I am very much in favour, as long as we know how to apply it without taking away incentive to work at the lower end of the market. (source)

An entrepreneurial culture thrives when it’s easy to try lots of new ideas. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things. There is something wrong with our system when I can make billions of dollars in 10 years while millions of students can’t afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business. (source)

I'm skeptical that Universal Basic Income can get rid of grinding poverty, since somehow humanity's 100-fold productivity increase (since the days of agriculture) didn't eliminate poverty. (source)

If we were to implement a Basic Income Guarantee we might save more money in psychiatric care than we think. (source)

The pool of displaced workers will just keep growing exponentially, and the solution is to level the playing field. (source)

I think we'll end up doing universal basic income. It's going to be necessary. (source)

Paying people not to work will only increase inequality and rancor. [...] If universal basic income is aimed to improve the objective conditions of the average person in 2050, it has a fair chance of succeeding. But if it is aimed to make people subjectively more satisfied with their lot in order to prevent social discontent, it is likely to fail. (source)

Either we are going to have a basic income that regulates this new society of ours, or we are going to have very substantial social conflicts that get far worse with xenophobia and refugees and migration and so forth. (source)

It comes from the right wing originally. Milton Friedman proposed it for example. From his point of view it was part of an effort to undermine welfare state measures. But it doesn’t have to have a reactionary component. It can be interpreted as something progressive. That people have rights. In fact if you read the universal declaration of human rights, 1948, take a look at article 45. It says people have rights to adequate food, nutrition, health, employment, security and so on. Those are minimal rights. Any society ought to guarantee that. Well, you know, one way to guarantee it would be through a socially acceptable form of a basic income. In fact, to an extent that’s what so-called welfare states try to provide in a certain way. So, sure, that’s something that could be proposed. I mean, I don’t think it goes far enough, but as a short-term way of alleviating major problems it’s fine. And there are elements in various societies that do provide things like that. (source)

You want your government to think more carefully about targeting programmes that help those in need, rather than universal. That’s a trade-off given the budget constraints on the public sector (source)

I do not believe in unconditional basic income because this just encourages people to be trapped in low skilled jobs without a meaningful path to climb up to do better work. So rather than to pay people to “do nothing” I would rather see a new “New deal” where we pay you to study because I think that today we know how to educate people at scale and the society is pretty good at finding meaningful work and rewarding people at the relevant skills. Incentivizing people to study increases the odds that the displaced worker can gain the skills they need to reenter the workforce and contribute back to this tax phase that gives as this engine of growth of the economy. (source)

I have difficulty in understanding those who insist on wishing to pay a basic income of 500 Euros per month to those earning a salary of 2000 Euros, and then deduct the same sum by raising their taxes deducted at source. (source)

It is one of the ways of addressing massive global inequality (source)

There is almost a ‘neoclassical market equilibrating assumption’ behind most BIG analysis that says: “as long as people have cash, the market will magically provide the goods for them, allow them to acquire assets, provide them with the freedom to do what they please, etc. etc.” If the market hasn’t solved these problems now, why would it do so just because people get cash? All structures that marginalize, reduce opportunities, and discriminate remain. JG is not a panacea for all these problems, but it deals with one crucial and systemic aspect of marginalization – the absence of guaranteed decent work (source)

The unconditional basic income is a way of shaping the necessary social change from preservation to new construction so as to become socially compatible. (source)

S’il règle le problème du non-recours et réduit la pauvreté monétaire, s’il permet d’éviter la stigmatisation et de supprimer les contrôles humiliants, le revenu de base a un coût financier important, non pas dû à son objectif principal, aider les personnes en situation de précarité, mais à une conséquence latérale, verser une somme importante à tous. Vu ce coût, la crédibilité de sa mise en place est faible. (source)

Basic income is the way of the future. (source)

I am a big fan of work programs and universal basic income. Government and society has a role to play in ensuring a smooth transition between technological disruption. We can have a society where there are tons of jobs for everyone. There is always going to be stuff to do. It is a matter of making sure that when someone was doing one thing and they were used to doing that thing, there are useful transitions to being able to do something new. (source)

The trouble with the UBI is that the utopia it promises is a deceit. Replacing our complex system of welfare benefits with a single equal payment for everyone means one of two things: either the universal basic income is too low to replace the benefits that people need or, if it is high enough not to leave those people out of pocket, it costs much more than the present system we have. If it is the former, then the universal basic income removes money from many of the most vulnerable people in society. If it is the latter, then it gives extra money to people who do not need it (source)

I do not support sending a BIG check to everyone. It is a devaluation of the currency, as prices rise so that the BIG payment essentially becomes the entry price to the marketplace. So we will need to target the BIG to those who do not (or cannot) work. Yes there’s some stigma. But, first we implement Employer of Last Resort so that anyone who is ready and willing to work has a job in the Job Guarantee/Employer of Last Resort. Then we provide BIG (or whatever you obwant to call it) to those who cannot, should not, or will not work. (source)

A Guaranteed Basic Income is an idea worth considering. (source)

If you have a basic income, you have a certain degree of self-worth. A set income and a ‘housing first’ strategy would work wonders, (source)

There are fairer ways to spread prosperity than universal basic income. Better alternatives include universal public services and a minimum income guarantee. (source)

Are the good, effective anti-poverty programs currently in place fully funded? I’m quite certain they’re not, and thus the question for progressives is what gets us the bigger inequality-and-poverty-reducing-bang-for-the-buck: a dollar to UBI, or a dollar to things like quality pre-school, the EITC and CTC (wage subsidies for low-income, working families), expanding Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), and housing supports? That’s not an arbitrary list. Each one of those programs has been shown to not just help less advantaged families today, but to have lasting effects on health, educational attainment, employment, earnings, and mobility. The reason I’m skeptical [on UBI] is that I’m afraid that such a program would inevitably take from these sorts of programs, reducing their actual and potential impacts. (source)

