A central question in the development of national socio-political systems concerns how to ensure fair distributional outcomes. At the level of practical policy-making, this often translates into determining an appropriate balance between universalism and targeting - for instance, between densely and sparsely populated areas, between affluent and disadvantaged municipalities, or in contexts where household characteristics vary markedly. A universalist approach to these challenges is to disregard the specific attributes of residential areas and other background factors, as exemplified by the design of a universal basic income (UBI). In this article, we address the question of distributional fairness by utilising data from the Finnish UBI experiment (2017-2018). We ask what kind of differences in wellbeing there were within and between the treatment and control groups according to place of residence. We ask if UBI produced similar effects on wellbeing across different places (accumulation), or did it even out (compensation) or enlarge (multiplication) differences in wellbeing of residents living in urban and rural areas. We concentrate on two crucial aspects of wellbeing, i.e., health and ability to cope economically. Our results demonstrate pronounced regional gradients: problems are biggest in rural municipalities. This pattern is evident in both the treatment group (TG), which received the basic income, and the control group (CG). Although receiving a basic income significantly alleviated such difficulties across all regional categories, the relative gap between rural and urban municipalities remained unchanged in both the TG and CG. This indicates that UBI was not a sufficient instrument for reducing regional disparities; its effects were more accumulative than compensatory. Consequently, while there is a clear case for strengthening universal economic security, there is simultaneously a compelling need for more targeted compensatory policy measures.
Numerous state and community actors have initiated basic income (BI) pilots to demonstrate the efficacy of cash transfers. Notwithstanding the substantial evidence on BI-like programs, pilots continue to be introduced at the community level but have consistently failed to be scaled-up to the national level. In this conceptual paper, we explore the multiple streams approach to policymaking and a critical policy studies orientation that offers valuable nuance on why the implementation of BI has been stymied in Canada, and what role pilots potentially play in this country. Concerns surround pilot framing, problematic interpretations of evidence, and troubling ethical considerations. We highlight potential ways that pilots can be helpful in mobilizing citizens and the political will to install BI permanently into Canada's social protection infrastructure. These include providing instructive information on BI implementation, rallying strong support constituencies, and educating policymakers on the flawed adoption of the deservingness paradigm to orient social welfare programming.
There has historically been a paradox in public health policymaking. In international development, there has been a working assumption that improving the quantity, security and predictability of people's material resources leads to overall improvements in health, education, employment and other outcomes. However, in domestic policy within high-income societies, opinion has been divided on causality. This has appeared contradictory: if poverty harms health and if development mechanisms in low-to-middle income countries include transfers of resources, why would the same considerations not apply in high-income societies and why would improving people's resources via policies such as Basic Income not improve their health? In this article, we explore this apparent distinction through semi-structured interviews with 14 UK-based public health policymakers. We find that the distinction is not clear, with UK-focused policymakers viewing the UK as a 'poor country with rich people in it', subject to similar considerations as low-to-middle income countries.
It is widely claimed that UBI has the potential to contribute to the de-commodification of labor, by reducing workers' exit costs of leaving their jobs. In this paper I argue that the housing need may challenge the effectiveness of UBI as an exit option for workers. This is due to the combination of a possible income gap between the UBI amount and lower income level offered by the labor market (according to the modest UBI amounts generally proposed in the literature), high housing prices, and some specific difficulties that housing expenditures might imply in readjusting them to the UBI amount. These difficulties include: fixed prices; contractual obligations; limited consumption alternatives; search and seek efforts; logistical costs; community ties; identity considerations; relational costs; and hurdles associated with returning to a prior living situation. Thus, when attempting to implement UBI, as an exit option for workers, the need for housing should be considered as a possible feasibility constraint.
This article estimates the cost of Universal Basic Income (UBI) sufficient to eliminate poverty in the United States. It uses the most recent microdata available from the Census Bureau through its Current Population Survey (CPS) public-use microdata files and references historical income data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplements (ASEC) going back to 1967. It finds that UBI (or an equivalent guaranteed income) sufficient to eliminate official poverty is surprisingly affordable and that the cost of UBI as a percentage of GDP has been falling steadily for more than 50 years. Estimates based on the most recent data (from 2024) show the net cost of a UBI set at $16,000 per adult and $8,000 per child (slightly higher than the official poverty line) with a 50 % marginal tax rate is approximately $783.7 billion per year, which is about 2.67 % of GDP. In inflation-adjusted terms, the current cost of a poverty-line UBI as a percentage of GDP has fallen significantly from 9.35 % of GDP in 1967 to 4.95 % in 1995, 3.70 % in 2015, and 2.67 % in 2024. Therefore, as a percentage of GDP, the current cost of a poverty-line UBI is less than one-third (28.6 %) of what it would have cost when the guaranteed income was under discussion in the United States in 1967. This article also updates and significantly improves on calculations made in the article "The Cost of Basic Income: Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations" which appeared in Basic Income Studies in 2017.
