by Peter Knight | Mar 8, 2026 | News
“Let me tell you about a conversation that should scare the hell out of you.
I sat down with Andrew Yang—the entrepreneur who made Universal Basic Income a household term during his 2020 presidential run—and asked him point-blank: How much time do we have?
When Elon Musk tells us we’re heading toward both “universal high income and social unrest,” when do we actually get to UHI and can we avoid the social unrest?
Andrew’s answer stopped me cold:
“Peter, here’s my prediction: We have a brutal 1-3 year window where we need Universal Basic Income as a bridge, then 3-8 years to build Universal Basic Services, and finally—on the other side—UHI and true Abundance where technology provides everything we need.”
Then Andrew quoted Buckminster Fuller: “The race between utopia and dystopia will be decided at the very last moment.”
We’re in that moment right now. And the clock is ticking.”
To read the full article, click here.
by Peter Knight | Mar 4, 2026 | News
“The Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales pilot (‘the pilot’) was launched in July 2022. The first payments to 18-year-olds eligible for the scheme were made in August 2022 (‘Basic Income for care leavers: about the pilot’ Welsh Government, 2022). The evaluation of the scheme is now in its fourth year. This is a summary of the third annual report from the evaluation. This is the first report published since the pilot has ended and all young people have exited the scheme.”
To read the Executive Summary of the report click here.
by Peter Knight | Feb 8, 2026 | News
Now you can vote till end of February 2026 for a Motto to the 19th International Basic Income Week Mo-Su 14th-20th September 2026 #basicincomeweek19 at https://basicincomeweek.org/vote-your-motto-for-2026/ You can choose up to three different favorite mottos.
If you would like to design the chosen Motto in March 2026 on a voluntary basis for our Website and Social Media logo, banner, profile picture, main event cover and additional a poster, please contact us at https://basicincomeweek.org/contact-form/ or Social Media messenger Facebook/Instagram/TikTok/Bluesky @basicincomeweek or Email info@basicincomeweek.org
The following 25 mottos you can vote for:
1) AI Works for Us – Basic Income Sets Us Free
2) Basic Income: Dignity at Work, Security at Home.
3) Basic Income: Empowered Citizens, Unfiltered Voices.
4) Basic Income: Empowered Lives, Protected Borders.
5) Basic Income: Ending Silence, Empowering Voices.
6) Basic Income: Excellence Our Goal
7) Basic Income: Independent People, Indestructible Societies.
8) Basic Income: Invest in People, Harvest Society.
9) Basic Income: No Fear to Speak, No Fear to Stand.
10) Basic Income: Raising the floor, not capping the ceiling.
11) Basic Income: Secure Lives, Creative Minds, Vibrant Cultures.
12) Basic Income: Secure Lives, Fearless Voices, True Democracy.
13) Basic Income: Secure Lives, Free Choices, Stronger Nations.
14) Basic Income: Secure Lives. Stable Homes. Sustainable Nations.
15) Basic Income: Stable Lives, Thriving Societies.
16) Basic Income: Unlocking the Voice
17) Basic Income: You win, I win, together we grow winning
18) Basic Income – A Human Future in the Age of AI
19) Basic Income – Sharing the Benefits of Automation
20) Basic Income – When Machines Work, People Thrive
21) BASIC INCOME means being Independent
22) BASIC INCOME means COUNTER POWER
23) Basic Income opens doors
24) For a universal Basic Income in a globalized world
25) Unconditional Basic Income – The answer to AI
by Peter Knight | Feb 4, 2026 | News
Guy Standing, one of the founders of BIEN, was interviewed recently in a podcast by Rob Hof.
To view a clip from the podcast in which Guy discusses Basic Income and AI, click here.
To view the whole podcast, click here.
by Neil Howard | Feb 3, 2026 | Events, News, Research
Abstract
Increasing calls for reform to welfare provision have seen growing support for
basic income (BI) – the unconditional provision of cash transfers to all. As a
result, recent years have seen an exponential increase in the number of pilot
experiments of BI, across all parts of the world. However, to date, there has
been little discussion of the ethical considerations of such experiments. This
paper is the outcome of a workshop whereby BI piloters came together to
discuss such ethical considerations, share case studies, and begin to formulate
general principles to guide ethical BI experiments. The paper discusses the
ethical considerations relevant to the various stages of a pilot experiment and
concludes with some general principles: to do-no-harm, maintain respect,
dignity, and agency; mitigate power inequalities, promote trust and
transparency, and ensure substantive unconditionality. The paper hopes to
stimulate discussions towards an ethical protocol for better practice in BI
experiments and provide a useful resource to those working on, or interested
in, BI research.
To read the full article click here.
by Karl Widerquist, Jack Rossbach | Feb 3, 2026 | News, Research
Abstract
This article estimates the cost of Universal Basic Income (UBI) sufficient to
eliminate poverty in the United States. It uses the most recent microdata available
from the Census Bureau through its Current Population Survey (CPS) public-use
microdata files and references historical income data from the Annual Social and
Economic Supplements (ASEC) going back to 1967. It finds that UBI (or an equivalent
guaranteed income) sufficient to eliminate official poverty is surprisingly affordable
and that the cost of UBI as a percentage of GDP has been falling steadily for more than
50 years. Estimates based on the most recent data (from 2024) show the net cost of a
UBI set at $16,000 per adult and $8,000 per child (slightly higher than the official
poverty line) with a 50 % marginal tax rate is approximately $783.7 billion per year,
which is about 2.67 % of GDP. In inflation-adjusted terms, the current cost of a
poverty-line UBI as a percentage of GDP has fallen significantly from 9.35 %of GDP in
1967 to 4.95 %in 1995, 3.70 %in 2015, and 2.67 %in 2024. Therefore, as a percentage of
GDP, the current cost of a poverty-line UBI is less than one-third (28.6 %) of what it
would have cost when the guaranteed income was under discussion in the United
States in 1967. This article also updates and significantly improves on calculations
made in the article “The Cost of Basic Income: Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations”
which appeared in Basic Income Studies in 2017.
To read the full article, click here.
