Universal basic income
Universal basic income is a social welfare proposal in which all members of a given population regularly receive a minimum income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, i.e., without a means test or need to perform work. In contrast, a guaranteed minimum income is paid only to those who do not already receive an income that is enough to live on. A UBI would be received independently of any other income. If the level is sufficient to meet a person's basic needs, it is considered a full basic income; if it is less than that amount, it is called a partial basic income. As of 2025, no country has implemented a full UBI system, but two countries—Mongolia and Iran—have had a partial UBI in the past. There have been numerous pilot projects, and the idea is discussed in many countries. Some have labelled UBI as utopian due to its historical origin.
There are several welfare arrangements that can be considered similar to basic income, although they are not unconditional. Many countries have a system of child benefit, which is essentially a basic income for guardians of children. A pension may be a basic income for retired persons. There are also quasi-basic income programs that are limited to certain population groups or time periods, like Bolsa Familia in Brazil, which is concentrated on the poor, or the Thamarat Program in Sudan, which was introduced by the transitional government to ease the effects of the economic crisis inherited from the Bashir regime. Likewise, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted some countries to send direct payments to its citizens. The Alaska Permanent Fund is a fund for all residents of the U.S. state of Alaska which averages $1,600 annually, and is sometimes described as the only example of a real basic income in practice. A negative income tax can be viewed as a basic income for certain income groups in which citizens receive less and less money until this effect is reversed the more a person earns.
Critics claim that a basic income at an appropriate level for all citizens is not financially feasible, fear that the introduction of a basic income would lead to fewer people working, and consider it socially unjust that everyone should receive the same amount of money regardless of their individual needs. Proponents say it is indeed financeable, arguing that such a system, instead of many individual means-tested social benefits, would eliminate more expensive social administration and bureaucratic efforts, and expect that unattractive jobs would have to be better paid and their working conditions improved because there would have to be an incentive to do them when already receiving an income, which would increase the willingness to work. Advocates also argue that a basic income is fair because it ensures that everyone has a sufficient financial basis to build on and less financial pressure, thus allowing people to find work that suits their interests and strengths.
Early examples of unconditional payments to citizens date back to antiquity, and the first proposals to introduce a regular unconditionally paid income for all citizens were developed and disseminated between the 16th and 18th centuries. After the Industrial Revolution, public awareness and support for the concept increased. At least since the mid-20th century, basic income has repeatedly been the subject of political debates. In the 21st century, several discussions are related to the debate about basic income, including those concerning the automation of large parts of the human workforce through artificial intelligence, and associated questions regarding the future of the necessity of work. A key issue in these debates is whether automation and AI will significantly reduce the number of available jobs and whether a basic income could help prevent or alleviate such problems by allowing everyone to benefit from a society's wealth, as well as whether a UBI could be a stepping stone to a resource-based or post-scarcity economy.
History
Antiquity
had a strong, unified theocratic state that owned key parts of the Egyptian economy, including granaries that dispensed grain to the public during hard times.In a 46 BC triumph, Roman general and dictator Julius Caesar gave each common Roman citizen 100 denarii. Following his assassination in 44 BC, Caesar's will left 300 sestertii to each citizen. Trajan, emperor of Rome from 98 to 117 AD, personally gave 650 denarii to all common Roman citizens who applied.
16th century
In his Utopia, English statesman and philosopher Thomas More depicts a society in which every person receives a guaranteed income. In this book, basic income is proposed as an answer to the statement "No penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it's their only way of getting food", stating:instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody's under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief, and then a corpse.
Spanish scholar Johannes Ludovicus Vives proposed that the municipal government should be responsible for securing a subsistence minimum to all its residents "not on the grounds of justice but for the sake of a more effective exercise of morally required charity." Vives also argued that to qualify for poor relief, the recipient must "deserve the help he or she gets by proving his or her willingness to work."
18th century
English-born American philosopher Thomas Paine authored Common Sense and The American Crisis, the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution. His essay, Agrarian Justice, was published in 1797. In it, he proposed concrete reforms to abolish poverty. In particular, he proposed a universal social insurance system comprising old-age pensions and disability support, and universal stakeholder grants for young adults, funded by a 10% inheritance tax focused on land, it is also considered one of the earliest proposals for a social security system. Thomas Paine summarized his view by stating that "Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds." Paine saw inheritance as being partly a common fund and wanted to supplement the citizen's dividend in a tax on inheritance transfers.In 1797, English Radical Thomas Spence published The Rights of Infants as a response to Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice. In this essay Spence proposes the introduction of an unconditional basic income to all members of the community. Such allowance would be financed through the socialization of land and the benefits of the rents received by each municipality. A part of everyone's earnings would be seized by the State, and given to others.
19th century
proposed to create a pension and disability system, and a broad social support system from a single tax on land and natural resource value. Social support would be distributed to residents "as a right" instead of as charity. George mentioned, but did not stress, the possibility of direct cash distribution of land rent. His ideas gave rise to the economic philosophy now known as Georgism or the "single tax movement", which is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society. Some Georgists refer to unconditional basic income funded by the single tax as a citizen's dividend in reference to Thomas Paine's proposal from the 19th century.Early 20th century
Around 1920, support for basic income started growing, primarily in England.Bertrand Russell argued for a new social model that combined the advantages of socialism and anarchism, and that basic income should be a vital component in that new society. In his 1918 book Roads to Freedom, Russell wrote "... the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful..."
In the United Kingdom at the end of World War I, Dennis and Mabel Milner, a Quaker married couple of the Labour Party, published a short pamphlet entitled "Scheme for a State Bonus" that argued for the "introduction of an income paid unconditionally on a weekly basis to all citizens of the United Kingdom." They considered it a moral right for everyone to have the means to subsistence, and thus it should not be conditional on work or willingness to work.
C. H. Douglas was an engineer who became concerned that most British citizens could not afford to buy the goods that were produced, despite the rising productivity in British industry. His solution to this paradox was a new social system he called social credit, a combination of monetary reform and basic income.
In 1944 and 1945, the Beveridge Committee, led by the British economist William Beveridge, developed a proposal for a comprehensive new welfare system of social insurance, means-tested benefits, and unconditional allowances for children. Committee member Lady Rhys-Williams argued that the incomes for adults should be more like a basic income. She was also the first to develop the negative income tax model. Her son Sir Brandon Rhys-Williams proposed a basic income to a parliamentary committee in 1982, and soon after that in 1984, the Basic Income Research Group, now the Citizen's Basic Income Trust, began to conduct and disseminate research on basic income.