Basic Income

BASIC INCOME REFERS to a system in which a sub-sistence-level income is provided to all individuals in a political community on a regular and guaranteed basis. [Page 67]It is a break with contemporary welfare and workfare programs since money is guaranteed without a means test or requirement to work and there is no compulsion for recipients to accept a job if offered.

There are numerous versions of basic income proposed by advocates, depending on cultural, national, or historical context. These proposals vary with regard to income amounts, sources of funding, ages of eligibility, and possible levels of taxation of other incomes.

Most versions share the belief that economic security is a right of citizenship rather than a conditional benefit that depends upon employment status or family situation. Thus basic income is to be provided regardless of income from other sources or potential for employment and it is to be paid to individuals rather than households. Most versions of basic income emphasize universal and unconditional payments made to all residents upon birth.

More recently advocates of basic income have argued for a global basic income to be made available to everyone regardless of national origin. In keeping with the emphasis on social justice and fairness motivating most appeals for basic income, this payment would be subsidized by wealthier nations.

Basic income advocacy has made its strongest gains in Europe where persistent levels of high unemployment have not been addressed by more conventional social policies. Many activists and educators, including Nobel laureates in economics, have come to see basic income as the best means for addressing issues of poverty as well as employment in Europe.

Basic income offers an approach to poverty with potentially far-ranging and durable benefits since it would also contribute to the development of some of the conditions that are necessary for a longer-term reduction of poverty. For one thing it would strengthen the bargaining position of individual workers in the labor market by lessening the hardship of unemployment as an incentive to accept relatively low-paying, insecure jobs.

Basic income, by providing something of an unconditional and permanent safety net, would also improve the capacity of workers to organize collectively since the possible impact of job loss or workplace reprisals would be lessened. Basic income may further allow for increased participation in community organizing, social movements, or, more broadly, the social economy of neighborhood services since it contributes to freeing up people's time away from work while providing the resources necessary for people to sustain themselves in such activities.

Basic income also allows for the decommodification of labor since, given the presence of a basic income at an acceptable subsistence level, people can meet their needs without the compulsion to enter the labor market. As many advocates of basic income argue, it breaks the link of necessity between a decent standard of living and participation in the capitalist labor market.

In addition, because basic income is to be paid to individuals rather than households, without regard to marital status, it offers the possibility of freeing people from oppressive familial relations within the home. Because it is provided to children it also offers some means of addressing child poverty, which in many countries represents the area of poverty that is growing most dramatically.

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