic Income could help fill the gap left by this "jobs apocalypse."[38]
In 2019, in California, then-Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs initiated an 18-month pilot program of guaranteed income for 125 residents as part of the privately funded S.E.E.D. project there.[39]
In the 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 adult American citizens US$1,000 a month independent of employment status.[40]
On 21 January 2021, in California, the two-year donor-funded Compton Pledge[39] began distributing monthly guaranteed income payments to a "pre-verified" pool of low-income residents,[39] 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, piloted "Growing Resilience in Tacoma" (GRIT), a guaranteed income initiative that provides $500 a month to 110 families. GRIT is part of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Guaranteed Income Research larger study. A report on the results of the GRIT experiment will be published in 2024.[41]
Response to COVID-19
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact, universal basic income and similar proposals such as helicopter money and cash transfers were increasingly discussed across the world.[42] Most countries implemented forms of partial unemployment schemes, which effectively subsidized workers' incomes without a work requirement. Around ninety countries and regions including the United States, Spain, Hong Kong, and Japan introduced temporary direct cash transfer programs to their citizens.[43][44]
In Europe, a petition calling for an "emergency basic income" gathered more than 200,000 signatures,[45] and polls suggested widespread support in public opinion for it.[46][47] Unlike the various stimulus packages of the US administration, the EU's stimulus plans did not include any form of income-support policies.[48]
Two ways of looking at basic income when combined with a flat income tax, both of which result in the same net income (orange line): 1. (red) stipend with conventional tax for income above the stipend. 2. (blue) negative tax for low-income people and conventional tax for high-income people.
The diagram shows a basic income/negative tax system combined with flat income tax (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 do not 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 of 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 are 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".[49]:15,13
Tax profile. Tony Atkinson made a distinction based on whether the tax profile was flat (for basic income) or variable (for NIT).[50]
Timing. Philippe Van Parijs states that "the economic equivalence between the two programs should not hide 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".[51]
Perspectives and arguments
Automation
There is a prevailing opinion that we are in an era of technological unemployment – that technology is increasingly making skilled workers obsolete.
U.S. presidential candidate and nonprofit founder Andrew Yang 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.[56] 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".[57] 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.[58][59][60] Additionally, President Barack Obama has stated that he believes that the growth of artificial intelligence will lead to an increased discussion around the idea of "unconditional free money for everyone".[61]
Some proponents of UBI have argued that basic income could increase economic growth because it would sustain people while they invest in education to get higher-skilled and well-paid jobs.[62][63] However, there is also a discussion of basic income within the degrowth movement, which argues against economic growth.[64]
Advocates contend that the guaranteed financial security of a UBI will increase the population's willingness to take risks,[65] which would create a culture of inventiveness and strengthen the entrepreneurial spirit.[66]
The cost 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, their supporters propose that it could indeed be financed, with some advocating a strong redistribution and restructuring of bureaucracy and administration for this purpose.[67]
According to statements of American Enterprise Institute-affiliated Libertarian/conservative scholar Charles Murray, recalled and sanctioned in 2016 by the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and nationally syndicated columnist[68][69] Veronique de Rugy, as of 2014, the annual cost of a UBI in the US would have been about $200 billion cheaper than the US system put in place at that date.[70] By 2020, it would have been nearly a trillion dollars cheaper.[71]
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.[72]
According to Swiss economist Thomas Straubhaar, 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."[73] 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 negative income tax.[73]
Price inflation from labor and rental costs
One of the most common arguments against UBI stems from the upward pressure on prices, in particular for labor and housing rents, which would likely cause inflation. Public policy choices such as rent controls or land value taxation would likely affect the inflationary potential of universal basic income.[74]
Economists have raised concerns about the inflationary effects of UBI policies. UBI could trigger severe inflation that would erode the real purchasing power of the payments themselves.[75] So a large-scale UBI program funded through taxation would face sustainability challenges: if people choose to work less due to receiving UBI, this could reduce overall economic production and shrink the tax base needed to fund the program.[76] Funding UBI through monetary policy rather than taxation might seem like an alternative, but critics argue this would likely devalue the currency and reduce the real value of the UBI payments, potentially creating a cycle where inflation reduces purchasing power, leading to pressure to increase payment amounts, which in turn drives further inflation.[75]