This article develops hypotheses to inform an experimental approach for investigating the impact of Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) on sustainable consumption. As the ecological crisis intensifies, UBI has been discussed as a possible eco-social policy solution. However, the empirical evidence to support UBI’s ecological benefits remains limited, particularly regarding consumption and aligning the freedom inherent to UBI with sustainable choices. The article addresses this gap by conducting the necessary preliminary analysis and hypotheses development for claims regarding UBI as an eco-social policy to be examined empirically, and provides an approach for testing these hypotheses experimentally. The proposed experimental approach examines two specific mechanisms through which a UBI could impact on the sustainability of consumption choices: 1) invoking norms around reciprocity and deservingness and 2) the priming of ecological norms. The findings from such an experimental approach would guide future research on how the unconditionality inherent to UBI could facilitate more sustainable consumption choices and so contribute to policy discussions regarding UBI as an eco-social policy.
John Maynard Keynes has not normally been seen as a basic income supporter, but two letters written by Keynes during the Second World War suggest that he had thought seriously about the idea and was attracted to the principle. Basic income fitted well with Keynes' liberal values and his long-range optimism about economic possibilities. In the short term, however, Keynes believed it would be a mistake to put the idea on the political agenda before the time was ripe.
This exploratory qualitative study examined UK university students' views on Universal Basic Income (UBI). UBI typically garners more support from economically disadvantaged, left-leaning, and younger populations. Students were targeted as both future policymakers and financially vulnerable individuals, with 91 % concerned about rising living costs. Results revealed complex opinions reflecting tensions between compassion and perceived need for accountability. While 59 percent supported UBI, most believed able-bodied recipients would avoid work, revealing internalised meritocratic assumptions. Consequently, students favoured targeted Basic Income (BI) over universal provision, prioritising homeless individuals followed by youth and unemployed, while pensioners were viewed as less deserving. Analysis revealed competing value frameworks: some emphasised collective wellbeing while others prioritised individual responsibility. "Compassionate conditionality" emerged as a potential compromise balancing care with accountability. The convenience sampling limits generalisability. Further research should explore these tensions with larger, more diverse samples.
Economic insecurity is a major problem of the contemporary world. Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been widely advocated as a potentially powerful antidote; however, it remains relatively unpopular because much of the public believes that it disincentivizes work, immorally provides something for nothing, will be spent on drugs and alcohol, and/or is too expensive. Rather than developing yet another academic response to these worries, this paper attempts to design a UBI-type policy that could be highly popular right now, and therefore realistically implemented in the short-term. The policy of Free Groceries for All would entitle each and every citizen to a small amount of money every month, say $50, via an electronic card that can be used for purchasing food and only food. The evidence from the survey data suggests that this policy would be significantly more appealing to the public at large than a conventional UBI, since it substantially mitigates the major concerns.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is revolutionary and simple at the same time and elicits both attraction and aversion from the general public. This is one of the reasons why, despite its potential to contribute to some of the most pressing current challenges, UBI has not yet been implemented in any country in the world, at least at a system-wide scale. By drawing on innovation theories and adopting a mixed methods approach, this exploratory study investigates public acceptance of UBI in Spain. This study contributes to the emerging literature on public opinion on a UBI as well as to the field of innovation of public policies.
In today's global economy, where informality and insecurity characterise working life for millions, scholars, activists, and political authorities are looking for radical solutions. One of the most commonly advanced is universal basic income (UBI), which is widely theorised as a tool for enhancing worker power and improving work, through offering workers an 'exit option'. Critics retort that social and economic life are too complex for UBI to be a magic bullet and that UBI could even make life worse. To date, very few studies have empirically interrogated this debate. This paper reports findings from what we believe to be the first two pilots to do so. Both combined unconditional cash and community organiser support in India and Bangladesh over two years. Our findings suggest that UBI can enhance worker power, enable partial exit, and support collective organisation. Its limitations leave us doubtful, however, that UBI alone could fundamentally alter labour relations.
Would a UBI advance republican liberty? The potential threat to non-domination posed by administrative bureaucracies has led some republican theorists to argue in favour of a UBI. While the strength of the republican case for UBI has been the subject of a robust debate in the literature, insufficient attention has been paid to how the exit costs associated with unemployment are affected by how people perceive and evaluate risk. This paper shows that once we properly account for the fact that people are loss averse and assess exit costs in a context of uncertainty and limited information, we get a better grasp of the non-domination related trade-offs at stake in a decision between an income-maintenance model of welfare provision and a baseline provision model built around a UBI. It identifies and outlines three of these trade-offs and sketches an approach for how to think about these from a non-domination perspective.
This paper leverages multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis to estimate the economic impacts of a universal basic income on Appalachian Ohio counties as strategy for supporting economic transition away from the coal economy. A $500 monthly basic income to each adult Appalachian Ohio resident results in 46,367 new jobs, $2 billion in labor income, and an increase of nearly $4 billion in regional gross domestic product.