There has always been someone who put trust in me and said: Mr. Werner, show us what you can do. Exactly the same way the basic income says: We grant you so that you can live humbly but with dignity, and now you can show us what you can do. (source)

Shifting [...] to a basic income system is essentially saying that we consider the challenges of disability, old age, parenthood and prohibitive rents less important than administrative simplicity and the inefficiencies associated with means-testing (source)

The basic income will further divide society and prevent social mobility. Those who, due to their family background, have good prospects for interesting employment and high income will maintain their existing work ethic, engaging in school and study, and maybe taking a sabbatical or two in between. This is a good thing. However, life will become more difficult for young people from parts of society already at a disadvantage in terms of education – those from working class and migrant families. The sweet poison of the basic income will accompany them in every step of their school life and vocational training.(...) There is still a lot of work necessary to improve society that cannot be accomplished through the labour market, but that still needs to be acknowledged. But the unconditional basic income is the wrong way to accomplish this. (source)

Reducing work-time(...) is enormously preferable, because everyone benefits equally and together. The alternative – reducing the number of workers per capita (with an UBI) – amounts to the creation of essentially arbitrary classes of idle and segmented citizens, whose existence would be virtually guaranteed to divide and embitter the working class to the benefit of reactionary pro-work politics. (source)

A more effective and convincing strategy for the centre left is to strengthen, reform and revitalise welfare states and social policies. (source)

Let’s take the position of women in society. Some advocates of the universal allowance claim that it would strengthen it. But providing an income is not emancipation. Emancipation is ensuring that men and women can participate in life in society, and this happens in particular through the world of work. Giving the same income to everyone does not give everyone the same opportunities to choose; it is an illusion, because everyone’s starting point is not the same. Once again, this is a slogan. The universal allowance is about treating the symptom, not the disease. (source)

Una cosa è una proposta di basic income sulla base della convinzione (del tutto illusoria) che vivremmo in una fase di espansione quasi automatica della produttività sociale, per l’emergere di un ‘comune’ che esprimerebbe una spontanea cooperazione che si estenderebbe alla vita stessa in quanto tale: a quel punto, si può fantasticare che il basic income ti consentirebbe di scegliere tra lavoro e non lavoro, e retribuirebbe questa produttività del ‘comune’. Questa, insisto, mi sembra una illusione, molto pericolosa. C’è poi una seconda difficoltà, per così dire, sul piano pratico: il basic income viene prima proclamato ideologicamente come ‘incondizionato’, poi realisticamente lo si degrada a sussidio per i precari, come un passo in quella direzione. (source)

An Unconditional Basic Income Is The Solution But The Important Word Here Is Basic. (source)

La proposition avancée [par le revenu universel] ne contribue à résoudre ni le problème du chômage ni ceux de la pauvreté et des inégalités. Elle s’appuie sur l’idée fausse que le travail serait en voie de disparition, que les protections sociales seraient obsolètes et que nous serions condamnés à vivre dans une société de plus en plus ‘uberisée’ (source)

If we are to go on the offensive against the neoliberal agenda, surely it is the fight for free, expanded and accessible public services that should be our focus. If present systems of income support for unemployed, sick and disabled people are inadquate, we can demand full entitlement, adequate income and an end to intrusive rules and moral policing.However, rather than hope for a tax funded payment to blunt the impact of low wage, precarious work, let’s step up the fight for decent wages. If technological displacement threatens us, let’s challenge it and demand reduced hours of work at no loss of pay. (source)

This is an invitation to be part of something that really makes sense (source)

There is a strong link between having a basic income and creating a strong local economy. There is more money to circulate and it supports the ‘buy local’ movement. (source)

Let’s trial an Australian basic income for all (source)

Even the US isn't rich enough to allow people not to work. Some day we will be but until then things like the Earned Income Tax Credit will help increase the demand for labor. (source)

Time to take a serious look at basic annual guaranteed income (source)

The number one thing that would let more independent artists exists in America is a universal basic income. (source)

A kind of basic income will be absolutely inevitable. (source)

What if robots stealing our jobs could actually be a good thing, rather than something to fear? That’s the thinking behind Basic Income. (source)

Paying people a basic income would not remove the fundamental problem that in the digital economy some people will do extraordinarily well and many others find themselves left behind. One oft-heard argument is that if people want more money than basic income provides they can just work a few days. If the problem is technological unemployment, however, this option is simply removed as the large-scale loss of jobs renders it unviable. The digital economy would thus produce a new underclass stuck at basic income level and an economic elite that would reap the greatest benefits; it would also be largely free of social responsibility for those left behind as ideas for funding basic income usually rest on flat taxes and the abolition of public welfare provisions. (source)

We will need to redistribute income and wealth. Such redistribution could take the form of a basic income for every adult, together with funding of education and training at any stage in a person’s life (source)

If someone is a taker rather than a maker, and becomes dependent on the government for their unemployment checks, that creates a victim mentality. I decided right then and there that I didn't want someone to give me a fish; I needed to be taught how to fish. If anyone wants to give you free cash, no questions asked, get suspicious. Universal basic income is a step to becoming a slave of the federal government. The Constitution of the U.S. talks about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." (source)

There probably isn't much danger that Finns will stop working if they get a basic income. The bigger risk is that the government won't be able to pay for it. (source)

In developed countries, we don't let people starve or go without emergency medical care, so we effectively already have a basic income. Let's start by making it less random and inefficient. (source)

What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money? - FiveThirtyEight http://nzzl.us/KBNK9d3 ... I'm for it. Won't stop me from working harder (source)

We can’t pay for it (source)

1.896.963 (76,9 %) electors rejected UBI, which was rejected in all the cantons as well (source)