UBI could also drive price increases in specific sectors by boosting purchasing power and demand for certain goods and services. For example, if UBI increases housing demand but supply cannot expand quickly enough due to factors like zoning restrictions or construction capacity, housing prices may rise and offset some of the income benefits. The ability of markets to adapt to increased demand depends on how well-integrated they are with the broader economy.[77]
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.[78][79][80][81] Studies include:
In negative income tax experiments in the United States in 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.[79]
In the Mincome 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.[82]
A 2024 study investigated the impact of $1,000/month UBI over a period of 3 years for 1,000 randomized low-income participants in two U.S. States, which represented an around 40% increase in household income. The study found an income effect with a decrease of non-UBI income by $1,500/year, a decrease in non-UBI household income by 21% of the UBI transfer, a 2% decrease in labor market participation, no significant change in time spent on childcare, no self-reported decrease in barriers to employment, a null result for changes in job quality, an increase in entrepreneurial orientation but no significant change in entrepreneurial activity, while enrollment in tertiary education showed a slight increase for participants below 30 years.[83]
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:
A study from 2017 showed no evidence that people worked less because of the Iranian subsidy reform (a basic income reform).[84]
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.[85]
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."[86]
Proponents usually view UBI as a fundamental human right that enables an adequate standard of living which every citizen should have access to in modern society.[87] 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 do not is a way to reduce social stigma.[86]
In addition, proponents of UBI may argue that the "deserving" and "undeserving" categories are a superficial classification, as people who are not in 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.[88]
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 that 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.[89] 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) and additionally found sufficient evidence that unconditional cash transfers also reduce the likelihood of living in extreme poverty.[90]
The Canadian Medical Association passed a motion in 2015 in clear support of basic income and for basic income trials in Canada.[91]
Omitara, one of the two poor villages in Namibia where a local basic income was tested in 2008–2009
Since the 1960s, but in particular since the late 2000s, several pilot programs and experiments on basic income have been conducted around the world. Some examples include:
1960s−1970s
Experiments with negative income tax in the United States and Canada in the 1960s and 1970s.
The province of Manitoba, Canada experimented with Mincome, a basic guaranteed income, in the 1970s. In the town of Dauphin, Manitoba, labor only decreased by 13%, much less than expected. This program was ended after issues with the cost becoming unsustainable started to arise.[92][93]
2000−2009
The basic income grant in Namibia launched in 2008 and ended in 2009.[94]
An independent pilot implemented in São Paulo, Brazil launched in 2009.[95]
2010−2019
Basic income trials run in 2011–2012 in several villages in India,[96] whose government has proposed a guaranteed basic income for all citizens.[97] It was found that basic income in the region raised the education rate of young people by 25%.[98]
Iran became the first country to introduce a system of UBI in December 2010.[99][100] It was paid to all citizens and replaced the gasoline subsidies, electricity, and some food products,[101] 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.[102][103]
In Spain, the ingreso mínimo vital, the income guarantee system, is an economic benefit guaranteed by the social security in Spain, but in 2016 was considered in need of reform.[104]
In South Korea the Youth Allowance Program was started in 2016 in the City of Seongnam, which would give every 24-year-old citizen 250,000 won (~US$215) 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 in 2018.[105][106]
The GiveDirectly experiment in a disadvantaged village of Nairobi, Kenya, benefitting over 20,000 people living in rural Kenya, is the longest-running basic income pilot as of November 2017, which is set to run for 12 years.[107][108][109]
A project called Eight in a village in Fort Portal, Uganda, that a nonprofit organization launched in January 2017, which provides income for 56 adults and 88 children through mobile money.[110]
A two-year pilot the Finnish government began in January 2017 which involved 2,000 subjects[111][112] In April 2018, the Finnish government rejected a request for funds to extend and expand the program from Kela (Finland's social security agency).[113]
An experiment in the city of Utrecht, Netherlands launched in early 2017, that is testing different rates of aid.[97]
In Israel, 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 the 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$1million from a financial company.[116][117]
The Rythu Bandhu scheme is a welfare scheme started in the state of Telangana, India, in May 2018, aimed at helping farmers. Each farm owner receives 4,000 INR per acre twice a year for rabi and kharif harvests. To finance the program a budget allocation of 120billion INR (US$1.55 Billion as of May 2022) was made in the 2018–2019 state budget.[118]
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. Contributions finance the international initiative from people worldwide, who donate 1% of their monthly paychecks.[119]
In May 2020, Spain introduced a 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 was expected to cost state coffers three billion euros ($3.5billion) a year."[120]
