Common Questions About Basic Income

by BIEN | Apr 21, 2020

What is a Basic Income?

A Basic Income is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement.

Sometimes called Universal Basic Income, a Citizen’s Income, or a Citizen’s Basic Income, it is not the same as a Minimum Income Guarantee; A Basic Income does not reduce as one earns more. For more information: About Basic Income

Why do we need it?

Because someone’s Basic Income would never be taken away, it would

• provide a secure financial platform to build on
• enable the employment market to become more flexible at the same time as enhancing income security
• give to everyone more choices over the number of hours for which they were employed
• enable carers to balance their caring and other responsibilities
• make it easier to start new businesses or to go self-employed, and
• encourage personal freedom, creativity, and voluntary activity

Because everyone would get a Basic Income, it would

• create social cohesion, and
• carry no stigma

Because the Basic Income would never be withdrawn, it would

• reduce the poverty trap for low income families, enabling them to lift themselves out of poverty by seeking new skills, better jobs, or additional hours of employment
• reduce the unemployment trap, so getting a job would always mean additional disposable income

Because Basic Income would be simple and efficient, it would

• be easy to understand
• be cheap to administer and easy to automate
• not be prone to errors or fraud

Many current benefits system are no longer fit for purpose. They assume that everyone has a stable single employment, that household structures don’t change, and that individuals’ circumstances change very rarely. Our lives are no longer like that: and as technology and the employment market continue to change, our benefits systems will become even less appropriate.

In a context of rapid change, the only useful system is a simple one. A Basic Income is as simple as it gets.

For a list of 101 reasons for a Basic Income, see Malcolm Torry’s book, 101 Reasons for a Citizen’s Income.

Why pay money to the rich when they don’t need it?

It is efficient to pay the same level of income to everybody of the same age and then tax it back from those who don’t need it. The alternative is to means-test incomes so that only those who are poor receive them: but that results in complexity, stigma, errors, fraud, and intrusive bureaucratic interference in people’s lives.

Would Basic Income be financially feasible?

Tests for a Citizen’s Basic Income scheme’s financial feasibility might be listed as follows:

• Revenue neutrality ( – that is, it would be funded by making changes to the current tax and benefits system), or sustainable additional funding should be shown to be feasible
• Poverty and inequality need to fall
• Low income households should suffer no significant losses at the point of implementation, and no household should suffer unmanageable losses
• Income Tax rates should rise by a clearly manageable amount
• A significant number of households should be released from means-tested benefits

Would people still work?

If by ‘work’ we mean ‘paid employment’, then the answer is yes. In the short to medium term, we are unlikely to see a Basic Income that would be sufficient to live on, so everyone would need additional sources of income. And because Basic Incomes would not be withdrawn as earnings rose, any family taken off means-tested benefits by their Basic Incomes would experience a reduction in withdrawal rates, and would experience more incentive to seek employment, or to start their own business, than they do now.

If by ‘work’ we mean purposeful activity of any kind, then the answer is again yes. By providing a secure layer of income, a Basic Income would enable people to readjust their employment hours in order to undertake additional caring and community work.

Why pay money to people who do nothing?

In many countries we are already paying means-tested benefits to people who do nothing, and the complexity and sanctions associated with those payments demotivate people and can tip their families into poverty. A Basic Income would take a lot of people off means-tested benefits, and so would encourage economic activity. Pilot projects in India and Namibia showed that in countries with less developed economies, and without comprehensive benefit systems, even quite small Basic Incomes increase economic activity among households with the lowest disposable incomes.

Would immigration go up?

As with other benefits, a government would be likely to require a period of legal residence before someone could receive a Basic Income. Because Basic Income would provide everyone with a secure layer of income, and therefore a greater employment incentive than means-tested benefits, anyone coming into the country would be even more likely to contribute to the economy than they are now.

Would wages fall?

Means-tested benefits function as dynamic subsidies – that is, they rise if wages fall, which can encourage wage-cutting. A Basic Income would not rise if wages fell, so employers would experience more resistance if they attempted to cut wages.

Some wages might rise. Because everyone would have a secure financial platform on which to build an income strategy, some workers would be more able to leave undesirable jobs in order to start their own businesses, or to learn new skills and seek new jobs; and workers would be able to spend longer looking for a job that they might want, rather than just any job. Either currently undesirable jobs would have to improve, or wages would have to rise in order to attract workers.

