What is Universal Basic Income?
A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It is a form of minimum income guarantee that differs from those that now exist in various European countries in three important ways:
- it is being paid to individuals rather than households;
- it is paid irrespective of any income from other sources;
- it is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job if offered.
The inability to tackle unemployment with conventional means has led in the last decade or so to the idea being taken seriously throughout Europe by a growing number of scholars and organizations. Social policy and economic policy can no longer be conceived separately, and basic income is increasingly viewed as the only viable way of reconciling two of their respective central objectives: poverty relief and full employment. Read More here
A Universal Basic Income (Basic Income Guarantee) is an unconditional cash payment to individuals sufficient to meet basic needs (Universal Basic Income New Zealand, 2003). In its simplest form, Van Der Veen (1998) described Basic Income as a proposal ‘to disburse a tax-free subsistence income to every adult citizen, whether he or she is employed or unemployed, wealthy or poor, healthy or sick, active or idle, and…young or old, with basic incomes [including] children replacing existing child benefits’ (p. 141). Read More Here
As part of a six-chapter dissertation on Universal Income Support, Allan McDonald gives some insight into what a basic income is, and what it can do for people. Access report here
- Benefits of Universal Income Support Free of Means Test.
- The Basic Solution to Unemployment
- A Background Paper on Basic Income by Philippe Van Parijs, as presented on the Oasis-Australia Home Page.
Access this link to go to articles of interest relating generally to the Australian economic social scene or socioeconomic issues that have interest for the social justice aspects of Basic Income.
Primary websites for further resources
BIEN: Basic Income Earth Network. Founded in 1986, the Basic Income European Network (BIEN) aims to serve as a link between individuals and groups committed to, or interested in, basic income, i.e. an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement, and to foster informed discussion on this topic throughout Europe. Members of BIEN include academics, students and social policy practitioners as well as people actively engaged in political, social and religious organisations. To actively foster this debate, BIEN publishes a newsletter which provides an up-to-date and comprehensive international overview on relevant events and publications. It organises bi-annual BIEN-congresses where people from more than twenty countries have met to report and discuss basic income and related proposals in connection with a broad spectrum of themes, such as unemployment, European integration, poverty, development, changing patterns of work career and family life, and principles of social justice. BIEN expanded its scope from European to the Earth in 2004. It is an international network that serves as a link between individuals and groups committed to or interested in basic income, and fosters informed discussion of the topic throughout the world.
BIGA: Basic Income Guarantee Australia: Basic Income Guarantee Australia (BIGA) is an Australian University research web-site promoting a universal basic income guarantee as a just path to poverty elimination, economic security and solidarity in Australia and internationally. It is a BIEN affiliate member and is a research project on income security attached to and sponsored by the Social Work and Human Services discipline area at Queensland University of Technology. BIGA is being developed to continue Basic Income research and the work of Australia’s original Basic Income web page Oasis – Australia, the Organisation Advocating Support Income Studies in Australia, which had been running for the past 13 years.