In August 2020, a project in Germany started that gives a €1,200 monthly basic income in a lottery system to citizens who applied online. The crowdsourced project lasted three years and be compared against 1,380 people who do not receive basic income.[121] When the project was finished in August 2023, Mein Grundeinkommen calculated that a tax-financed universal basic income of €1,200 per month could be financed for every adult in Germany that would make 80% of adults better off.[122]
In October 2020, HudsonUP[123] was launched in Hudson, New York, by The Spark of Hudson[124] and Humanity Forward Foundation[125] 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, 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".[126] From July 2022 over 500 people leaving care in Wales were offered £1600 per month in a 3-year £20million pilot scheme, to evaluate the effect on the lives of those involved in the hope of providing independence and security to people.[127]
In July 2022, Chicago began a year-long guaranteed income program by sending $500 a month to 5,000 households for one year in a lottery system to citizens who applied online.[128] A similar program was launched in late 2022 by Cook County, Illinois (which encompasses the entirety of Chicago as well as several suburbs) which sent monthly $500 payments to 3,250 residents with a household income at or below 250% of the federal poverty level for two years.[129]
In June 2023, The Guardian reported that a universal basic income of £1,600 a month is to be trialled in two places in England – Jarrow and East Finchley.[130]
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, investing resource revenues into bonds, stocks, 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.[131] However, the payment is not high enough to cover basic expenses, averaging $1,600 annually per resident in 2019 currency[132] (As of 2019[update] 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.[133][134]
Macau'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.[135]
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 13.8million families, and pays an average of $34 per month, in a country where the minimum wage is $190 per month.[136]
Other welfare programs
Pension: A payment that 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: 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 in Brazil and Programa Prospera in Mexico.
2008: An official petition for basic income was launched in Germany by Susanne Wiest.[137] 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".[138]
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.[140]
2016: The world's first universal basic income referendum in Switzerland on 5 June 2016 was rejected with a 76.9% majority.[141][142] 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.[143]
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.[144]
2018: The results of a poll by Gallup conducted last year between September and October were published. 48% of respondents supported universal basic income.[145]
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 sourced from a financial transaction tax, of €1,200, for every Austrian citizen.[146]
2020: A study by Oxford University 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.[147] A YouGov poll likewise found a majority for universal basic income in United Kingdom[148] and a poll by University of Chicago found that 51% of Americans aged 18–36 support a monthly basic income of $1,000.[149] 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.[150]
2020: A Pew Research Center 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.[151]
2020: In a poll by Hill-HarrisX, 55% of Americans voted in favour of UBI in August, up from 49% in September 2019 and 43% in February 2019.[152]
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.[153]
2020: An October survey of 1,026 Australians by YouGov found a 58% support for universal basic income.[154]
2021: A Change.org 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.[155]
Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. For example, a person's income in an economic sense may be different from their income as defined by law.
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 the monopoly of valuable land and other natural resources.
Guaranteed minimum income (GMI), also called minimum income, is a social-welfare system that guarantees all citizens or families an income sufficient to live on, provided that certain eligibility conditions are met, typically: citizenship and that the person in question does not already receive a minimum level of income to live on.
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 federal government under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. It was launched with a news release on February 22, 1974, under the New Democratic Party of Manitoba government of Edward Schreyer, and was closed down in 1979 under the Progressive Conservative of Manitoba government of Sterling Lyon and the federal Progressive Conservative Party of Joe Clark. The purpose of the experiment was to assess the social impact of a guaranteed, unconditional annual income, UBI, including whether a program of this nature would create disincentives to work for the recipients and, if so, to what extent.
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. NIT was proposed by Juliet Rhys-Williams while working on the Beveridge Report in the early 1940s and popularized by Milton Friedman in the 1960s as a system in which the state makes payments to the poor when their income falls below a threshold, while taxing them on income above that threshold. Together with Friedman, supporters of NIT also included James Tobin, Joseph A. Pechman, and Peter M. Mieszkowski, Jim Gray and even then-President Richard Nixon, who suggested implementation of modified NIT in his Family Assistance Plan. After the increase in popularity of NIT, an experiment sponsored by the US government was conducted between 1968 and 1982 on effects of NIT on labour supply, income, and substitution effects.