Some wages might fall. Because everyone would have a secure income layer, some people might decide to take a desirable job even if it didn’t pay very much. Wage levels for desirable jobs might therefore fall.

Would a Basic Income threaten the welfare state?

If a revenue neutral Citizen’s Basic Income scheme were to be implemented, then no cuts to public services would be required. The amounts of means-tested benefits received by households would fall, but only because those households were already receiving Basic Incomes. Benefits specifically designed to cover the additional costs of disability, and benefits to cover the differing housing costs in different areas, would continue.

Would a Basic Income cause inflation?

Inflation occurs when the amount of money available to spend is greater than the value of the economy’s productive capacity. In that situation, if the amount of money keeps growing, then each unit of money can buy progressively less, so money loses its value, sometimes rapidly. A Basic Income scheme paid for purely by making changes to the current tax and benefits system would not add to the money supply, so inflation would not occur. If the amount of money available to spend was below the productive capacity of the economy, then a government could create money until the gap was filled, and that new money could be used to pay a Basic Income: but if inflation started to occur, then money creation would have to stop, and new taxes would have to be used to pay for the Basic Income.

Has a Basic Income ever been tried?

Short pilot projects have taken place in Namibia and India, and something like a Basic Income has been implemented by accident in Iran. Experiments with the similar but different Minimum Income Guarantee and Negative Income Tax in the United States and Canada during the 1970s showed useful social outcomes and very little withdrawal from employment. The similarities between the economic effects of a Minimum Income Guarantee and Basic Income would suggest that the results of the Minimum Income Guarantee experiments would be replicated if a Basic Income were to be implemented; and the differences between them mean that the effects are likely to larger for Basic Income than for the 1970s experiments. Basic Income pilot projects and similar experiments continue in the United States, Uganda, Kenya, Spain, and the Netherlands, and experiments are planned for Scotland.

Further reading

More detailed responses to questions can be found in chapter 10 of Malcolm Torry, Why we need a Citizen’s Basic Income: The desirability, feasibility and implementation of an unconditional income, Policy Press, 2018.

Recently published introductions to the subject are as follows:

Louise Haagh, The Case for Universal Basic Income, Polity, 2019

Annie Miller, A Basic Income Handbook, Luath Press, 2017

Guy Standing, Basic Income: And how we can make it happen, Penguin, 2017

Malcolm Torry, Why we need a Citizen’s Basic Income: The desirability, feasibility and implementation of an unconditional income, Policy Press, 2018

For a detailed treatment of feasibility, see Malcolm Torry, The Feasibility of Citizen’s Income, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

For chapters on many aspects of the Basic Income debate by world experts, see The Palgrave International Handbook of Basic Income, Palgrave, 2019

Congress papers

by BIEN | Apr 20, 2020

BIEN 2022, Brisbane

BIEN 2021, Glasgow

Videos of all plenary sessions are available on youtube. Abstracts of all the concurrent sessions will be published as soon as available. 

BIEN 2019, Hyderabad

Videos of all the plenary sessions are available on youtube. Abstracts of all the concurrent sessions are available here. Full papers and slides of some presentations are available below. 

BIEN 2018, Tampere

Papers and presentations from the 2018 BIEN Congress in Tampere, Finland are available below.

Videos of the plenary sessions are viewable on YouTube.

BIEN 2017, Lisbon

This table contains the papers uploaded to the congress website prior to the congress. If other authors submit their papers then they will be added to this list.

Videos are available of many of the congress sessions. Click here to see them.

BIEN 2016, Seoul

The Proceedings of the 2016 congress are contained in a single document, in which can be found plenary session addresses and parallel session papers. Click here to download the document.

BIEN 2014, Montréal

BIEN 2012, Munich

BIEN2010, São Paulo

BIEN 2008, Dublin

BIEN 2006, Cape Town

BIEN 2004, Barcelona

BIEN 2002, Geneva

BIEN 2000, Berlin

BIEN 1998, Amsterdam

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons license CC BY NC SA.

