4 ms·

Despite many proposers, there seems to be no real-world implementation of basic income in existence. Apart from fiscal and tax issues to fund the policy, I thin

• _delirium 13y ago
  Alaska has a fairly pure form of a basic income, but at such a low level that it's not possible to live on: anyone resident in the state gets about $1k/yr unconditionally, paid out of oil revenues. Many European countries (mainly in northern Europe) have a more bureaucratic system, but one that amounts to a minimum income: if you completely run out of eligibility for anything else, you still get some low level of welfare benefits, and might also be eligible for housing assistance. In Germany for example, there have been some cuts to the benefit, but it is still nearly impossible to fall out of the lowest level of benefit, which is around €375/mo for a single person.
• chipsy 13y ago
  Basic income works against the interests of institutional lobbies. Businesses relying on cheap, disposable workers will find them in much shorter supply if nobody is desperate. Unions are also threatened because the right to collective bargaining competes with the right to quit altogether under a basic income benefit. One can find numerous ways in which the social contracts we're familiar with would become obsolete. In each case the benefit counters economic coercion - a promising and scary prospect.