Universal Basic Income

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Shortlisted for the 2018 FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award A brilliantly reported, global look at universal basic income—a stipend given to every citizen—and why it might be necessary in an age of rising inequality, persistent poverty, and dazzling technology. Imagine if every month the government deposited $1,000 into your bank account, with nothing expected in return. It sounds crazy. But it has become one of the most influential and hotly debated policy ideas of our time. Futurists, radicals, libertarians, socialists, union representatives, feminists, conservatives, Bernie supporters, development economists, child-care workers, welfare recipients, and politicians from India to Finland to Canada to Mexico—all are talking about UBI. In this sparkling and provocative book, economics writer Annie Lowrey examines the UBI movement from many angles. She travels to Kenya to see how a UBI is lifting the poorest people on earth out of destitution, India to see how inefficient government programs are failing the poor, South Korea to interrogate UBI’s intellectual pedigree, and Silicon Valley to meet the tech titans financing UBI pilots in expectation of a world with advanced artificial intelligence and little need for human labor. Lowrey explores the potential of such a sweeping policy and the challenges the movement faces, among them contradictory aims, uncomfortable costs, and, most powerfully, the entrenched belief that no one should get something for nothing. In the end, she shows how this arcane policy has the potential to solve some of our most intractable economic problems, while offering a new vision of citizenship and a firmer foundation for our society in this age of turbulence and marvels.

Universal basic income (UBI) is emerging as one of the most hotly debated issues in development and social protection policy. But what are the features of UBI? What is it meant to achieve? How do we know, and what don’t we know, about its performance? What does it take to implement it in practice? Drawing from global evidence, literature, and survey data, this volume provides a framework to elucidate issues and trade-offs in UBI with a view to help inform choices around its appropriateness and feasibility in different contexts. Specifically, the book examines how UBI differs from or complements other social assistance programs in terms of objectives, coverage, incidence, adequacy, incentives, effects on poverty and inequality, financing, political economy, and implementation. It also reviews past and current country experiences, surveys the full range of existing policy proposals, provides original results from micro†“tax benefit simulations, and sets out a range of considerations around the analytics and practice of UBI.

Universal basic income is a controversial policy which is causing a stir amongst academics, politicians, journalists and policy-makers all over the world. The idea of receiving ‘money for nothing’, with no strings attached, has for a long time appeared a crazy or radical proposal. But today, this policy is being put into practice. With more and more trials and experiments taking place in different countries, this book provides both the theory and context for making sense of different basic income approaches, examining how the policy can be best implemented. Unlike many other texts written on this topic, the book provides a balanced account of basic income, weighing up the pros and cons from a number of different positions. The book provides a theory chapter, enabling readers to grasp some of the complex philosophical ideas and concepts which underpin universal basic income, such as social justice, equality and freedom. It also provides an examples chapter, which examines both historical and contemporary basic income studies to have taken place from around the globe. The book also features chapters on the environment and the work of women, as well as an ‘against’ universal basic income chapter, which specifically draws on the criticisms of the policy. This volume is an essential resource for anyone who wishes to get to grips with universal basic income.

Advocated (and attacked) by commentators across the political spectrum, paying every citizen a basic income regardless of their circumstances sounds utopian. However, as our economies are transformed and welfare states feel the strain, it has become a hotly debated issue. In this compelling book, Louise Haagh, one of the world’s leading experts on basic income, argues that Universal Basic Income is essential to freedom, human development and democracy in the twenty-first century. She shows that, far from being a silver bullet that will transform or replace capitalism, or a sticking plaster that will extend it, it is a crucial element in a much broader task of constructing a democratic society that will promote social equality and humanist justice. She uses her unrivalled knowledge of the existing research to unearth key issues in design and implementation in a range of different contexts across the globe, highlighting the potential and pitfalls at a time of crisis in governing and public austerity. This book will be essential reading for anyone who wants to get beyond the hype and properly understand one of the most important issues facing politics, economics and social policy today.

Inequality is up. Decent work is down. Free market fundamentalism has been exposed as a tragic failure. In a job market upended by COVID-19—with Canadians caught in the grip of precarious labour, stagnant wages, a climate crisis, and the steady creep of automation—an ever-louder chorus of voices calls for a liveable and obligation-free basic income. Could a basic income guarantee be the way forward to democratize security and intervene where the market economy and social programs fail? Jamie Swift and Elaine Power scrutinize the politics and the potential behind a radical proposal in a post-pandemic world: that wealth should be built by a society, not individuals. And that we all have an unconditional right to a fair share. In these pages, Swift and Power bring to the forefront the deeply personal stories of Canadians who participated in the 2017–2019 Ontario Basic Income Pilot; examine the essential literature and history behind the movement; and answer basic income’s critics from both the right and left.

Providing a basic income to everyone, rich or poor, active or inactive, was advocated by Paine, Mill, and Galbraith but the idea was never taken seriously. Today, with the welfare state creaking, it is one of the world’s most widely debated proposals. Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght present a comprehensive defense of this radical idea.

This new edited collection brings together historians and social scientists to engage with the global history of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and offer historically-rich perspectives on contemporary debates about the future of work. In particular, the book goes beyond a genealogy of a seemingly utopian idea to explore how the meaning and reception of basic income proposals has changed over time. The study of UBI provides a prism through which we can understand how different intellectual traditions, political agents, and policy problems have opened up space for new thinking about work and welfare at critical moments. Contributions range broadly across time and space, from Milton Friedman and the debate over guaranteed income in the post-war United States to the emergence of the European basic income movement in the 1980s and the politics of cash transfers in contemporary South Africa. Taken together, these chapters address comparative questions: why do proposals for a guaranteed minimum income emerge at some times and recede into the background in others? What kinds of problems is basic income designed to solve, and how have policy proposals been shaped by changing attitudes to gender roles and the boundaries of social citizenship? What role have transnational networks played in carrying UBI proposals between the global north and the global south, and how does the politics of basic income vary between these contexts? In short, the book builds on a growing body of scholarship on UBI and lays the groundwork for a much richer understanding of the history of this radical proposal. Chapter 3 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of providing a basic income to everyone in Canada who needs it was already gaining broad support. Then, in response to a crisis that threatened to put millions out of work, the federal government implemented new measures which constituted Canada?s largest ever experiment with a basic income for almost everyone. In this new and revised edition, Evelyn L. Forget offers a clear-eyed look at how these emergency measures could be transformed into a program that ensures an adequate basic income for every Canadian. Forget details what we can learn from earlier basic income experiments in Canada and internationally. She weighs the options, investigates whether Canadians can afford a permanent basic income program and describes how it could best be implemented across the country. This accessible book offers everything a reader needs to decide if a basic income program is the right follow-up to the short-term government response to COVID-19.