UBI articles and latest news 28 February 2024, BIEN: New article about the effort to ban basic income pilots in the U.S. and who’s behind it. The Foundation for Government Accountability – a Florida-based lobbying group backed by the richest 1% – is working to get basic income experiments banned by state legislators across the U.S. As a well-known quote often wrongly attributed to Mahatma Ghandi says, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” As of 2024, the basic income movement in the United States is now firmly in the “then they fight you” stage thanks to a slew of bills introduced in state after state that are all attempting to ban the basic income experiments that have spread across the country. Over 150 guaranteed basic income pilots are now ongoing or recently completed in 24 states as of this writing, and so far, bills in seven states have been introduced to stop them. All of the bills are the result of efforts by the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) – a lobbying group with a billionaire-fueled junk science record every American should know about. …. Read more here 16 August 2023, The Conversation: Critics of ‘degrowth’ economics say it’s unworkable – but from an ecologist’s perspective, it’s inevitable. You may not have noticed, but earlier this month we passed Earth overshoot day, when humanity’s demands for ecological resources and services exceeded what our planet can regenerate annually. Many economists criticising the developing degrowth movement fail to appreciate this critical point of Earth’s biophysical limits. Ecologists on the other hand see the human economy as a subset of the biosphere. Their perspective highlights the urgency with which we need to reduce our demands on the biosphere to avoid a disastrous ecological collapse, with consequences for us and all other species. Many degrowth scholars (as well as critics) focus on features of capitalism as the cause of this ecological overshoot. But while capitalism may be problematic, many civilisations destroyed ecosystems to the point of collapse long before it became our dominant economic model. Capitalism, powered by the availability of cheap and abundant fossil energy, has indeed resulted in unprecedented and global biosphere disruption. But the direct cause remains the excessive volume and speed with which resources are extracted and wastes returned to the environment. From an ecologist’s perspective, degrowth is inevitable on our current trajectory. Read more: Degrowth isn’t the same as a recession – it’s an alternative to growing the economy forever. Carrying capacity. Ecology tells us that many species overshoot their environment’s carrying capacity if they have temporary access to an unusually high level of resources. Overshoot declines when those resources return to more stable levels. This often involves large-scale starvation and die-offs as populations adjust. Access to fossil fuels has allowed us to temporarily overshoot biophysical limits. This lifted our population and demands on the biosphere past the level it can safely absorb. Barring a planned reduction of those biosphere demands, we will experience the same “adjustments” as other species. Read more here 21 March 2020, CASSE blog, The Silver Lining of the COVID-Caused Recession is Supra-Economic. COVID-19 has done in a deadly way what steady-state economists would prescribe in a healthy way: putting the brakes on a runaway economy. In fact, the pandemic has slammed on the brakes and jammed the GDP gearstick into reverse. It has ushered us into a recession that will be pronounced and protracted. In a COVID-caused recession, it’s nature at bat, not the Fed. In these dark times, any source of comfort is welcome. Steady-state economists offer one of the only economic comforts to be found, a bona fide silver lining that warrants inspection by the mainstream media, public, and policymakers. There are three qualifiers. First, the silver lining is mostly macroeconomic, not micro. In fact, it is so big-picture we might call it supra-economic as it transcends the standard economic indicators. Second, the comfort it provides will be palpable primarily to younger generations. Third, it may take a paradigm shift to feel the comfort, especially for older readers who’ve spent most of their life in the 20th century, when a burgeoning economy was such a good deal for people and nations. The silver lining begins to appear when we recognize that the $88 trillion GDP ($21 trillion in the USA alone) was so big and bloated, it was causing more harm than good. It had grown into bad-deal territory, in other words. All else equal, that means a reversal—recession, degrowth, declining GDP—is actually a better deal at this stage. While it still sounds incredible to most citizens and policy makers, the logic is irrefutable. Recession is the antidote to the outbreak of GDP “illth,” the term favored by Herman Daly to more clearly contrast with “wealth. Read more here 17 January 2020, The Conversation, Take care when examining the economic impact of fires. GDP doesn’t tell the full story. Estimates of the economic damage caused by the bushfires are rolling in, some of them big and some unprecedented, as is the scale of the fires themselves. These types of estimates will be refined and used to make – or break – the case for programs to limit the impact of similar disasters in the future. Some will be used to make a case for – or against – action on climate change. But it’s important they not be done using the conventional measure of gross domestic product (GDP). GDP measures everything produced in any given period. It is a good enough measure