Universal basic income in India refers to the debate and practical experiments with universal basic income (UBI) in India. The greatest impetus has come from the 40-page chapter on UBI that the Economic Survey of India published in January 2017. It outlined the three themes of a proposed UBI programme:
Universal basic income in Canada refers to the debate and trials with basic income, negative income tax and related welfare systems in Canada. The debate goes back to the 1930s when the social credit movement had ideas around those lines. Two major basic income experiments have been conducted in Canada. Firstly the Mincome experiment in Manitoba 1974–1979, and secondly the Ontario Basic Income Pilot Project in 2017. The latter was intended to last for three years but only lasted a few months due to its subsequent cancellation by the then newly-elected Conservative government.
Universal basic income in the United Kingdom has not been implemented. Interest in and support for universal basic income has increased substantially amongst the public and politicians..
Bergpartei, die ÜberPartei, stylized as bergpartei, die überpartei and shortened as B*, is a left-wing anarchist, dadaist party in Germany. Its main proposals include universal basic income, restricting private ownership and leaving NATO.
Universal basic income refers to a social welfare system where all citizens or residents of a country receive an unconditional lump sum income, meaning an income that is not based on need. The proposal has been debated in a number of countries in recent years, including Japan.
Universal basic income in Germany has been discussed since the 1970s, with emphasis placed on its unconditional dimension by 2003. The universal basic income concept has many definitions, such as Philippe Van Parijs', which described it as the income paid by the government, at a uniform level and regular intervals to each adult citizen and permanent residents of the country. The Basic Income Earth Network's criteria constitute one of the most popular proposals and they include: 1) income must be paid to individuals instead of households; 2) income should be paid irrespective of income from other sources; and, 3) it must be paid without requiring performance of any work.
Universal basic income (UBI) is discussed in many countries. This article summarizes the national and regional debates, where it takes place, and is a complement to the main article on the subject: universal basic income.
Universal basic income pilots are smaller-scale preliminary experiments which are carried out on selected members of the relevant population to assess the feasibility, costs and effects of the full-scale implementation of universal basic income (UBI), or the related concept of negative income tax (NIT), including partial universal basic income and similar programs. The following list provides an overview of the most famous universal basic income pilots, including projects which have not been launched yet but have been already approved by the respective political bodies or for the negotiations are in process.
Universal basic income and negative income tax, which is a related system, has been debated in the United States since the 1960s, and to a smaller extent also before that. During the 1960s and 1970s a number of experiments with negative income tax were conducted in United States and Canada. In the 1970s another and somewhat related welfare system was introduced instead, the Earned Income Tax Credit. The next big development in the history of basic income in the United States came in 1982, when the Alaska Permanent Fund was established. It has delivered some kind of basic income, financed from the state's oil and gas revenues, ever since.
The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future is a 2018 book written by Andrew Yang, an American entrepreneur and Venture for America founder, who would later run as a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate on policy strategies discussed in the book. It was published by Hachette Books in the United States on April 3, 2018. A paperback edition was released on April 2, 2019. Yang narrated an audiobook version released on YouTube in September 2018.
The report of the British Columbia Expert Panel on Basic Income“Covering All the Basics: Reforms for a More Just Society” was released on 28 January 2021. It provides a comprehensive assessment of data on low-income earners and income supports in British Columbia (BC) and Canada, and a summary of state-of-the-art research on basic income programs.
Thomas Straubhaar is a Swiss economist and migration researcher. He is a professor for international economic relations at the University of Hamburg.
Social Income is a nonprofit organization based in Switzerland that provides unconditional cash transfers via mobile phone to people living in multidimensional poverty in West Africa. Since 2020, Social Income has been running an open-ended universal basic income program in Sierra Leone.
↑ Bryce Covert, "What Money Can Buy: The promise of a universal basic income – and its limitations", The Nation, vol. 307, no. 6 (10 / 17 September 2018), p. 33.
↑ More, Thomas (1978). Decernuntur enim furanti gravia atque horrenda supplicia, cum potius multo fuerit providendum, uti aliquis esset proventus vitae. De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia (originally 1516). Harmondsworth: Penguin. p.36.