Executive Committee

by BIEN | Apr 20, 2020

Executive Committee posts and postholders

Chair:
Sarath Davala

Sarath Davala is an Indian sociologist based in Hyderabad, India. He co-founded India Network for Basic Income and Mission Possible 2030 – both organisations working on basic income related issues. From 1993 to 2000, he was an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Between 2010 and 2014, he was the Research Director of the Madhya Pradesh Basic Income Pilot Project. He is the co-author of the book: “Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India”, which summarised the findings of the MP BI pilot study. He is currently co-leading another basic income pilot with waste collectors in the city of Hyderabad, India, a project initiated by University of Bath, and supported by European Research Council. Sarath is also collaborating with different agencies to innovate solutions to reach cash the last mile in the rural parts of India.  

Deputy Chair:
Hilde Latour

Hilde Latour has a background in biomedical sciences and cultural anthropology and years of experience in program and knowledge management. She is a life member of BIEN, board member of Basisinkomen Nederland (Dutch BIEN) and co-founder of Mission Possible 2030 – Basic Income the key to SDG. As a guest lecturer at the blockchain minor – International Financial Management and Control at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, she explores the boundaries of paradigm shifts, such as Building Commons on the blockchain, a new narrative for Basic Income.

Treasurer:
Lindsay Stirton

Lindsay is a Professor of Public Law at the University of Sussex. His academic interests are wide-ranging academic, spanning administrative law and public administration in the UK and elsewhere. Lindsay’s interest in basic income has to date been centred on the administrative analysis of basic income policies, and he has published widely on this topic. More recently, Lindsay’s interest has extended to understanding the dynamics of political and governmental support for basic income policies, in which the administrative factor is just one of several components.

Lindsay lives in Seaford, on the South Coast of England, where he serves as Liberal Democrat Town Councillor for the Seaford South ward.

In his spare time, Lindsay trains for and runs marathons.

Secretary:
Fabienne Hansen

Fabienne Hansen is a PhD student in social anthropology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She is also associated with Universidade Federal Fluminense in Niterói, Brazil, where she looks at the integration of UBI within municipal social policies in Brazil. Generally, Fabienne is interested in the effects basic income could have on everyday livelihoods as well as the shaping of policyscapes that stand behind policy decisions. She was elected BIEN Secretary in 2024.

UN Liaison:
Diana Bashur

After serving three years as BIEN Secretary, Diana will focus her work within BIEN on expanding BIEN’s partnerships with United Nations entities, presenting basic income as a complement to international development and peacebuilding efforts. This builds on BIEN’s collaboration with UNDP, the Office of the UN Secretary-General, the UN Peacebuilding Support Office and UNIDO, which Diana has led since 2021.

Diana is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna researching basic income’s potential for social cohesion. In the past, she has worked for the United Nations and the French Development Agency in Damascus, New York and Vienna. Diana was elected BIEN UN Liaison in August 2024.

Social Media Manager:
James Grant

James has been contributing to BIEN’s online presence since 2018, becoming the Social Media Manager for the organisation in 2021. He studied International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London, and currently works in the tech sector.

Public Outreach:
Julio Linares

Julio Linares is an economic anthropologist from Guatemala. He holds an MSc in Anthropology and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a MA in Applied Economics and Social Development from National ChengChi University (國立政治大學) in Taipei, Taiwan. His research focus dwells on the relationship between money, direct democracy and unconditional basic income. Julio is currently based in Berlin, Germany, where he explores these topics in practice with the Circles UBI project.  Julio is currently serving his second term as Public Outreach for BIEN. He speaks Chinese, English, Spanish, German and a bit of Hungarian. 

Research Coordinator:
Jurgen De Wispelaere

Jurgen De Wispelaere is a political theorist turned public policy scholar, specialising in the political economy of basic income. He has published extensively on the politics of basic income, including most recently on basic income and crisis politics, basic income as national-regional-local policy, and the political origin story of basic income in Maricá (Brazil) and its diffusion across Rio de Janeiro state. He is the co-editor of four volumes as well as the Founding Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Basic Income Studies. Jurgen was a member of the BIEN EC in 2002-2004 and co-organised the BIEN Congresses in Montreal (2014) and Tampere (2018). He is currently leading the UBIdata Project for BIEN.

