This audio is of talk I gave on why we need a Universal Basic Income. I gave the talk for the “Sydney Ideas” series in August of 2017, and I’m particularly happy with it. It summarizes the reasons I think are most important, and I think I did a relatively good job of delivering it. It discusses how Basic Income removes the judgment and paternalism that pervade the world’s existing social welfare systems, and why doing so is so important not only for people at the bottom but also for the average worker. It also briefly addresses how to craft a realistic Basic Income proposal, how much it costs, options for paying for it, and evidence about what it can do.
Following the lecture the audio file includes a question and answer session where I’m joined by Dr Elizabeth Hill, Chair of Department of Political Economy, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney, and Professor Gabrielle Meagher, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University.