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
Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Call for papers: BIEN Congress 2014, June 26-29, 2014
The 15th International Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN): “Re-democratizing the Economy,” Friday June 27th to Sunday June 29th, 2014 McGill Faculty of Law, Montreal, Quebec. The BIEN Congress 2014 now invites proposals for individual papers, themed...
Francine Mestrum, "Basic income: a solution?"
In this opinion piece (in Dutch) published on 27 August 2013 by www.dewereldmorgen.be, Francine Mestrum (a lecturer in social sciences in Antwerp, Belgium) scrutinizes the pros and cons of a basic income. In the end, she remains quite skeptical, as she stresses the...
OPINION: Living Income Guaranteed – A proposal for a Basic Income from Equal Life Foundation
If you are searching the internet for ‘basic income’, ‘basic income guarantee’ or related subjects or you are a regular visitor to the various internet-based social networks like Facebook it would hardly have escaped your attention that quite a few of your hits will point to websites or blogs discussing topics like the Equal Money System and recently also Basic Income Guaranteed (previously ‘Grant’), with the acronym B.I.G. (or BIG)., but not to be confused with the Basic Income Guarantee (without ‘d’) of organisations such as USBIG that are affiliated to BIEN.
Interview with Stuart White: An Objection can be Valid Without Being Decisive
An interview with prominent political theorist Stuart White in which he outlines the case for basic income.
VIDEO: Video with results of the Indian pilot project has been updated
This recently-updated video has results from the Basic Income Pilot project in India. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtYtwiG-uAM&feature=youtu.be
EUROPE: European Citizens’ Initiative for Basic Income Collects 77,000 Signatures
The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) for Basic Income (BI) has so far collected more than 77,000 signatures from all 28 member countries of the European Union (EU). The ECI is a petition to encourage cooperation between the Member States aiming to explore BI as a...
BI News requests volunteers
The Basic Income News Website is entirely written, edited, and maintained by volunteers. We need help from volunteers to write articles, to translate articles, and to help improve the appearance of website. If you are interested in helping, please contact the editor,...
Windhoek, Namibia, “Basic Income Grant: A remedy for poverty and inequality in Namibia?” 24 September 2013
Karl Widerquist, Associate Professor at SFS-Q, Georgetown University, will give a public lecture entitled, “Basic Income Grant: A remedy for poverty and inequality in Namibia?” at 6:30pm on Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at the Windhoek Multipurpose Youth Centre, Auala...
Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght, "Il reddito minimo universale"
Bocconi University Press has just published a second edition of "Il reddito minimo universale", an introductory book on basic income written by Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght (Louvain University). Originally published in French in 2005, this book had...
Bob Lord, “Basic Income Guarantee”
This op-ed piece in the Tucson Citizen argues for a Basic Income Guarantee. The author, Bob Lord, writes, “We've reached a level of national income that we have the means to do so. The real question is whether we have the morality to do so.” Bob Lord, “The Basic...
Chris Farrell, It's Time for a Negative Income Tax
Discussion of BIG has reached Bloomberg Businessweek. This opinion piece by Chris Farrell argues for BIG in the form of a Negative Income Tax. Farrell is contributing economics editor for Bloomberg Businessweek. By Chris Farrell, “It's Time for a Negative Income Tax,”...
NAMIBIA: Churches and other NGOs to use BIG for drought relief
Namibia is experiencing its worst drought in decades. Hundreds of thousands of people are affected. Several groups have decided to use the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) as a model for distributing relief aid. The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) initiated the effort,...