What is Universal Basic Income?

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See this little gadget? Let’s call it an i-Everything. 

You can’t get it yet, but if technology keeps moving as fast as it is now, the i-Everything will be with us before you know it. A combination of intelligent computing, 3-D manufacturing, big data crunching, and advanced bio-technology, this little machine will be able to do everything you want and give you everything you need. There’s only one hitch. 

As the economy is now organized, no one will be able to buy it, because there won’t be any paying jobs left. You see, the i-Everything will do … everything. I’m exaggerating a bit in order to make a point about the trend we're already seeing. 

Even now, we’re producing more and more with fewer and fewer people. Internet sales are on the way to replacing millions of retail workers. Diagnostic apps will be replacing hundreds of thousands of health-care workers. Self-driving cars and trucks will replace 5 million drivers. 

Researchers estimate that almost half of all US jobs are at risk of being automated in the next two decades. This isn’t necessarily bad. The economy we’re heading toward could offer millions of people more free time to do what they want to do instead of what they have to do to earn a living. 

But to make this work, we’ll have to figure out some way to recirculate the money from the relatively few people who do very well in the economy of the i-Everything, to the rest of us who will want to buy the i-Everything. 

One possible answer: A universal basic income. Possibly financed out of the profits going to labor replacing innovations. 

The idea of a universal basic income historically has had support from people on both the left and the right.  In the 1970s, President Nixon proposed a similar concept for the United States -- and it even passed the House of Representatives. 

I therefore propose that we abolish the present welfare system and a basic federal minimum would be provided. The idea is getting some traction again. Some think it could be superior or other kinds of public assistance because a universal basic income doesn't tell people what to spend the assistance on and everyone qualifies. In recent years, evidence has shown that giving people cash as a way to address poverty actually works. 

In study after study, people don't stop working and they don't drink it away.  They actually use it to increase their earnings.  Interest in a basic income is surging, with governments debating it from Finland to Canada to Namibia. The charity Give Directly is about to launch a basic income pilot in Kenya, providing an income for more than 10 years to some of the poorest and most vulnerable families on the planet. And then rigorously evaluate the results. 

As new technologies replace work, the question for the future is how best to provide economic security for all  -- a universal basic income could be an answer.