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]

Recent News, Opinion, and Research
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...
BIEN Stories: Richard Caputo
Richard K. Caputo (Professor of Social Work) My colleague Professor Vicki Lens recommended that I check out the US Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network which was planning its first annual Congress for March 8-9, 2002 in New York City. Professor Lens was familiar...
BIEN Stories: Michael Howard
Michael Howard (Coordinator of US Basic Income Guarantee Network) I can remember the moment when I first took a keen interest in basic income. I was familiar with the idea, having spent a research leave at the European University Institute in Fiesole, when Philippe...
BIEN Stories: José A. Noguera
José A. Noguera (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, International Advisory Board of BIEN) I still remember quite clearly the first time I read something about the idea of a Basic Income (BI): it was back in 1991, when I was finishing my degree in Sociology in...