↑ Heavey, Jerome F. (July 2003). "Comments on Warren Samuels' "Why the Georgist movement has not succeeded"". American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 62 (3): 593–599. doi:10.1111/1536-7150.00230. JSTOR3487813. human beings have an inalienable right to the product of their own labor
↑ Mabel, E.; Milner, Dennis (2004), Cunliffe, John; Erreygers, Guido (eds.), "Scheme for a State Bonus (1918)", The Origins of Universal Grants: An Anthology of Historical Writings on Basic Capital and Basic Income, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp.121–133, doi:10.1057/9780230522824_12, ISBN978-0-230-52282-4, retrieved 12 June 2023
↑ Fitzpatrick, Tony (1999). Freedom and Security: an introduction to the basic income debate (1st publ.ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. p.42. ISBN978-0-312-22313-7.
↑ Philip Harvey, "The Relative Cost of a Universal Basic Income and a Negative Income Tax" (2006).
↑ A. B. Atkinson, "Public Economics in Action: The Basic Income/Flat Tax Proposal" (1995) quoted in Davide Tondani, "Universal Basic Income and Negative Income Tax: Two Different Ways of Thinking Redistribution" (2008).
↑ Simon, Matt (1 April 2019). "Andrew Yang's Presidential Bid Is So Very 21st Century". Wired. ISSN1059-1028. Archived from the original on 24 June 2019. Retrieved 17 August 2019. ...in order to pay for meaningful retraining, if retraining works. My plan is to just give everyone $1,000 a month, and then have the economy geared more to serve human goals and needs.
1 2 Tcherneva, P. R. (2012). "The Job Guarantee: Delivering the Benefits That Basic Income Only Promises – A Response to Guy Standing". Basic Income Studies. 7 (2). doi:10.1515/bis-2013-0010.
↑ Tcherneva, P. R.; Wray, L. R. (2005). "Can Basic Income and Job Guarantees Deliver on Their Promises?". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1009629.
↑ Gentilini, U.; Grosh, M.; Rigolini, J.; Yemtsov, R. (2019). Exploring Universal Basic Income: A Guide to Navigating Concepts, Evidence, and Practices. The World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-1458-7.
↑ Vivalt, Eva; Rhodes, Elizabeth; Bartik, Alexander; Broockman, David; Miller, Sarah (2024). The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. States (Report). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. doi:10.3386/w32719.
↑ Forget, Evelyn L. (2011). "The Town With No Poverty: The Health Effects of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment". Canadian Public Policy. 37 (3): 283–305. doi:10.3138/cpp.37.3.283.
↑ DeMarban, Alex (28 September 2019). "This year's Alaska Permanent Fund dividend: $1,606". Anchorage Daily News. Archived from the original on 7 September 2021. Retrieved 24 September 2020. [See graphs] The annual check this year will be delivered to 631,000 Alaskans, most of the state population, and come largely from earnings of the state's $64billion fund that for decades has been seeded with income from oil-production revenue. ... This year's dividend amount, similar to last year's, is in line with the average annual payment since they began at $1,000 in 1982 when inflation is taken into account, said Mouhcine Guettabi, an economist with the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research.
↑ Osborn, Catherine (31 August 2020). "Coronavirus-Hit Brazil Considers Major Public Funds For Poor And Unemployed". NPR. Archived from the original on 2 September 2020. Retrieved 2 September 2020. Family allowance - Brazil is renowned for its massive, nearly 2-decade-old cash-transfer program for the poor, Bolsa Família (often translated as "family allowance"). As of March, it reached 13.8million families, paying an average of $34 per month. (The national minimum wage is about $190 per month.)
↑ Also variously known as unconditional basic income, citizen's basic income, basic income guarantee, basic living stipend, guaranteed annual income,[1]universal income security program, or universal demogrant
Further reading
By date of publication:
Ailsa McKay, The Future of Social Security Policy: Women, Work and a Citizens Basic Income, Routledge, 2005, ISBN9781134287185
Lowrey, Annie (2018). Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World. Crown. ISBN978-1524758769.
Bryce Covert, "What Money Can Buy: The promise of a universal basic income – and its limitations", The Nation, vol. 307, no. 6 (10 / 17 September 2018), pp.33–35.
John Lanchester, "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, vol. 41, no. 14 (18 July 2019), pp.5–8.
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