“Open Mind” Photo CC BY 2.0 Anders Sandberg
“Being open-minded about universal basic income”
The Safety Nets Global Solutions Group at the World Bank has recently blogged about basic income, explaining the income level of a country can indicate where its government is on developing a social security / welfare protection system for its citizens. High income countries with a history of welfare policy focused on the poor, are seeing increased job insecurity for all workers due to advances in AI, robotics and automation. Middle income countries are adjusting and measuring relatively new welfare systems. Meanwhile, low income countries are just at the beginning of these efforts, and struggling with low government revenues to finance these programs. With basic income research pilot projects having been launched around the world, from Finland to Namibia, the Safety Nets Global Solutions Group encourages policymakers to keep an open mind around basic income as we together look at the rationale, context, incentives, and outcomes that will shape the possibilities for these policies going forward.
The Safety Nets Global Solutions Group (GSG) is a network of practitioners within the World Bank who share an interest in the analytics and practice of social assistance. It currently includes 150+ professionals actively engaged in different regions across the world.
Read the article here:
Ugo Gentilini and Ruslan Yemtsov, “Being open-minded about universal basic income,” Let’s Talk Development (blog), January 6, 2017.
