Universal Basic Income [UBI]
Universal Basic Income is a government program in which every adult citizen receives a set amount of money regularly. The goals of a basic income system are to alleviate poverty and replace other need-based social programs that potentially require greater bureaucratic involvement.
Universal basic income (UBI) is a sociopolitical proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a transfer payment–without a means test or need to work. If the level is sufficient to meet a person's basic needs (i.e., at or above the poverty line), it is sometimes called a full basic income; if it is less than that amount, it may be called a partial basic income. No country has yet introduced either. Some have labelled UBI as utopian due to its historical origin. There are also terms called common allocation gold and public dividend.
There are several welfare arrangements that can be viewed as related to basic income. Many countries have something like a basic income for children. Pension may be partly similar to basic income. There are also quasi-basic income systems, like Bolsa Familia in Brazil, which is conditional and concentrated on the poor, or the Thamarat Program in Sudan, which was introduced by the transitional government to ease the effects of the economic crisis inherited from the Bashir regime. The Alaska Permanent Fund is essentially a partial basic income, which averages $1,600 annually per resident (in 2019 currency). A negative income tax (NIT) can be viewed as a basic income in which citizens receive less and less money until this effect is reversed the more a person earns.
Several contemporary political discussions are related to the basic income debate, including those regarding automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and the future of the necessity of work. A key issue in these debates is whether automation and AI will significantly reduce the number of available jobs and whether a basic income could help prevent or alleviate such problems by allowing everyone to benefit from a society's wealth, as well as whether a UBI could be a stepping stone to a resource-based or post-scarcity economy.
The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted some countries to send direct payments to its citizens.
