A Basic Income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.
The Royal Society of Arts Explains: [2 minutes]
BIEN Congresses
The 24th BIEN CONGRESS in Maricá & Niterói – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 27-29 August 2025
Linkedin, Instagram, X – biencongress25 (at) gmail [dot] com
BIEN2024 was August 29–31 (Pictures and more coming soon)
Recent News, Opinion, and Research
VIDEO: “Universal Basic Income: New Avenues in Social Welfare Policy” course lectures
The University of Tampere held a course on basic income (“Universal Basic Income: New Avenues in Social Welfare Policy”) during autumn semester. Lectures from the course were recorded and published online by Alusta!
AUDIO: “Basic Income & Women’s Liberation”
The UK-based activist network Radical Assembly interviewed Barb Jacobson (Basic Income UK, Unconditional Basic Income Europe) about basic income and women’s liberation movements.
BIEN Stories: Louise Haagh
Louise Haagh (BIEN Co-Chair) I first came across basic income in summer of 2001 when instructed about it by Workers’ Party Senator Eduardo Suplicy, at his home in São Paulo. I was doing research on workers’ rights, at the same time undertaking a survey of economic...
Looking Back on 30 Years of BIEN: Stories from Life Members
At the end of 2016, the year in which BIEN turned 30, Life Members recount their personal journeys with BIEN and the basic income movement.
BIEN Stories: Karl Widerquist
(photo credit: Enno Schmidt) Karl Widerquist (Co-Chair) When I first attended a BIEN Congress in 1998, I'd already been a Basic Income supporter for 18 years, but it was exhilarating for me just to find out that there were enough dedicated Basic Income...
BIEN Stories: Jenna van Draanen
Jenna van Draanen (News Editor and Outreach Coordinator) Working with BIEN has been a wonderful experience for me. Not only are there extremely dedicated people here, but they are also talented and kind. With BIEN, I get to talk to people all over the world who are...
BIEN Stories: André Coelho
André Coelho (News Editor-in-Chief) For me to contribute to BIEN, particularly to Basic Income News, was kind of a natural progression in my personal activism, after the Zeitgeist Movement. I naturally accepted the basic income concept, after defending a resource...
BIEN Stories: Jan Otto Andersson
Jan Otto Andersson (Åbo Akademi University) Several texts were momentous at the start of my BI journey, even though they did not always fit a strict definition of an unconditional basic income. The first text was a pamphlet written by my acquaintance Gunnar...
BIEN Stories: Julio Linares
Julio Linares - "My Short Journey in BIEN" I first heard about BIEN at a conference in Switzerland about the future of work and basic income. I went to that conference because of a hunch. I had finished reading Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation and was in the...
BIEN Stories: Steven Shafarman
"Toward Basic Income and a Peaceful Democratic Revolution" By Steven Shafarman My drive to enact a basic income – and most of my ideas about how to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize allies – arose from exploring the way young children learn to walk and talk. I...
BIEN Stories: Christopher Balfour
Christopher Balfour (BIEN Life Member) In the early 1960s I worked as a Youth Employment Officer in the English Midlands. We were then an education-based service concerned with guidance and placement but also responsible for trying to assist those without work and...
BIEN Stories: Malcolm Torry
Malcolm Torry - "My Basic Income Story" Almost exactly forty years ago, I left university, got married, and started work in Brixton, in South London, administering means-tested benefits. I spent two years on the public counter: and it didn’t take long to understand...