What is a ‘global basic income?’

thumbnail

A global basic income is a concept to give everyone in the world a minimum sum of money, unconditionally, to lessen the inequalities throughout the world. The idea of a national basic income was first floated in the 1970s by a Dutch artist, Pieter Kooistra, who was fixated on balance and scale. The idea was taken a step further with the Úno Income’ Foundation, which applied the concept on a global scale.

Nowadays, the UK’s ‘World Basic Income Organisation’ leads the charge on advocating and experimenting with these concepts. The World Basic Income Organisation’s primary aim is to promote the idea of distributing $10 per month to all the world’s population, thereby eradicating extreme poverty and balancing the scales of deepening inequality.

Numerous world business leaders have come out as advocates for the universal income (or GBI) including; the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, who thinks the idea is definitely worth exploring, the founder of Virgin, Richard Branson, who worries for the future of jobs with increasing automation and founder of Slack, Stewart Butterfield, who believes it would unlock a world of entrepreneurship for those unable to take risks.

The GBI has been tested in countries such as Canada, Uganda, Finland and Kenya with varying results, which still adds doubts to its feasibility. In 2017, Finland became the first country to trial a basic income, offering around 560 euros per month for unemployed citizens. The 2-year trial program showed definite benefits to health & stress levels for participants but no improvement on work status. The individuals who received the basic income were found to be no more likely to find a job than the control group. The Finnish government aims to investigate the reasoning for this further and makes allowances for the trial by justifying that further “promotion for active participation” and “stronger incentives to work” could be administered alongside the programme.

The findings from Finland might make some categorize the trial a failure but in consideration of the national health costs associated with poverty, this could mean a significant saving in the long-term for the government.

Trials in Uganda and India have shown positive results, with the distribution of money bringing the participants out of poverty at a much faster rate. It has shown participants are likely to invest the money in income-generating sources such as livestock, have increased their access to healthcare and their food security is improved.

These varying results beg the question, is a GBI only life changing for those experiencing mild to extreme poverty? When the preoccupation with pure survival is eased, does this motivate individuals to go back to school? Will women feel more empowered within the home? Would they start a business? Or become more involved in community activities? But ultimately, the results need to show that receivers of the GBI would eventually secure employment & continually improve living standards on the long term.

So how would all the world’s governments pay for a GBI? Could contributing to a GBI tip the scale for those countries struggling to extract taxes for their own infrastructure? Larger-scale basic income initiatives would require central banks to create new money, like the quantitative easing programs after the 2008 global economic crisis. If the program was unveiled nationally, a similar welfare-style operation from Centrelink would be enough to distribute the funds, with a portion recouped as taxable income.

But will it even be a choice to create GBI with the increase in automation & loss of complete workforces in some industries? “There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation,” Elon Musk remarked, in an interview with CNBC last year. “I am not sure what else one would do… I think that is what would happen.”

With changing economic and social structures, the GBI is certainly something that should be explored further. The endless pursuit of ‘growth’ would be satisfied with newly burgeoning economies, the suffering of impoverished individuals would be mitigated and a financial cushion behind all individuals, the stress & health of all individuals could be significantly improved.

left
Mobile
right
Mobile

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Be on the list that gets you from A to B. Want a holiday? Want to buy a
property? Want to know how to retire a millionaire? This is the first step...