The right-wing version of UBI (...) is that the government should provide its citizens with a basic income at the subsistence level, while providing no (or little) further goods and services. As far as I can see, this is the version of UBI supported by the Silicon Valley companies. I am totally against this. There are left-wing libertarians who support UBI, who would set its level quite high, which would require quite a high degree of income redistribution. But they too believe that collective provision of "basic" goods and services through the welfare state should be minimized (although their "minimum" would be considerably larger than the neo-liberal one). This version is more acceptable to me, but I am not convinced by it. 1st: if the members of a society are collectively provisioning some goods and services, they have the collective right to influence how people use their basic entitlements. 2nd: provision through a universal welfare state makes social services much cheaper- (source)

There was no middle class, then there was a middle class, now we’re back where we started—it’s hollowed out. I don’t see where the middle class is going to come from. You’ll start seeing more conversation about a guaranteed income. (source)

Q: Proposte come il reddito di cittadinanza credi che possano aiutare a contenere il problema? A: Credo che sia una battaglia di retroguardia, se non addirittura di destra. Perché l'idea che lo Stato si inserisca in questa intermittenza e fornisca al lavoratore la quantità di soldi che gli serve per sopravvivere fino al contratto successivo può sembrare buona, ma nasconde a mio avviso parecchie ombre. Q: Quali ombre? A: All'inizio, quando si parlava di flessibilità del lavoro, si pensava a un modello in cui i salari sarebbero aumentati, in cui le aziende avrebbero dovuto pagare fino a quattro o cinque volte un lavoratore proprio perché in questo modo era l'azienda a prendersi carico del periodo di non retribuzione che sarebbe intercorso tra un contratto e quello successivo. Questo però non è mai successo, e nella pratica mi sembra un gigantesco regalo che lo Stato ha fatto alle aziende. E che ora sia lo Stato a metterci un'ulteriore pezza mi sembra grave. (source)

Hamon est peut-être plus radical, dans son approche, il cherche à proposer un autre modèle. D'où son idée de revenu universel, qui part du principe que l'emploi se raréfie, ce qu'on peut constater effectivement. Mais je ne pense pas que ce soit la bonne solution. Il y a une demande de travail, c'est un besoin exprimé par la population. Le travail, c'est la participation à la société, à la cité. Et la valeur créée dans l'économie vient du travail. Le capital, pour reprendre des termes marxiens, c'est du travail mort. (source)

It is very much the belief of us who favour a basic income that 99 per cent of people want to improve their lives. If you do not have basic security you cannot be rational (source)

In the 1970s, a five-year basic income program in the Canadian province of Manitoba called Mincome showed promising results. Parents spent more time raising children. Students showed higher test scores and lower dropout rates. Hospital visits, mental illness, car accidents, and domestic abuse cases all declined. And in the end, total working hours only slipped by a few percentage points. In other words, having a basic income didn’t lead to sloth or indolence. It let people spend time on the things that mattered: family, education, health, personal fulfillment. If the robots do take our jobs one day—but give us back some of those things in return—it might not be such a bad trade after all. (source)

L’instauration d’un revenu de base impliquerait par sa philosophie et pour son financement la suppression de certaines prestations sociales : allocations familiales, minima sociaux, allocation de handicap, minimum vieillesse, allocations-chômage et même, pour les plus extrémistes des libéraux, l’assurance-maladie… Le revenu de base deviendrait ainsi un solde de tout compte qui remplace de multiples allocations et droits et livre les populations aux compagnies d’assurance pour leur protection sociale, nous rapprochant du système en vigueur aux États-Unis. Ces suppressions constituent la motivation principale d’un certain nombre de promoteurs du revenu universel. Elles entraîneraient une baisse très importante de la protection sociale. En revanche, selon certaines propositions, les impôts payés par les plus riches (45% d’imposition) se trouveraient allégés de façon parfois très importante. (source)

When people ask me what HR technology or program excites me most, I tell them: universal basic income. (source)

To claim a share of such wealth without being willing to make this contribution is unfairly to free-ride on those citizens who do make the required contribution. If this unfairness is to be avoided, receipt of an equal share of the relevant types of external wealth must be made conditional on a demonstrated willingness to make the required contribution. And it is therefore inappropriate to redistribute such wealth in the form of an UBI precisely because doing so would disconnect enjoyment of this wealth from making the relevant contribution, and would thus permit free-riding. This is, of course, the exploitation objection to UBI. (source)

Use the tax-transfer mechanism (e.g. through a guaranteed minimum income for all, or an ambitious negative income tax, public funding of health care and long-term care etc.) to support those left behind by technological advances. (source)

I don’t in fact favour a basic income as such, what I favour is what I call a participation income (source)

Basic Income does not affect the causes of income inequality and wealth, of precarious jobs, of poverty and of unbearable life conditions. It would only mitigate their disastrous effects. Measures such as the Basic Income can, maybe, make precariousness and unemployment more bearable in the short term, but do not eliminate them. (source)

America needs to take radical steps to prevent Great Depression-level unemployment and a total societal meltdown, including handing out trillions of dollars in cash. (source)

The time has come for the provinces and territories to dismantle what has become an understaffed, stressed, and ineffective bureaucratic system that hurts more than it helps. There exist several viable models for a basic income – administered through the tax system – that would eliminate the bureaucracy, the intrusiveness, and the stigma associated with welfare. Our recommendations include this significant, forward-thinking plan, as well as several other common-sense actions. (source)

There are three potential targets for a Basic Income. We want to ameliorate poverty with a big basic transfer. We also want to improve work incentives by lowering the clawback rate on income-tested benefits for low earners. Finally, we want to work within the existing envelope of income transfer programs so we don’t need to raise taxes. All three are attractive features, but it’s impossible to satisfy all three at once. That is, there is an impossible trinity—you can only satisfy two of the three attributes. (source)

The different approaches to UBI do not escape to criticism: either they don’t mention the gender issue or they more or less defend the idea of a maternal salary, with the risk of stating that the latter would be favorable to women emancipation. Hence, the risk is real – we use as a proof the analysis of a “universal” basic income measure already implemented (education parental income, targeting all parents) – to see universal basic income measures reinforcing gender inequalities, both in the job market and outside of it. (source)

