BIEN | Opinion
Opinion Posts
Here you will find articles expressing opinions about current issues in the Basic Income debate. Opinions expressed are not necessarily the opinions of BIEN.
Professor argues for job guarantee over basic income
Philip Harvey, a professor of law at Rutgers, argues that a job guarantee could eliminate poverty for a fraction of the cost of UBI.
Should we worry about Basic Income earners slacking?
Let’s take a step back and reflect on whether we should be working the long hours we still do and whether a hardline approach to incentivising employment is necessary and effective.
MAN CHOOSES PRISON OVER POVERTY (from 2006)
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in September 2006. I was struck by a report in the Associated Press reported on October 12th that a 63-year-old Ohio man intentionally had himself convicted of bank robbery. Timothy J. Bowers sought a...
Taxless government spending for basic income
The government could introduce taxless spending through any number of programs, and Basic Income could be one of them.
BIG Bill to Be Introduced in the U.S. Congress (from 2006)
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in March 2006. Congressman Bob Filner (Democrat from San Diego, California) will introduce a bill in the U.S. Congress in late April 2006, entitled, “A Tax Cut For the Rest of Us.” The preamble of the...
Basic income’s transition from radical idea to legitimate policy
Basic income has risen in the public consciousness and the political agenda in the last two years. How has this been achieved?
Audio of my presentation, “Why we need a Universal Basic Income”
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...
President Bush Questioned by Senator Suplicy (from 2005)
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in December 2005. On November 6, at a conference on greater economic integration in the Americas in Brasilia, just after his 22 minutes conference in Brasilia, President Bush extended his hands Senator...
Is a UK basic income pilot possible?
Might it be possible to run a Citizen’s Basic Income pilot project in the UK? Multiple problems present themselves.
One-minute video answering the question, “Would it be possible to fund UBI in America?”
Of course, it is possible to fund UBI in America. Based on my calculations from a forthcoming article in Basic Income Studies, this one-minute video argues that a UBI large enough to eliminate poverty in the United States will cost 2.95% of the GDP per year--even if...
A very different take on the question, “Could UBI be a solution if automation eliminates jobs in the US?”
In this one-minute video, I argue that people look at automation and UBI in the wrong way. We must not wait until the predicted day when automation reduces the total number of jobs available. Automation creates two important reasons to introduce UBI right now even if...
Alaskan Dividend influence: Alberta, New Mexico, and beyond (from 2005)
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in October 2005. Dividend checks from the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) go out this month paying $845.76 (US), to every Alaska resident. (The APF is the only existing Basic Income in the world. It pays...
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