Volunteer Coordinator:
Lee Seng Kiat

Prior to his career in architecture and project management, Seng Kiat coordinated volunteers as polling and counting agents nationwide to observe the momentous 2018 Malaysian General Election. Since moving from Kuala Lumpur to London, Seng Kiat volunteered for BIEN before serving as Volunteer Coordinator. Seng Kiat has advocated for Basic Income from 2019 and resonates with BIEN’s role in fostering discussions over Basic Income. He is also fluent in Malay and Mandarin. Seng Kiat was elected BIEN’s Volunteer Coordinator in August 2024.

Hubs Supervisor:
Dr. Neil Howard

Dr. Neil Howard is Reader in International Development at the University of Bath, where he leads UBI Bath, the UK’s first centre of basic income scholarship. He is an anthropologist of development turned social protection scholar. His research investigates the governance of exploitative labour practices, as targeted for eradication by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He also explores innovative forms of labour and social protection, focusing on Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) combined with participatory community organizing. Neil co-led two international policy experiments trialling this combination in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Hyderabad, India. He also sits on the Executive Committee of the Basic Income Earth Network.

Affiliates Coordinator:
Olaf Ostertag

Olaf Michael Ostertagis based in Berlin, Germany, and has been a grassroots activist for Basic Income since 2004. He co-founded the “BAG GE” (Basic Income Working Group) within the political party DIE LINKE (“The left”), together with Katja Kipping, Ronald Blaschke, Stefan Wolf and others. This action committee was successful in convincing a majority of this party’s membership to adopt Basic Income as a political demand until recently.
His first professional education was actor’s training, at Valentin Plátáreanu’s studio. Olaf wrote over two dozen satirical plays for ensemble casts and stand-up comedy shows, the latest of which he is currently performing in Berlin. Olaf worked briefly as a journalist and as office manager for members of parliament, on state and national levels.
In 2017, he began training as a tax accountant and has worked at the same consultancy firm consecutively since 2018. He currently chairs two charities in Berlin: A local history association and an artist’s social club.
As Affiliates Coordinator, he aims for collecting the knowledge, experience and objectives from all over the world, and hopes to be able to foster exchange and inspiring debates between BI activists from different backgrounds. He encourages to reach out to him to induce conversations: olaf [(at)] basicincome.org

News Service Editor:
Peter Knight

Peter Knight joined BIEN in 2017.  He is a PhD (Stanford University) economist and strategic analyst with broad international experience in digital transformation, e-development, e-government, distance education, electronic media, telecommunications reform, international banking, foundation work, and teaching. Peter is devoted to leveraging information and communication technologies to accelerate social, economic and political development. He currently focuses on promoting thought, communication, and action across three areas: sufficiency, sustainability, and innovation; he is Coordinator of the Sufficiency4Sustainability Network.

Features Editor:
Tyler Prochazka

Tyler Prochazka is the opinion editor for BIEN. He is the chairman of UBI Taiwan and a PhD student at National Chengchi University. 

Bank account trustees (not members of the Executive Committee): Jacob Eliot, Anne Miller, Simon Duffy, Reinhard Huss

Chair of the International Advisory Board: Philippe Van Parijs

Tasks related to the different posts

The task of the EC

BIEN’s purpose is: To educate the general public about Basic Income, that is, a periodic cash payment delivered to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement; to serve as a link between the individuals and groups committed to, or interested in, Basic Income; to stimulate and disseminate research about Basic Income; and to foster informed public discussion on Basic Income throughout the world.

The task of the EC is to ensure that BIEN fulfils its constitutional purpose and to set policy to that end.

General duties of EC members

• To attend EC meetings, and if not attending to send apologies. At least 50 % of meetings must be attended between one General Assembly and the next
• To fulfil and develop the tasks related to the post to which you were elected
• To work with any working group(s) to which you are allocated in order to fulfil the tasks allocated to the group(s) by the EC

Individual duties

Chair

The role of the Chair is to collectively develop a vision, mission and long-term strategy for BIEN. In all aspects the Chair should work closely and in consultation with the Deputy Chair.

