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
BIEN Stories: Martine Mary Waltho
Martine Mary Waltho (BIEN Life Member) - "My Basic Income Journey" I first came across the idea of a basic income when I was at university in 1984. There was an article in a magazine; it might have been the New Society. It was written by a man who used to be a...
BIEN Stories: Toru Yamamori
Photo taken by Stefan Pangritz at a solidarity meeting for the Swiss referendum in January 2014 in Basel. Toru Yamamori (Basic Income News editor) 1. Encounter to the idea My encounter to the idea of a basic income was around 1991-2. I was involved...
BIEN Stories: Hyosang Ahn
Hyosang Ahn (Permanent Director of BIKN) "Emancipation and Basic Income" The first time I encountered the idea of basic income was the summer of 2007. I was at the time the vice president of a small party on the left, rather imaginatively named the Socialist Party,...
AUDIO: Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz addresses UBI on the Ezra Klien Show
Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz was the featured guest on The Ezra Klein Show on October 25, 2016. Although the basic income was not the focal point of the 70 minute interview, Klein did ask Stiglitz whether he favors a UBI in the United States.
Interview: Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges on Digitization and Basic Income
Timotheus Höttges, CEO of the multibillion dollar telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom, argues in favor of unconditional basic income in an interview in the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.
ITALY: Basic Income Pilot Launched in Italian Coastal City
Filippo Nogarin, the mayor of the Italian coastal city of Livorno who launched an initiative to provide a guaranteed basic income to the city’s 100 poorest families in June 2016, is poised to extend the program in the beginning of 2017. A member of the...
VIDEO: Campfire Convention panel “Universal Basic Income: A Utopian Vision or a Viable Reality?”
The inaugural Campfire Convention took place in August 12-14, 2016, in the English countryside. It featured a keynote address from Brian Eno, in addition to an array of panel discussions, music performances, and other events. One panel discussion was on UBI.
SWITZERLAND: Guy Standing to present on Basic Income at Davos
The 2017 Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum is to include a panel on basic income, in which BIEN’s Guy Standing will be participating.
KELTY, SCOTLAND: “Basic Income: Real Social Security” (Jan 28)
BIEN’s Scottish affiliate, Citizen’s Basic Income Network Scotland (CBINS), will be holding a public event in Kelty, a town in Fife, on Saturday, January 28.
CANADA: Food Bank Canada recommends creating a national basic income to curb the “unacceptably high” reliance on food banks
A CBC news report offers a clarion call regarding the increasing demand being placed upon Canadian food banks who are attempting to address the hunger and nutritional needs of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens. Surely there is no better reason for a BI than the need...
UBI – real solution in perfect storm of debt
A new report from the investment service Wealthify reveals that many Scottish people are unable to save for the future because of "zero hour contracts, insecure work and low pay." Moreover, according to the report, Scottish women save less than half of the money of...
Fred Block and Frances Fox Piven, “A Basic Income Would Upend America’s Work Ethic—and That’s a Good Thing
UC sociology professor Fred Block, and CUNY political science professor Francis Fox Piven, author of Challenging Authority, are scathing in their indictment of “...archaic economic ideas...” in the online opinion journal article on The Nation. Yet they also...