An Overview of Universal Basic Income

• In Event: Making the Case for Universal Basic Income in Eastern Kentucky

Abstract

The idea of universal basic income has been considered a possible solution to cyclical for centuries. One of the first propositions resembling UBI was put forward by Thomas Paine in 1797. Recently, local and national governments have become interested in testing universal cash transfer pilot programs. Finland completed a two-year pilot program with two thousand young people. This program was limited and aimed at explicitly testing the effect of direct cash transfers on the unemployed (Kangas et al., 2019). The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) has completed several years in Stockton, California, giving 125 Stocktonians $500 a month for 24 months starting in February of 2018 (West et al., 2019). SEED had a broader focus than the Finnish study as it was testing the effects of cash transfer on citizens generally rather than only on the unemployed. Oakland, California is planning to launch a study similar to Stockton, but with a cohort of up to 600 families (Ho, 2021). GiveDirectly began testing the effects of direct cash transfers on rural Kenyan Villages in 2016 and plans to continue the project for twelve years. They are expanding the study to 295 villages, with roughly 20,000 people receiving direct cash transfers over the course of the program (GiveDirectly, n.d.). One of the most studied UBI programs is in the United States. Since 1996 the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina have distributed fifty percent of casino revenue throughout the tribe (Singh et al., 2020). The biannual distribution was about $500 initially, but as the casino operations have expanded, so has the dividend, reaching a biannual payment of $7,007 for every tribal member in December of 2019 (Littledave, 2019). In Finland, every family with children under the age of 17 receives a child benefit from the government, regardless of their family income, and there is a per-child supplement for single parents (“Amount and Payment of the Child Benefit,” 2021). A single parent of three children under the age of 17 would receive a monthly payment from the government equivalent to more than $600, whether or not the parent was working.

Author

• Jonathan Boram, Bowling Green State University