Another reason for a basic income - Old and on the Street: The Graying of America’s Homeless (source)

We have a small technological aristocracy and a middle class struggling to catch up with the demands of a more efficient economy. Basic income can bring a baseline and offer freedom to those trapped by our new economy. (source)

Utopia? Not at all. We need to advance the discussion and make politicians understand that it is the only way forward. And if we don’t move forward, we’re going to end up in a place none of us is going to like. (source)

Imagine a universal basic income, which everyone would receive. Once policymakers pick a benefit level and method of calculating the cost-of-living adjustment, they will be stuck with it for a long time. (source)

I think it’s good to start studying [basic income] early. I’m fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going to see some version of this at a national scale. (source)

To benefit from the automation revolution we need a universal basic income, the slashing of working hours and a redefinition of ourselves without work (source)

Moderates within the Labour Party shouldn’t be afraid to embrace radical ideas. I’m coming out for Basic Income. (source)

La seule façon de financer l’allocation universelle, c’est d’éliminer la Sécurité sociale existante, ce qui impliquerait une régression sociale énorme, parce qu’on remplacerait un système d’allocations sociales qui est conditionnel, focalisé sur les besoins des personnes, progressif, par un système inconditionnel. C’est ridicule. Ça ne réussira jamais. (source)

the model being tasted in Finland is impossibly expensive, since it would increase the government deficit by about 5 per cent (source)

It took a lot of effort to achieve some basic rights, and now neoliberalism is destroying everything: the education system, health care... By giving money to each citizen you are transferring responsibility from the State to the people, so that they can manage as best they can. It makes no sense to give the same thing to everyone, what we need is a complete and integrated welfare system. (source)

If you would offer every individual a Swiss amount of money, you would have billions of people who would try to move into Switzerland (source)

[With basic income,] people can rest and recover their freedom. Thus basic income would also unleash innovation [and relieve people from their] existential fears. (source)

Les partisans du revenu universel sont ensuite confrontés à une contradiction fatale. Si le revenu est «suffisant» ou «décent», son financement implique de redéployer largement la protection sociale, parce qu’il n’y a pas de source autonome de création de valeur. C’est alors une régression sociale qui consiste à remarchandiser ce qui a été socialisé. Et si le revenu est fixé à un niveau modeste, comme étape intermédiaire, alors le projet ne se distingue plus des projets néo-libéraux et leur prépare le terrain. (source)

Basic income is not a utopia. It's a practical business plan for the next step of the human journey (source)

One way to think about a basic income is as follows: it removes a currently binding constraint on time optimization for many individuals allowing them to escape a local minimum – that in turn lets the economy as a whole adjust much faster (and with far less pain). (source)

Would the payment of a basic income to the whole population foster the same macroeconomic mechanism (i.e. a demand-led stimulation)? Yes if such payments anticipate additional production. But, by definition, the unconditional basic income is isolated from any anticipation and therefore from any social validation, as it is unconditional. The utility value of free work (for example the social link or the domestic work) escapes from the value domain as soon as we define value – as Marx did – as a labour unit socially validated. To state the opposite, like all basic income theoreticians do, means embracing the neoclassical thesis pervading the pseudo economic science. (source)

Non si può che concludere, quindi, che la visione hayekiana è oggi dominante, paradossalmente anche a sinistra. Il monito polanyiano, nonostante il caso finlandese presenti analogie sorprendenti con le leggi di Speenhamland, è invece del tutto ignorato. Eppure, nella situazione odierna in cui alla disoccupazione strutturale si accompagnano enormi bisogni sociali insoddisfatti, ritenere necessario il reddito di cittadinanza non può che essere l’ennesimo frutto tossico di una certa «obsoleta mentalità di mercato», da cui Polanyi ci metteva severamente in guardia. Se è ancora possibile credere che la cittadinanza sia completamente conquistata solo quando ogni uomo e donna viene messo in grado di concorrere «al progresso materiale e spirituale della società», allora l’assistenza come alternativa al lavoro è un atto subdolamente regressivo. (source)

How can we help as many people as possible as much as possible with the resources we have? (source)

Todo hace pensar que la nueva tesis del “fin del trabajo” encarna un discurso intimidatorio que oculta a la vez intenciones probablemente más sombrías que las neoliberales. Los inmigrantes “amenazan” a los trabajadores desde las fronteras y los “robots” desde la inmutable naturaleza de la “economía” –que por supuesto nada tiene que ver con las relaciones entre los hombres–. La idea de la renta universal ciudadana asume de hecho el nuevo discurso del “fin del trabajo”, y por mejores intenciones que guarden algunos de sus exponentes acabará convalidando nuevos embates del capital. (source)

Nel tempo, il combinato disposto di reddito garantito e precarietà lavorativa cristallizza i rapporti di produzione dati, elimina ogni residuo di «potere operaio» nella produzione, e dunque rafforza la divisione in classi della società capitalistica.In altre parole, in assenza di un salario minimo e, ancor più, di un piano per la piena occupazione, la semplice erogazione di un sussidio monetario rischia di tradursi in degrado ed emarginazione sociale. Dai ghetti dei nativi australiani alle periferie berlinesi, gli esempi di come politiche di elargizioni monetarie possano produrre effetti socialmente regressivi non mancano. Di certo, tali politiche non paiono in grado, da sole, di prefigurare alcun rovesciamento nei rapporti sociali scaturiti dai processi di finanziarizzazione e globalizzazione che hanno investito le principali economie capitalistiche nell’ultimo trentennio, rischiando anzi di fungere da foglia di fico (o addirittura da amplificatori) di tali processi. (source)

