Free income

About

Free income (FI) is our term for referring to income that is free of any qualification requirement. The idea is more commonly known as universal basic income^A (UBI), basic income guarantee^A (BIG), basic minimum income^A (BMI), guaranteed income^A, unconditional income^A, basic income^A, and other variants.

Related

• A citizen dividend is a type of free income that derives from national productivity.
• objections to UBI policies
• We initially tried to finely classify various subtypes and attributes of free income; those classifications have been archived.

Notes

APF, the Cherokee fund, Iranian UBI project, https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/projects/social-wealth-fund/

Links

News

• 2025/07/25 21:36 UTC [L..T] 17 Key Variables That Determine UBI's Inflationary Impact Can UBI be inflationary? Sure, if we do it in a certain way in a certain context, but no, not in other ways and contexts. We're talking about a multivariate equation. So what are the many variables?

Reference

• Wikipedia: basic income
• Conservapedia: basic income is "a socialist policy where every resident of an area is guaranteed an income regardless of their employment status."
  • "According to the France-based Public Services International and the Britain-based New Economics Foundation – left-of-center organizations – universal basic income does not work well in practice." - NEF may be left-of-center, but the article they cite is in the right-leaning Epoch Times. The report offers a very thoughtful critique of UBI and raises many points, some more dubious than others, which need to be examined. Saying that the report concludes that they "don't work", however, is a bit of a misrepresentation.
• RationalWiki: basic income
• SourceWatch

Discussion

• Kialo: Should There be a Universal Basic Income (UBI)?

to file

• 2021-07-30 Rep. Omar Introduces Guaranteed Income Bill and GDP Alternative Legislation
• 2020-08-19 Germany is beginning a universal-basic-income trial with people getting $1,400 a month for 3 years
• 2020-05-06 Universal basic income seems to improve employment and well-being
  • Discussion: [1] (reply), [2]
• 2019-02 NBER: Universal Basic Income in the US and Advanced Countries (PDF: NBER, Berkeley) "A UBI would direct much larger shares of transfers to childless, non-elderly, non-disabled households than existing programs, and much more to middle-income rather than poor households. A UBI large enough to increase transfers to low-income families would be enormously expensive. [...] We argue that the ongoing UBI pilot studies will do little to resolve the major outstanding questions."
• 2018-12-27 Universal basic income had a rough 2018 via Slashdot
• 2018-07-31 PC's plan to scrap Ontario basic income pilot project called 'shameful' by NDP leader via Slashdot
• 2018-05-30 Money for nothing: the truth about universal basic income
• 2018-02-18 Study Finds People Given Basic Income Are Likely to Keep Working (h/t)
• 2018-01-13 Money for nothing: is Finland's universal basic income trial too good to be true? via Slashdot
• 2017-09-27 Seattle families used to get govt check, then the divorces came "Another rumor -- that the experiments led to significant increases in separations and divorces because women weren't reliant on men for baseline income -- also wasn't borne out in the data"
• 2015-10-08 The remarkable thing that happens to poor kids when you give their parents a little money
• 2015? Karl Widerquist turns libertarian arguments on their head in an argument for unconditional income (commentary on a video)
• 2014-06-30 Guaranteed $20K income for all Canadians endorsed by academics
• 2009-04 Assessment of Minimum Income Schemes in Spain