Volume 19, Issue 2

The basic income movement is in the midst of a substantial internal debate about the definition of basic income. The current debate focuses mostly on two questions: (1) Should the definition be restricted to a payment that is uniform with respect to income (a non-means-tested grant delivered to high- and low-income people alike)? (2) Should the definition include a threshold such as one stipulating that the grant is large enough to live on? Although this article recommends keeping the current definition in place, its central point is not whether one definition is best but that the definitional issue is far more complex than simple question of how to define one term. This complex issue cannot be resolved by any organization clarifying its definition of basic income. These two questions identify a family of up to nine closely-related concepts have been and will continue to be used in the discussion of policy options along the lines of an unconditional cash payment. The discussion needs language that will allow people on all sides of the controversies behind these two questions to clearly discuss all options. That means we need not one but several terms. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to identify the various concepts that need to be clearly identified. We need to start thinking about nonpejorative terms for the members of this family of concepts so that people on all sides of the relevant issues can share the terminology they need to have fruitful discussion. A true resolution is better found through dialogue with people on all sides of the issues rather than by the unilateral declaration of people on one side or the other.

BIEN’s definitive statement of a Basic Income (BI) and the commentaries on its five characteristics are examined in turn, to identify potential clarifications, revisions and omissions. The following amendments are proposed as a basis for further discussion: to shift the position of ‘unconditionally’ in the definitive statement so that it refers to the cash payment rather than to its delivery; some clarifications to characteristics 3 ‘individual’ and 4 ‘universal’; to introduce ‘uniform’, without which BIs could be used to endorse flagrant discrimination against, or even zero amounts for, less favoured groups; to restore the comprehensive nature of ‘unconditionality’ (which is now characteristic 6), by substituting ‘behavioural requirement’ in place of ‘work requirement’; to give the characteristic ‘without means test’ its own commentary (no. 7). The introduction of ‘uniform’ and ‘behavioural’ into the definitive statement should help to prevent BIEN’s definition from being regarded as male orientated.

Interest in universal basic income has risen recently as an alternative to existing exchequer-sourced social security methods, such as conditional cash transfers. This article presents a survey of multiple experiments investigating the impact of basic income cash transfers on recipients while presenting a meta-analysis of the results across nine categories. Many findings indicate successful outcomes across financial security, health, and educational dimensions. Children were amongst the strongest beneficiaries of the trials and observed a 4.5 % reduction in obesity, a 19.5 % increase in their normal weight-for-age, a 30 % increase in female secondary school attendance, and an increase in the educational attainment of one year in response to the cash transfers.

The paper undertakes macroeconomic analysis of Universal Basic Income (UBI). It focuses on issues of paying for and the funding of universal basic income. A number of proposals are examined and the limitations of borrowing and money creation for the funding of UBI are indicated. It is generally argued that funding of UBI should be examined in terms of funding through taxation. The effects of UBI on employment and national output and the macroeconomic limits on the scale on UBI in terms of work force participation and tax rates are investigated.

Today’s youth find it extremely difficult to look beyond the present, in large part due to the precariousness of the labour market. Unconditional basic income, meanwhile, is emerging as the economic and social policy that is attracting most interest as an alternative not only to the conditional minimum income programmes, but also to the increasing unemployment and precarious conditions of employment. This survey study, conducted among students at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in 2021 ( n  = 709), explores the attitudes of young people towards basic income. Findings reveal strong support among Basque youth for basic income, citing its potential to enhance personal freedom and improve living conditions. While previous studies have already found that young people tend to be more supportive of basic income, this research fills a gap in the literature by analysing in depth young people’s attitudes and beliefs about this policy proposal.

The egalitarian ethos, as formulated by G.A. Cohen, and the unconditional basic income are two proposals that a priori may seem incompatible. The reason is that Cohen’s ethos – aimed at reducing inequality without sacrificing efficiency or freedom- requires that individuals work hard in socially useful occupations without asking for any inequality-generating incentives. On the contrary, the UBI, as conceived by Van Parijs and van der Veen, consists of an income paid by the government to every full member of society regardless of their willingness to contribute to society in the form of work. In short, the ethos includes a productive requirement while the UBI has an unconditional character. However, if we introduce an absolute level of affluence above what occupational autonomy takes precedence over efficiency and if we broaden the range of socially useful contributions beyond formal employment, the tension between the egalitarian ethos and UBI will be alleviated.

A universal basic income (UBI) would be a guaranteed income floor for both the employed and the unemployed, from which economic theory predicts a gain in bargaining power and a disincentive to work. For high earners, the increase in taxes necessary to fund this program would decrease their motivation to earn. To assess these aspects, we conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment at a State Employment Service office in Spain. The unemployed participants received either an initial unconditional endowment, framed under the logic of the solidarity condition of UBI (UBI treatment) – to examine the taxes’ effect – or as a participation fee (FEE) or no initial endowment (NONUBI). Subsequently, they faced one default randomized task from a set of four paid real-effort tasks. To study bargaining power, they could change the task up to three times and/or skip all tasks and conclude the experiment. In the FEE treatment, they yielded the highest earnings. While we did not find a statistically significant difference in earnings between the FEE and the NON-UBI treatments, the UBI differed from the NON-UBI and FEE. A likely reason could be a crowding-out of motivation by the pressure to reciprocate without believing in other participants’ deservingness of the UBI. In addition, the results reveal that females change tasks more frequently than males.