Une allocation universelle ne rendra pas moins nécessaires les métiers pénibles. Il faudra toujours des gens pour accomplir ces tâches essentielles. Selon moi, la meilleure solution pour inverser le rapport de force entre dominants et dominés n’est donc pas de distribuer une allocation monétaire à tout le monde, allocation qui, par construction, risque surtout d’être dévaluée et de ne pas permettre d’accéder à de nombreux services essentiels, mais de protéger les salariés qui occupent des emplois pénibles et qui, en quelque sorte, se sacrifient pour que d’autres (et eux-mêmes) vivent. Cela implique, bien sûr, de diminuer le temps de travail, notamment en avançant l’âge de la retraite, d’améliorer les conditions de travail, de mécaniser autant que possible les tâches les plus ingrates et pour cela, d’augmenter les salaires les plus faibles. En somme, il faut revoir profondément la logique du marché qui ne m’apparaît être ni neutre ni efficace. Distribuer une allocation universelle sans (source)

The basic income is needed to serve the creative genius of the community (i.e. the ‘scenius’) (source)

Even if the robots don’t come, our labour market is so precarious that as it is, it isn’t working. That’s why we need basic income. (source)

An unconditional basic income would make part-time work a possibility for many who now have to work full-time at minimum wages; it would also start to give all workers the same choice as to how much to work, and under what conditions, as is now possessed by owners of substantial capital. (source)

I’m supportive of the idea of a basic income over the long term and believe that one day something of this size will likely be necessary to cope with the impact of automation and globalized trade on the United States. (source)

(Pro UBI) argument is that, today, the technological evolution is destroying so many jobs that there is no longer any other choice than to decouple income from work. This argument is absurd for many reasons, but mainly because productivity nowadays is rising much slower than several decades ago. If, one day, productivity would increase substantially again, it will be both possible and necessary to increase wages. The working time can be reduced in small incremental steps and problems associated with demand can be solved accordingly(...). This means that there is no ground for such a major step as the implementation of a UBI. (source)

They call it the basic income of all citizens (“reddito di cittadinanza”), but here in Italy we will call it the basic income of the land (“reddito della gleba”, in reference to feudal serfs, or “servi della gleba”, who were linked to the land). We would save characters, and we will be closer to the essence of the reasoning. As much as serfdom (“servitu’ della gleba”) linked the serfs to the land, the basic income of the land is to link the new serfs to precarious employment (source)

This idea finds support across America’s ideological spectrum in an era when hardly anything else does (source)

Building a political coalition around the idea of basic income would help end the resentment of those in work contributing to support those who are not able to work or cannot find jobs. Payment of a basic income to everyone would price workers into many more jobs which at present do not pay enough for people to live on. (source)

To replace a social security system primarily financed by contributions and based on wage solidarity with a rent paid by the Government and financed by tax income seems a war machine against the welfare state. In addition, an income provided unconditionally to anybody can only be mediocre and cannot ensure the financial independence of the beneficiaries. These would be obliged to accept to work for whatever wage in order to round up their benefits. As a result, there would be a degradation of the labour market and a proliferation of badly paid jobs (source)

I am very much pro basic income (source)

Ultimately we need something like a universal basic income. There has to be someway to distribute this kind of technological wealth more fairly to the rest of the world. (source)

Basic Income smoothes work transitions whilst providing security in an age of potentially rapid technological change (source)

Where a welfare state responds to needs through the in-kind provision of specific goods or social services, rather than with a cash benefit, it liberates the recipients of these benefits from market dependency (at least to some degree) and thus arguably furthers the realization of their humanity. On this score, the liberal welfare state seems to do rather better than a basic income scheme would. In a great many instances, the liberal welfare state favors the in-kind provision of needed goods and services over cash transfers. For example, it provides such things as public housing, temporary shelter, food stamps, school means, education and health care. These provisions can quite seriously be said to lessen their recipients’ dependence on market mechanisms by meeting needs as directly as possible. Of course, the liberal welfare state also provides cash subsidies in the form of pen- sions, disability insurance and unemployment insurance. (source)

It could be a solution - not today, not tomorrow, but in a society which has changed fundamentally by digitization. I try not to think in rigid structures, but to see what is changing in the world and how we might react when things arrive as we expect. We have to protect our society. That's why the idea of a basic income. (source)

UBI's aim of a society of "free labor" -- or no labor at all -- is appealing, but it is individualizing and lacks coordinating devices. With a self-managed socialist job guarantee, free labor would be an associated and socialized labor. At the same time, it would socialize the deployment of capital to meet community needs. (source)

We are keen to have that debate about whether the time has arrived for us to have a system that is seamless, easy to pass through, [with a] guaranteed basic income and [where] you can move in and out of work on a regular basis. (source)

Our economy [Hawaii's] is changing far more rapidly than anybody's expected. It is important to be sure that everybody will benefit from the technological revolution that we're seeing to make sure no one's left behind. (source)

If you want to incentivise work at every level of income then Basic Income is simply the best system (source)

Economically, states already guarantee a basic salary under certain conditions, for example in cases of unemployment or extreme poverty. With universal basic income, this assistance would no longer be temporary or linked to a certain condition, and I don’t think it would be sustainable. Moreover, I don’t like the idea of a world where work is no longer a form of self-realisation for citizens. I imagine a dystopian scenario in which 60% of people don’t work and 10% are entrepreneurs with very high incomes. From my point of view, it is better to have reasonable salaries for good jobs for many people than to have a very large percentage of the population depending on a guaranteed minimum wage and a very small percentage of the population with very high incomes. (source)

An UBI within striking distance of the poverty level, as commonly understood, would, conceptually, be affordable without aggressively attacking the fortunes of upper income Americans and without raising anyone’s effective marginal tax rates (source)