In 2018 the Ontario Basic Income Pilot was launched in three Ontario cities and was cancelled abruptly months later after a change in government. This paper summarises the results of a qualitative study in one of those cities, Thunder Bay, Ontario. In partnership with a local community legal clinic, we interviewed 20 former recipients of the program and 13 key informants to understand two things. First, how did people experience the Ontario Basic Income Pilot for the time it was active? Second, how did people experience the cancellation of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot? After analysing the interviews using Thematic Analysis, we provided answers by way of themes. In general, the Ontario Basic Income Pilot was experienced as positive. Recipients discussed six main benefits: (a) improved financial security; (b) improved food security; (c) increase mental and physical health; (d) improved social mobility; (e) increased humanization; and (f) improved social inclusion. The cancellation on the other hand had largely negative effects. This includes a reversal of all of the aforementioned benefits as well as a decreased trust in government. We conclude the paper with a brief discussion covering two points. First, we explore what our small qualitative study suggests about the intended aims of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot; we do this by loosely comparing our findings with the preliminary survey administered on behalf of the provincial government. Second, we consider what a basic income might mean for the unique circumstances in which Thunder Bay finds itself.
Understanding how public perceptions of automation and artificial intelligence develop is important to understanding public support for universal basic income (UBI). We examine US survey data from Pew Research Center to establish whether awareness of automation was related to anxiety over the issue and support for UBI. Findings suggest that awareness was positively associated with both automation anxiety and support for UBI. Automation anxiety was itself associated with support for UBI, and mediated the association between higher issue awareness and policy support. Both the direct association between awareness and anxiety, and the indirect association between awareness and support for UBI through anxiety were moderated by household income and education, with the associations being stronger for lower income respondents and those with lower education attainment. Results are discussed through the lens of diffusion of innovations and the public understanding of science and technology.
In a given society, those who are least advantaged would allegedly benefit the most from receiving a basic income. However, the merits of such a policy are generally debated according to the effects on society as a whole, not specifically on the most marginalized; thus, the potential benefits of a basic income for marginalized groups is unclear. To address this gap, I identify homeless people in Germany as the least advantaged and assess how this group would be impacted by a basic income based on real libertarian, liberal egalitarian, and republican theories of justice. Specifically, I show how introducing a basic income would affect the homeless population in Germany in terms of income, self-respect, and power. While a basic income could increase most of the homeless population’s income and improve communal relations, the stigma attached to homelessness will only decrease insofar as the basic income policy helps people exit homelessness. Moreover, a basic income would decrease power imbalances between the homeless population and state agencies, but the policy’s effects on relations between homeless persons and fellow citizens, particularly landlords, are ambiguous. This article contributes to the theoretical discussion on a basic income, providing a new concern about whether such a policy is fair to the homeless population. Moreover, this article is relevant in practice, as the discussed effects may prompt avenues for designing future social policies that address the homeless population as the most vulnerable group in modern welfare states.
This study empirically analyzed how attitudes toward the introduction of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in South Korean society evolved before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, it examined how attitudes toward the introduction of a UBI changed under the assumption of tax increases, using data from. The results of the analysis indicate a tendency for attitudes towards UBI to become more cautious, despite the experience of a system with UBI characteristics. Factors that significantly influence attitudes towards the introduction of UBI based on the 2021 data include income, gender, marital status, age group and political ideology. In addition, the “Not Out Of My Pocket” (Noomp) phenomenon is evident in the context of the introduction of a UBI with the presumption of a tax burden. It is therefore clear that social consensus on tax increases is of paramount importance in the development of welfare systems, including UBI.
Proposals for various forms of Basic Income, including Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) and Universal Basic Income (UBI) have received increasingly broad attention in recent years, both globally and in Australia. If all existing payments and taxes are applied on a purely individual basis (or entirely on a household basis), the distributional impacts of the introduction of GMI and UBI are equivalent. The key concept here is the effective marginal rate of taxation (EMTR), which is the combined effect of taxes paid on additional income and welfare payments withdrawn as income rises. This equivalence between UBI, GMI and Negative Income Tax (NIT) breaks down if, as in Australia, taxes are levied primarily on individual income while benefits are paid to households and means tested on a household basis. The purpose of this paper is to use micro-simulation to illustrate how this distinction changes the distributional effects of Basic Income schemes and the magnitude of the EMTR required to finance them. Modelling is completed through microsimulation using Treasury’s CAPITA model.
Basic Income (BI) has attracted significant interest in recent years, with the debate gradually shifting from theoretical considerations to practical research focused on policy implementation. One of the primary criticisms of BI remains its perceived infeasibility, yet the existing literature lacks a structured analysis of this issue. The main objective of this systematic literature review is to address this gap by reviewing current conceptualizations of BI feasibility and the factors that influence it. The review offers both quantitative insights that present numerical data on the analyzed studies, and qualitative analysis of two main themes: conceptualization of BI feasibility, and factors determining BI feasibility. The study clarifies feasibility types used in the literature and identifies key factors for policymakers to utilize in pushing for BI’s realization. The findings highlight the interdependence of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, emphasizing the role of context and policy design in shaping BI’s feasibility.
