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
No Time for Austerity (from 2011)
This essay was originally published on Basic Income News in December 2011. I can’t believe the news. We are in the midst of the worst global depression in 70 years, and the governments of almost every major industrialized country are talking about austerity. They’re...
Mexico: Universal Basic Income stages of implementation
Since 2016 that Congresswoman Araceli Damián has supported and “presented an initiative to reform the Mexican Constitution and create the right to [a] universal citizen’s income”. In the latest version of this proposal, it is framed as an intrinsic human right,...
Canada: Basic income would cost $76B per year
76 billion dollars. That’s what it would cost to implement basic income in Canada according to a new report released by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO). The report comes just days after Ontario began testing its own basic income pilot study in Hamilton,...
President Obama Receives BIEN Letter Through Senator Suplicy (from 2011)
This essay was originally published on Basic Income News in May 2011. In March 2011, Brazilian Senator (and tireless campaigner for BIG), Eduardo Suplicy told me and other members of the USBIG and BIEN Committees that he would soon be meeting with President...
Interview: UBI and ‘Job Culture’ (Part Two)
Kate McFarland interviews D. JoAnne Swanson of The Anticareerist, discussing how Universal Basic Income may help address compulsory wage labor.
Germany: Basic Income and the Euro-Dividend as Socio-political Pillars of the EU and its Member Countries (Conference)
"There will always be hope". Picture credit: Alex Gi. On the 11th and 12th of October 2018, the University of Freiburg, in Germany, holds an interdisciplinary Conference titled “Basic Income and the Euro-Dividend as Sociopolitical Pillars of the EU and its...
Interview: UBI and ‘Job Culture’ (Part One)
Kate McFarland interviews D. JoAnne Swanson of The Anticareerist, discussing how Universal Basic Income may help address compulsory wage labor.
VIDEO: The economics of basic income (by Geoff Crocker)
A new video has been released by Geoff Crocker, on a “radical concept of funding basic income by perpetual deficit”. This video is a result of a presentation done at the Asia Pacific UBI Conference, which was held of the latest 17th and 18th of March 2018. In...
IS BIG WORTH TALKING ABOUT IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY? (from 2010)
This essay was originally published in the USBIG NewsFlash in October 2010. The political climate in the United States has gotten increasingly unfriendly toward the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG). Since 1990s, Democrats and Republicans have agreed that any politically...
Italy: plea to the new Italian Parliament for a guaranteed income
The Italian branch of the Basic Income Network (BIN Italia) has written a plea about Guaranteed Minimum Income to the newly elected Parliament, still struggling to form a government. Plea to the Italian Parliament (full text) "May the Parliament listen to our society....
International: World Bank releases draft report supporting basic income
World Bank building. Picture credit to Financial Express. The World Bank has released a draft report, published on the 20th of April, titled “The changing nature of work”, in which basic income is suggested as policy to “be read through the lens of ‘progressive...
Interview: Applying basic income in an Asian context
The Basic Income Asia Pacific 2018 conference held in Taipei this March featured a host of speakers from around the world, including Davala. Davala spoke about his research and the applicability of basic income to Asia.