The UBI short-cut to more leisure time, less poverty, and strengthened unions delivered up on a platter by a corporate-captured state that has demonstrated for 40 years it is committed to the opposite of all this is a fantasy. If we want more leisure time, we have to get productivity growing again. And to get productivity growing again, labour has to become more expensive. And the only way for labour to become more expensive is for there to be a genuinely global and militant labour movement, on the scale of what had so frightened elites that they conceded to us the welfare state after the war. (source)

A universal basic income that has the ambition to ban poverty from the world, is then immensely expensive. That doesn’t need to surprise you. To give the poor (a minority in society) a basic income, you have to also provide a basic income to the large majority that doesn’t need it. This leads to new problems. The working majority receives a basic income that stands loose from labor efforts, but will have to pay extra taxes (and not a small amount) on their labor incomes. And that is the best way to weaken work incentives. Conclusion: The only realistic system is one where the basic income is limited to those who need it. A universal basic income will never happen. (source)

Establecer un salario ciudadano cuando nuestro Estado del Bienestar está tan poco desarrollado es comenzar la casa por el tejado. Hay que garantizar que todo ciudadano y residente pueda tener los recursos necesarios para vivir una vida digna y ello implica que el estado debe garantizar que los ciudadanos y residentes puedan alcanzar tal nivel de renta, bien a través del trabajo, bien a través de otras fuentes, incluidas las transferencias públicas, a la cual tenga derecho por sus circunstancias. Y esta renta debería ser superior a la que se cita frecuentemente como renta básica, que es más parecida en España a una prestación asistencial antipobreza que no como derecho universal. (source)

I don't have to work. I choose to work. And I believe that everyone deserves the same freedom I have. If done right, it's also economically superior, meaning that we will all have more wealth. We often talk about how brilliant or visionary Steve Jobs was, but there are probably millions of people just as brilliant as he was. The difference is that they likely didn't grow up with great parents, amazing teachers, and an environment where innovation was the norm. Also they didn't live down the street from Steve Wozniak. Economically, we don't need more jobs. We need more Steve Jobs. When we set everyone free, we enable the outliers everywhere. The result will be an unprecedented boom in human creativity and ingenuity. (source)

An unbiased support for everyone? I think this principle will eventually assert itself, indeed I believe it is a necessity. (source)

UBI creates a new difference between those people who work and earn a living and those people who, for wathever reason, don't work but still earn a living. This is going to create two classes of people (...) and for me the big issue is why do that?. I like the idea of community building by not having people that are extremely wealthy or extremely poor, but I don't like this way of doing it, because it creates the worker/the non worker, yet both earn incomes. So, for me the solution is simple:(...) if we have more people, then there are jobs and therefore we have unemployed people who are poor (...), why do we have a 40-hour week? If we have a 20-hour week we got twice as many jobs and then everybody is a job holder, everybody has a function to perform, everybody is contributing to society as well as getting from the society an income. (source)

There's probably a huge amount of problems in the world that would probably be fixed if there was a guaranteed income (source)

As we have ever higher rates of technological innovation, and every higher rates of automation, the basic guaranteed income is one such innovation which indeed may be a phenomenal idea. We need to try it. (source)

Well, there’s the fact that a universal basic income could add as much as $2 trillion in annual expenses to the U.S. budget. Then there’s the question of whether such a program might disconnect large swaths of our population from the positive aspects of working for a living—a potentially toxic side effect. And finally, there’s little convincing evidence that large-scale technological unemployment is actually happening or will happen in the immediate future. Advances are changing the types of tasks and skills in demand, displacing many workers from jobs that have become obsolete. But the massive, automation-fueled job displacement cited as the prime justification for a basic income won’t actually reach us for decades, assuming it does come. (source)

Embedded in the idea of universal basic income is the assumption that some jobs are worthwhile, and others not. Some may sneer at “McJobs”—but cleaners in McDonald’s stop infections, just as cleaners in NHS hospitals do.(...) Proponents of UBI ignore the value of such work: it only makes sense to be emancipated from an obligation that is inherently undesirable. Yet the universal basic income institutionalises the gap between the disproportionate and increasing rewards for the few and stagnant wages and poor prospects for the many. It fails to broaden the scope of useful work, which includes activities that have a significant social benefit but an economic cost. (...) Its supporters do not see the enormous potential for social division that universal basic income would bring with it. For those on the right who are convinced that the world is divided between “wealth creators” and everyone else, it would be a brilliant tool to discard much of society. (source)

Van Parijs would guarantee everyone the maximum unconditional basic income that could be sustained in a society (...) regardless of wether they were able or performing socially useful work. Lazy, able-bodied surfers would be just as entitled to that income as dependent caretakers or the disabled. (...) Van Parij's proposal effectively indulges the tastes of the lazy and irresponsible at the expense of others who need assitance" (source)

The next Dutch government should make poverty in Holland #history by implementing #BasicIncome. #ModernSociety (source)

If we can enable a world of creators, the ROI on a basic income... it's just incomprehensible. It's so big. (source)

Universal Basic Income is definitely part of the GP platform under Economic Justice & Sustainability (source)

Basic income is the long-term answer to the increasing precariousness of ordinary people in a global economy that can shift their jobs to the other side of the world in a heartbeat. (source)

Yo defiendo que el Estado garantice que todos los ciudadanos sin excepción dispongan de ingresos suficientes para vivir con dignidad. Pero no creo que la mejor forma de lograrlo sea la renta básica porque desvincula derechos de obligaciones y supone tratar igual a los desiguales, principios que no comparto, como creo que le ocurre a muchas personas. Porque no tiene en cuenta la individualización de las capacidades humanas y su desigual alcance y porque me parece que establecerla sin modificar la división sexual y social del trabajo o los procesos de socialización multiplicaría la desigualdad, sobre todo entre mujeres y hombres. Además, creo que la experiencia demuestra claramente que para combatir la pobreza y la exclusión son mucho más eficientes el pleno empleo masculino y femenino, la desmercantilización y el reparto del trabajo, los salarios dignos, las pensiones públicas... (source)