She / he should seek new partnerships globally and develop meaningful collaborations with people and organizations that will further the strategic objectives of BIEN in terms of strengthening research about Basic Income, its dissemination worldwide in as many languages as possible so that basic income discussion becomes rigorous and robust. In addition to these strategic aspects of the role, Chair in consultation with the Deputy Chair and the EC members should fulfil the following tasks:

• To chair meetings of the EC and the General Assembly
• To propose policy and initiatives for BIEN and to lead them
• To ensure that decisions made by the EC conform to BIEN’s purpose
• To take any urgent decisions required between EC meetings
• To represent BIEN to other organizations and individuals
• To liaise with the congress Local Organizing Committees over the content of congresses
• To submit an annual report to the General Assembly
• To raise funds for BIEN and make it financially sustainable
• To encourage new organizations to affiliate to BIEN, and work for growth of membership

Deputy Chair

• To fulfil all of the functions of the Chair whenever the Chair is absent
• To fulfil any of the tasks of the Chair by mutual agreement
• To support and help the chair in proposing policy goals and initiatives for BIEN and to assist with leading them

Secretary

• In consultation with the treasurer, to keep an up to date register of BIEN members and of members of the EC
• To take minutes of EC and GA meetings
• In consultation with the Chair, to prepare meeting agendas
• To prepare papers required by the EC
• To send agendas, minutes and other papers to EC members before EC meetings and to BIEN members before meetings of the GA
• To receive correspondence and ensure that it is acted on
• To undertake correspondence as required by decisions of EC and GA meetings
• To ensure that all requirements of registration by the UK’s Charity Commission are met
• To administer elections, including proposing tellers to the EC

Treasurer

• To keep income and expenditure accounts along with evidence of income and expenditure
• To make payments as agreed by the EC
• To submit regular financial reports to EC meetings
• To prepare annual accounts
• To liaise with the auditor over auditing of the accounts
• To prepare budgets if asked to do so by the EC
• To manage the bank and other accounts
• To propose financial rules to the EC

Hubs Supervisor

The Hubs Project involves building regional BIEN hubs in Africa, Asia and Latin America and professionalising BIEN’s day-to-day activities. The project aims to strengthen the basic income ecosystem and BIEN’s role in it.

• Regular oversight of the Hubs project
• Meeting with BIEN coordinator and regional hubs managers to check progress and course correct
• Strategic support to coordinator and regional hubs managers
• Reporting to the BIEN EC about project progress
• Connecting with partners and donors around the project.

News Service Editor

• In consultation and cooperation with the EC and Chair to develop news policy
• To oversee BI News posts on the website
• To issue monthly BIEN Bulletin emails
• To supervise the work of the volunteers allocated to the news service
• To ensure that guidelines agreed by the EC are adhered to by volunteers

Social Media Manager

• In consultation and cooperation with the EC, Chair and News Editor to develop social media policy
• To oversee social media channels
• To supervise the work of the volunteers allocated to social media
• To ensure that guidelines agreed by the EC are adhered to by volunteers

Affiliate and Public Outreach

• To maintain an up to date register of affiliated organizations and their contact details
• To liaise between affiliated organizations and the EC
• To convene meetings of representatives of affiliated organizations at and between congresses
• To oversee BIEN’s relationships with international and other organizations in consultation with the Chair and in conformity with policy set by the EC
• To assist with convening meetings between BIEN and other organizations both at congresses and on other occasions in consultation with the Chair and Congress local organizing committees

Volunteer Coordinator

• To oversee the recruitment, allocation and training of volunteers
• In consultation with the Chair and in conformity with policy set by the EC to liaise with volunteers and to manage volunteer policy

Research Coordinator

• To develop research policy and initiatives in consultation with EC and Chair 
• To review and update information related to research pages on the BIEN website
• To assist and suggest measures to promote quality of research at BIEN congresses
• To serve as point of contact for outside research-related organizations and activities
• To facilitate research initiatives in collaboration with external research and community partners
• To engage in exploring strategic funding options for basic income research initiatives

Congress Organiser (appointed by the EC and the Local Organizing Committee)

• To co-ordinate the Local Organising Committee (LOC) that plans the congress
• To liaise between the EC and the LOC by attending EC meetings and in other ways

Website Manager

• To manage the website and liaise with its other users in consultation with the Chair and in conformity with policy set by the EC

Bank account trustees

• To facilitate the relationship between BIEN and the Charity Commission
• To facilitate the efficient management of the bank account