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
VIDEO: Release of the BIEN Congress 2018 plenary sessions video recordings
The plenary sessions of the BIEN Congress 2018 are now available to view, here (all). Individually, the recordings can also be watched in the following embedded links. Philip Alston, "Should We Frame Basic Income as a Human Right?" Louise Haagh, "The...
UN Secretary-General endorses UBI
The Secretary-General of the United Nations endorses UBI on 25th September 2018. António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, urged world leaders to consider Unconditional Basic Income in his speech at the General Assembly of the UN. After drawing the audience’s...
Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Donut-D-Day Conference
On September 15th 2018, Donut-D-Day brought together various Dutch organizations and citizens committed to integrated systemic reforms to fight climate change, socioeconomic inequality, and unstable financial systems. The organizers used Kate Raworth's model of...
France: Benoît Hamon calls President Macron a “specialist in counterfeits”, when referring to basic income
Benoît Hamon Benoît Hamon, a former representative of the Socialist Party in France, and who ran for the French presidency in 2017 on ideas like legalizing cannabis, euthanasia, protecting “common goods” (water, air, biodiversity) in the Constitution and basic...
Ontario, Canada: Portrait series of people taking part in the cancelled Ontario Basic Income Pilot
Jessie Golem, a photographer from Hamilton, is one of the 4000 people who were taking part in the Ontario Basic Income Pilot, which was cancelled earlier this year. Golem has created a series of portraits called Humans of Basic Income, a collection of portraits...
A Critical Analysis of Basic Income Experiments for Researchers, Policymakers, and Citizens
My new short book, A Critical Analysis of Basic Income Experiments for Researchers, Policymakers, and Citizens, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in December of 2018. I've posted an early version of it on my Selected Works website. Here's a summary: "The...
United States: After Delay, Y Combinator Research Presses on with Basic Income Study
Sam Altman. Picture credit to: San Francisco Chronicle. Y Combinator (YC) Research will begin its basic income study in 2019 after regulatory hurdles slowed a pilot program in Oakland, California. The proposed study, entitled “Making Ends Meet,” will provide...
Ontario, Canada: Reactions to Ontario Basic Income Pilot Cancelation
Anonymous recipient of the Ontario basic income experiment. Photo credit: Jessie Golem, photographer responsible for the Humans of Basic Income project The Ontario Basic Income Pilot, started by a liberal government, was canceled on July 31st 2018, by the newly...
Alaska’s BIG parodied in The Simpson’s Movie while Albertans call for their own Dividend (from 2007)
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in November 2007. Public awareness of BIG took a small step forward this summer when the Simpsons Movie made a joke about it. Homer and his family are greeted at the Alaskan border by an official who...
Chicago, US: Chicago moves forward with UBI proposal
Chicago's City Hall building green roof. Picture credit to: Urban Matter Earlier this year, the city of Chicago hit the news by introducing a resolution that would summon a taskforce to run and study a basic income trial within the Municipality. That...
Annie Lowrey: New book “Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World”
In her recent work Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World (W.H. Allen), Atlantic writer Annie Lowrey offers a new account of the universal basic income (UBI) rooted in her experience as a global...
India: IMF supports basic income, recognising existing welfare programmes as “inefficient”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has published a report suggesting that basic income would be better than their welfare system at supporting low income households in India. Similar evidence has been found for both Indonesia and Peru, where basic income was found...