Economic Policy
Universal Basic Income
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a government program that provides regular, unconditional cash payments to all adult citizens or residents regardless of their employment or economic status.
Key facts
Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend has paid every eligible resident an annual cash dividend since 1982, with payments ranging from $331 to $2,072 per person depending on oil revenues, making it the longest-running universal payment program in the United States.
Finland's 2017–2018 UBI pilot found that recipients reported higher levels of wellbeing and trust in institutions compared to a control group, but the experiment showed no statistically significant increase in employment among the 2,000 participants who received €560 per month.
The Roosevelt Institute estimated in 2017 that a $1,000/month UBI for all U.S. adults would cost approximately $3 trillion annually before accounting for financing mechanisms, roughly equivalent to the entire existing federal budget at the time.
GiveDirectly's long-term UBI study in Kenya, launched in 2016, is providing over 20,000 people in rural villages with cash transfers for up to 12 years, representing one of the most rigorous and extended randomized controlled trials of unconditional cash transfers ever conducted.
The core tension
↑ Universal Floor vs Targeted AdequacyEvery citizen receives a guaranteed income floor, eliminating stigma and bureaucratic gatekeeping
↓ RiskResources are spread thinly across all, potentially leaving the most vulnerable with less support than means-tested programs would provide
↑ Work Liberation vs Work Ethic ErosionIndividuals gain freedom to refuse exploitative work, pursue caregiving, education, or creative endeavors
↓ RiskUnconditional income may weaken the social norm of contributing through paid labor, reducing workforce participation and communal purpose
↑ Replacing vs Complementing the Welfare StateUBI as a wholesale replacement streamlines bureaucracy, reduces administrative costs, and shrinks government apparatus
↓ RiskEliminating existing programs dismantles specialized public services—healthcare, housing, childcare—that cash transfers cannot substitute
6 approaches
Free Market
Negative Income Tax (NIT)
Social Democratic
Universal Basic Income as Social Floor
Labor / Union
Worker Security Dividend
Communitarian / Conservative
Family and Community Dividend
Pragmatic / Technocratic
Means-Tested Basic Income with Graduated Phase-Out
Libertarian Left
Citizen's Dividend from Common Wealth
Where do your values land?
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