of material welfare when used to measure the impact of a tourist event or a new mine or factory or something like the national broadband network, but it can be misleading – sometimes grossly misleading – when used to measure the economic impact of a catastrophe or natural disaster. Read more here 9 August 2017 By Dr Haydn Washington for Dick Smith Fair Go,The Insanity of Endless Growth, . The world is faced with a predicament of grave enormity – yet one rarely spoken of. The United Nations (UN), almost all governments, business, and media and both the political Left and the Right are busy extolling (even praising) ‘endless growth’. Yet we live on a finite planet, so clearly endless physical growth is impossible, unsustainable and, in fact, insane. I often give public talks on sustainability and ask the audience: ‘On a finite planet who thinks we can keep growing physically forever?’ Nobody raises their hands. So why then is our economy and society based on what many individually know is impossible? An excellent question – but one hardly ever asked in mainstream economics (Daly, 2014). Even the UN forgets to ask the question – and to answer it. Read More here 4 January 2017, The Conversation, How and why we are moving beyond GDP as a measure of human progress. How we track our economy influences everything from government spending and taxes to home lending and business investment. In our series The Way We Measure, we’re taking a close look at economic indicators to better understand what’s going on. Ever since 1944, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been a primary measure of economic growth. It’s in the news regularly and, even though few can define what it means, there is general acceptance that when GDP is growing, things are good. There are problems with this simplistic formulation. GDP measures production only. It does not capture collapsing fish stocks, increasing obesity and diabetes, or new types of synthetic drugs. When people choose to work part-time to have a better work-life balance, GDP actually goes down. This narrow focus distorts our perception of progress. It guides our representatives to focus only on certain things – what is measured – and allows them to ignore what isn’t quantified and regularly reported. But a new set of measures is slowly being established, which aims to capture a wider range of human experiences and reset our idea of “success”. Called the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), these aim to include all the main pillars of a progressive society, from physical safety through to economic opportunity and good health. SDGs will force action by highlighting what is currently covered up by the narrow measures of how our economy and society are faring. A new way of framing progress The SDGs arose out of the expiration of the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 (which focused primarily on poverty reduction). Out of a growing awareness of the ecological limits of the planet, and a desire to ensure that progress is fair and accessible to all people, attempts were made at creating a comprehensive set of national goals for all nations. Read More here Access latest Basic Income News here 8 March 2017, BIEN, Stanford Panel: What do people do when they are given cash with no strings attached? The Stanford University Philosophy Department organized the first in a series of events focusing on aspects of unconditional basic income. Facilitated by Juliana Uhuru Bidadanure, Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department of Stanford University, with an affiliation to the McCoy Center for Ethics in Society, the panel consisted of researchers in pilots and experiments of basic income: Guy Standing (Professorial Research Associate at SOAS, University of London; BIEN co-founder), Elizabeth Rhodes (Research Director of Y Combinator’s basic income experiment), and Joe Huston (Regional Director at GiveDirectly). The Bidadanure opened by setting a definition for unconditional basic income: cash, given individually, unconditionally, and universally, so people can enter an existence free from economic insecurity. She flagged some of the most common concerns around a universal income policy –too many people will withdraw from the work force, or it can be wasteful, taking away from government investments in poverty, education, roads, etc. topic for the panel discussion was “What do people do when they are given cash with no strings attached?” Read More here April 2016, BIEN: New Zealand: Labour Party considers Universal Basic Income. Following the lead of countries like Finland, Netherlands and Canada, New Zealand is now making its first steps towards a basic income. In a recent Stuff news article, Andrew Little, leader of the Labour Party, the second largest party in the New Zealand’s parliament, says Labour is considering a basic income. This interest is mainly motivated by the rise in structural unemployment, which guarantees profound changes in how New Zealanders work. Automation and precariousness of employment, self-employment and new business models are all affecting the way people work, and these structural changes occupy a central place in present day Labour Party concerns. Indeed, the Party made these concerns – as well as the possibility of a basic income to address them – central to itsLabour’s Future of Work Conference, which took place earlier this week, on the 23rd and 24th of March. The Future of Work Commission has released two background papers on universal basic income, one of which can be found here. This paper, by researchers Max Harries and Sebastiaan Bierema, analyses basic income in general