And what if the owning and renting classes simply view a BI as another source to be scarfed up through higher rents, charges, privatized highways etc., so it ends up merely expanding the gulf between the rich and the rest?(...) So the GBI just gets recycled back up to those who made it necessary in the first place. The inequality gulf worsens and is financed largely by taxes from people who can’t ever get ahead of it. (source)

I am really, really interested if he will bring that to bear in terms of some really significant changes to the taxation system that would really help us manage poverty in a brand new way, (source)

The underlying belief or dream is that basic income will provide a mobilising theme to bring about radical change. There is no evidence anywhere in the world for this. Similar proposals have been made every few years for the last 50 years and they have got nowhere (and I do not mention Switzerland). The problem is that it combines a radical vision with a naive or insouciant view of politics. I fear that this latest plan will drain the energies of the left in social policy and will divert attention from so many other worthwhile policy alternatives: the living wage, boosting trade unionism, free childcare, radical changes in housing policy, policies to reduce working time to limit turbo-consumption, green investment and so on. (source)

A regular sum paid to all citizens or residents, whether or not they are in work, will not solve the problems of earnings inequality and stagnant wage growth. (source)

Even as Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, heaps praise on a basic income, the tech giant does all in its legal power to avoid tax and dodge paying its fair share towards the social infrastructure it relies on. The left must not allow itself to be seduced. A basic income is a distraction from these core issues of economic power; a radical-sounding excuse to look the other way from the less glamorous, more complex question of how to ensure labour market rights are properly enforced. Accepting a deterioration in employment rights and working conditions in exchange for a basic income could be dangerously counterproductive. (source)

Basic income, therefore, is often seen as the Trojan horse that would allow tech companies to position themselves as progressive, even caring – the good cop to Wall Street’s bad cop – while eliminating the hurdles that stand in the way of further expansion. Goodbye to all those cumbersome institutions of the welfare state, employment regulations that guarantee workers’ rights or subversive attempts to question the status quo with regards to the ownership of data or the infrastructure that produces it. (source)

A guaranteed annual income is not an end in itself. It should not be viewed as a replacement for a full employment policy. If the purpose is to reduce inequality and poverty, there are other solutions: bringing real changes to the tax system, getting tougher on fiscal havens, introducing inheritance taxes and of course, jobs, jobs, jobs. (source)

A guaranteed income and other proposals for major expansion of general cash transfers fail all three tests of feasibility: incentives, finances and politics. Taking even modest initial steps toward a guaranteed income is likely to further starve critically needed targeted cash transfers and diverse in-kind benefits. These initial steps are also unlikely to proceed very far or to be fundamentally effective in combating poverty. Thus, the siren call of a simple cash fix for poverty is likely to divert both policy developments and political efforts away from more realistic and effective paths. A far better strategy is to refine and better support policy instruments known to improve the lives of the poor in meaningful ways. (source)

A Citizens Basic Income (CBI) would ensure that the financial gains from paid work were always positive and would provide a more secure base for individuals to opt in and out of the labour market, thus promoting greater flexibility with respect to individual life choices. (source)

The Federal Job Guarantee will directly target the unemployed — remedying a key predictor of poverty. By providing universal employment, it will also counteract employers’ systematic discrimination against ex-offenders, recent military veterans, and certain racial groups. Furthermore, through providing a guaranteed job, workers will be emboldened to take new actions in the private sector. This could be just the policy to reinvigorate the labor movement, spurring unionization drives to improve working conditions. These benefits will result in the federal jobs raising beneficiaries and their families above the poverty line. The UBI can make no such guarantee. (source)

We need a Universal Basic Income to provide a base level for everyone. (source)

Universal basic income (UBI) schemes are often rejected out of hand as too expensive. In some countries [eg. Italy] however, paying every resident a basic income sufficient for survival could actually result in budget savings. (source)

The basic income demand is just too basic. As a reform for labour, it is not as good as the demand for a job for all who need it at a living wage; or reducing the working week while maintaining wages; or providing decent pensions. And under socialism, it would be redundant. (source)

I completely agree that Universal Basic Income is a good idea. But I think that’s just the beginning of the discussion. (source)

I think Universal Basic Income has legs. (source)

It is hardly surprising in this environment that many progressives find the BI idea attractive. It promises important benefits that market economies rarely have been able to deliver. But if the right to work and income support proclaimed in the Universal Declaration can be secured at lower cost than a BI guarantee, the BI idea loses much of its luster. A society that used direct job creation to secure the right to work and conventional income transfer s to secure the right to income security could eliminate poverty with a much smaller allocation of public resources than a BI guarantee would require. The JI strategy also could secure most of the other benefits associated with a BI guarantee at lower cost . That being the case, the extra benefits uniquely attributable to a BI guarantee would be hard to justify. (source)

We may have to consider instituting a Basic Income Guarantee. (source)

Paying everyone a basic income will end poverty and save money. (source)

Giving everyone $15,000 would put everyone on the same level. They could do with it whatever they wanted, but having the financial security of some basic money to live on, would give them the opportunity to work on what they want. Work is everything, (source)

I think it’s the principles behind the idea [of a guaranteed income] that matter. These principles are greater simplicity for the government, greater transparency on the part of families and greater equity for everyone (source)

Getting a monthly cheque could mean not having to take the first crappy job that appears if you get fired or the economy tanks (...) Those crappy jobs might be easier to resist for a while but they might also get a bit crappier if employers know the state is effectively giving them a subsidy that keeps workers out of the most desperate poverty. (source)

[I am] speaking out more lately for measures to deal with inequality – such as a basic income guarantee policy – because others don’t. (source)

La natura progressiva e democratica del reddito di cittadinanza si rivela così un tragico equivoco. Costituendo una formidabile accoppiata con la tanto desiderata “meritocrazia”, questa ideologia della povertà instilla il falso convincimento che le diseguaglianze economiche e sociali siano qualcosa di naturale. La conseguenza è che coloro che si sono trovati in stato di povertà (i cosiddetti “neo-poveri”) siano spinti a seguire il flusso mainstream delle opinioni, e inizino così a chiedere meno tasse, meno spesa pubblica, meno Welfare, meno controlli su imprese e capitali (leggi i “lacci e lacciuoli” visti sempre come negativi e dunque da levare), meno diritti per i lavoratori. La povertà trova così un suo temibile supplemento psicologico consistente nell’aver interiorizzato il discorso del neoliberismo, confermato nella sua valenza morale e nella sua istanza pedagogica. L’espressione “reddito di cittadinanza” non è che l’ultimo anello aggiuntosi al dominante discorso del “meno”. (source)

The Universal Basic Income is indeed worse than the status quo. In fact, all the fundamental criticisms of the welfare state apply with even greater force. (source)

I support a minimum basic income, which was actually proposed by none other than President Richard Nixon and conservative economist Milton Friedman. (source)

Without an associated public Job Guarantee, the Universal Basic Income is merely welfare by another name: a laissez-faire solution to contemporary social and ecological crises. (source)

"Let’s send a check to everyone" is an appealing idea, but I've come around to the view that doing so would do more harm than good. [...] It eventually would choke off immigration to the U.S. Voters don't like sending money to immigrants. (source)

The government should take care of people with low income and should be pushing basic income grants (source)

The price tag for this model of GAI (Guaranteed Annual Income) would be complete elimination of our social services safety net, full privatization of education and health services, and elimination of government regulation of industry. And as a bonus, the plan would further weaken the labour movement. (source)

India should consider replacing inefficient subsidies with a basic monthly income for all citizens (source)

UBI does not alleviate poverty and turns social necessities into products for profit. To truly address inequality we need adequate social provisioning. If we want to reduce means testing and dependency on capitalist employment, we can do so with capacity planning. Our political demands should mandate sufficient housing, healthcare, education, childcare and all basic human necessities for all. Rather than a basic income, we need to demand and fight for a basic outcome — for the right to life and justice, not just the right to spend. (source)

Europe needs radical social reform, including a basic income. (source)

Cari amici che sognate il rifiuto del lavoro, questa non è la stessa cosa che la liberazione dal lavoro ed è una cultura di destra e tutt’altro che antagonista al sistema. Voi aspirate a vivere con le briciole che cadono dal banchetto dell’ipercapitalismo finanziario, ma durerà ancora poco. E poi, vivere senza lavorare non è questa idea così nuova: da secoli lo fanno padroni e rentier alle spalle degli altri. E’ per questo motivo che sono e sarò sempre contrario ad ogni forma di “reddito di cittadinanza” che è solo un espediente delle classi dirigenti neoliberiste per gestire questa fase di passaggio senza correre rischi di rivolta sociale. (source)

We (Edmonton and Calgary) may be in a position to pilot some different solutions. As partners, we may be able to help the Province implement [a basic income guarantee pilot]. (source)

What basic income does is set a floor, a monetary floor by which no one will fall below. So you want to guarantee that basic income for everybody. (source)

Returning now to the UBI, we can understand with a little more thought about the concept, that it is not an automatic stabilizer. While it does increase aggregate demand, it is not a stabilizer, because it provides a guaranteed payment to everyone regardless of their income level. For a UBI to act as an automatic stabilizer, the amount provided would have to be progressive with the poorest receiving more than the richest. Because of the guarantee of equal payments regardless of the person’s income level and the inflationary potential of a standalone UBI, it is, in fact, the antithesis of an automatic stabilizer; it is an economic destabilizer. For these reasons and those mentioned in my article yesterday, I cannot support a standalone UBI as a solution for any economy. (source)

El sustrato ideológico neoclásico de los proponentes de la RBU se delata en su obsesión por demostrar la viabilidad de su financiación. Comparten con los neoclásicos una visión del estado constreñido financieramente. Partiendo de las premisas de que el trabajo es un bien finito, arguyen que quienes sí conservan su empleo disfrutan de un privilegio por el que deben pagar otro impuesto adicional. Desvían la lucha de clases desde el capital hacia los trabajadores: pobres contra menos pobres. Pero el trabajo no es finito y el pleno empleo no es una entelequia como demuestran países que han sabido conservar el papel crucial que tienen los Estados como fiel de la balanza social. La RBU es el paradigma de solucionar un problema haciéndolo desaparecer. ¿No queremos crear empleo para todos? Simplemente retiramos a parte de la fuerza de trabajo con una magra renta básica. Muerto el perro, se acabó la rabia. (source)

A basic income guarantee is a neo-liberal strategy for serfdom without the work ... In addition to a Job Guarantee we also demand a Services Guarantee. It is no good having a bare minimum income if the dentists and doctors and shops in your town are closed and the public transport system is deficient. (source)

Adopting a universal basic income for all people can help society think creatively with new ideas, develop new industries — and free-up people to work on important future projects. This practical social support program can grow as science & technology rapidly evolve, becoming part of world abundance. (source)

To exit the true/false debate on the universal basic income, let’s defend the free public service! (…) To defend and increase the weight of free goods is to give everybody what they need to live, in an unconditional way but with a revenue largely demonetized, diseconomized. It is therefore to exit from capitalism. (source)

The reason they adore UBI isn’t to do with their commitment to lift a growing underclass out of poverty; that’s just a bedtime story that helps the super-wealthy sleep. Instead, it’s more to permit spending on their goods by what remains of the American middle class. No one on a stagnant wage can currently buy the things that Musk—and the rest of Silicon Valley—wants to sell them. (source)

By applying to a fundamentally unequal situation a perfectly equal treatment does not create more equality: it reinforces instead existing inequalities. Far from being fair, it is on the opposite the negation of justice. Regarding social efficiency, we can easily demonstrate that the project has none (source)