and in the New Zealand context, also mentioning that a pilot programme could be an important first step into a future fully-fledged basic income implementation. What Labour Party leaders in New Zealand will do, it’s hard to say. However, Keith Rankin, a New Zealander author who has written about basic income, highlights some possibilities in a recent article. These possibilities are similar to otherbasic income tax reform ideas presented, based on income tax redistribution. Keith proposes taxing income from both labour (work wages) and land (property) at a rate between 33 and 37%, and redistributing that money to all adult residents. Read More here 7 January 2016, A report written by a government agency dedicated to Digital Affairs for the French Ministry of Labor recommends experimenting with an unconditional basic income to cope with the fundamental transformations of work in the context of the growing digital economy. How do automation and digitalization of activities impact working conditions? This was one of the key questions theNational Digital Council was tasked to address in a report sponsored by the French Ministry of Labor and Social Dialogue. The Digital Council is a public agency created in 2012 to advise the French government on matters related to the digital world. The report was released earlier this week – see the full report here. It makes an important case for basic income, and calls for a thorough appraisal of “the various proposals and experiments around basic income”. Basic income is part of the twenty main recommendations contained in the report. Minister of Labour is sceptical but does not reject the proposal The Minister of Labor Myriam El Khomri was not so enthusiastic but did not close the door on the idea: “I do not want to dismiss it, but at first sight I am not sure about its cost,” she said. According to the report, the existing social protection model has been pushed to its limits, and the labor market has failed to reward many different forms of activities, and thus provide an income to everyone. Read More here 3 January 2016, IRELAND: Fianna Fáil to promise every citizen €188 every week. “Fianna Fáil will promise every citizen of the country – from the richest to the poorest – a minimum welfare income in excess of current basic welfare rates which average €188 per week.” They plan to establish “an expert group to report within six months on matters like how much the minimum payment would be and what kind of taxation changes would be needed to fund it.” Their main argument for the inclusion of the basic income pledge is that it would be “major protection against poverty in an era where few will be guaranteed work throughout their lives.” Additionally, Fianna Fáil “will also argue that many sections of the population already receive considerable welfare payments, such as pensions or child benefit, which would be factored into the minimum income – making the final cost not vastly greater than current welfare spending.
” Basic income is knocking on the door in Ireland too. Fianna Fáil, an Irish republican party, will pledge to introduce a basic income in their new election manifesto, as reported by John Downing in the Irish Independent: Read More here 24 December 2016, CANADA: Kingston is first municipality to endorse basic income. According to the approved text, the rationale for a BIG is the growing income insecurity and inequality, and the inadequacy of the current welfare system to address these issues. The motion states that: “A basic income guarantee would reduce income insufficiency, insecurity, and inequality and ensure everyone an income sufficient to meet basic needs and live in dignity regardless of work status.” One of the biggest supporters of the outcome was former Kingston-area senator Hugh Segal. He has been an advocate for some form of basic income guarantee for decades, and took great pride in this result. Speaking to the local dailyKingston Whig-Standard, he stated that the “Council has shown tremendous courage and real leadership.” He went on to say that “it’s fiscally responsible and it responds to reality in terms of need… Give the money to people because they know where to spend it.” Kingston City Council in Ontario province is the first Canadian municipality to endorse a basic income guarantee (BIG). In a vote held on Tuesday, December 15, the policy idea was unanimously endorsed with a 13-0 outcome in favour. The successful motion calls for a “national discussion of a Basic Income Guarantee for all Canadians”. It also asks for provincial and federal governments to investigate and develop the measure at the national level. The motion will be sent to all municipalities in Ontario with a request to endorse the initiative. Read More here 22 August 2015, Vito Laterza, Greece, Government to roll out a Guaranteed Minimum Income scheme. The new bailout agreement between Greece and international creditors includes plans for a national roll-out of a Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI).[i] The GMI is not an unconditional basic income for all citizens, but would be the first universal means-tested grant that covers all Greeks below a certain level of income and asset ownership, regardless of employment status, job contract type, professional category, gender or age. In the latest round of bailout negotiations, Greek Prime Minister Tsipras reportedly opposed the introduction of the GMI. The final memorandum approved by the Greek parliament last week, however, provides for a national roll-out of the GMI by end of 2016. The government needs to find 0.5% of GDP to finance the national GMI scheme. A draft report from the World Bank published in January this year, provides a core scenario where 1.2 million people would be covered by the GMI – this is constructed on the basic qualifying criteria and payment amounts of a GMI pilot started last year. The measure would cost €980 million or 0.54% of GDP. The general wording of the bailout agreement remains vague and the GMI has not yet been approved by parliament. The specifics of implementation will only be known in the next months. Read More here 12 August 2015, Huffington Post, Minimum Wages vs. Universal Basic Income. I think that wherever possible, we should look to permanently eliminate underlying causes instead of treating symptoms without end. When it comes to minimum wage laws, we’re perpetually treating a symptom and not a cause. The problem we wish to solve is that employees aren’t getting paid enough to work. So the government then has to step in and say, “Hey, employers, you can’t pay less than this amount, and employees, you can’t accept less than this amount.” Well, why do we need to do this? Why aren’t people getting paid enough? What’s the core issue? I think people aren’t getting paid enough because they can’t really ask for more out of fear of getting nothing at all. They have no individual bargaining power. All negotiating power is in the hands of those offering the jobs and not those looking for them. Outside of unions, we can’t say “No” to the terms of employment offered by employers. As long as our primary concern is that of paying for our basic needs like food and rent, all we can really say is “Yes”. If an employer can pay less, they will. They will even pay nothing wherever possible. Just look at unpaid internships. And because people prefer to eat and live indoors, and anything is better than nothing, people accept wages that are too low or even zero (in combination with work experience) because it’s all better than the alternative – nothing. Read More here 8 July 2015, Stanislas Jourdan News, 30 Dutch Municipalities show Interest in experimenting with Basic Income. The City of Utrecht, the fourth most populated City of the Netherlands, has attracted a lot of attention recently – including at an international level – with the early announcement of their launch of a pilot project later this year. Although the program is far from being ready and its specifics are far less radical than they sound, the good news is: Utrecht might just be the tip of the iceberg of a massive wave of local experiments in the Netherlands. Currently there are 30 Dutch municipalities interested in running basic income pilot projects. Among them, the cities of Utrecht, Tilburg, Wageningen and Groningen are the most advanced. Read More here 29 June 2015, Stanislas Jourdan internview, Finland, basic income, and the government’s schizophrenia. The Basic income community worldwide is getting excited about the Finnish government’s commitment to launch a basic income experiment. Are you enthusiastic too? We have certainly reached a historical point. For the first time, in the general elections of April 2015, the majority of the MP’s in the Finnish Parliament have expressed their support, ranging from mild to strong, for basic income. This data derives from the answers given by candidates during the last election. The majority of the Finnish public has also expressed its support for the idea. The new centre-right government coalition in Finland committed to run a basic income pilot project. It is however unlikely that a pure unconditional basic income has any chance to be experimented, says BIEN Finland‘s chairman Otto Lehto in this interview. Read More here 1 May 2015, Josh Martin News, United Kingdom, Green Party of England and Wales Includes Basic Income in Election Manifesto and Releases Costing Scheme. However, the Green Party admits that implementing a basic income in five years may be impractical and thus plans to conduct consultations and research on the basic income idea during a first parliament with the aim of implementation in a second parliament. The Green Party released a basic income costing scheme alongside the manifesto, seeking to answer the major questions about funding a basic income in the UK. The Green Party of England and Wales received plenty of press over the past few months about their support of a basic income. While questions arose about whether they would keep basic income in their manifesto, they ultimately decided to keep it in their plans. Preparing for the general election on May 7th, the Green Party released their election manifestoand included a commitment to a basic income. Under the social security section of the manifesto, basic income is the first policy mentioned as the long-term plan of the Green Party, and it is included on the one-page executive summary at the front of the manifesto. Read More here 16 March 2015, Stanislas Jourdan News, Spain, Popular Initiative for Basic Income Ends with 185,000 Signatures. For the past year, a grassroots movement in Spain has been very actively campaigning for the introduction of a basic income by means of a national popular legislative initiative (ILP). Thanks to the efforts of a growing number of basic income supporters, approximately 185,000 signatures were collected – less than the threshold of 500,000 signatures required for the initiative to be examined by the national parliament. The exact number of signatures still have to be counted by national authorities after a validation check.Although the number of signatures collected is considered lower than hoped – organisers said the campaign contributed significantly to spreading the idea of basic income across Spain. Read More here