Why do you support UBI? Answering at the BIEN Congress in Montreal 2014
One cut with Chinese subtitles: An overlap clip with German subtitles:
Karl Widerquist
A list of controversial claims on both side of the UBI debate
In the process of cowriting a book about the upcoming Unconditional Basic Income Trials, I’ve been trying to come up with a list of the claims that tend appear in the debate. Below are two lists: first a list of […]
How much does UBI cost?
I just completed some simple, “back-of-the-envelope” estimates the net cost of a UBI set at about the official poverty line: $12,000 per adult and $6,000 per child with a 50% “marginal tax rate.” They are in a paper entitled, “the […]
The Piketty Observation Against the Institutional Background: How Natural is this Natural Tendency and What Can Basic Income Do about it?
The publisher of a paper I wrote in 2015 has now given me the right to share the published version of my own article without charge. (That is, without them charging me for sharing my own work with you.) The […]
The BIG misunderstanding about the cost of Universal Basic Income
The cost of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is often greatly exaggerated, because people are tempted to think the cost of UBI is the size of the grant multiplied by the size of the population. You can call that the […]
About Indepentarianism
All posts from my blog, the Indepentarian My books and research articles Indepentarianism is the political ideology associated with the political theory called “Justice as the Pursuit of Accord” (JPA). I (Karl Widerquist) defined JPA and outlined its theory of […]
WORLD: The charity GiveDirectly will start a major basic income trial in Kenya
GiveDirectly, a charity which has used direct cash distribution in one-time, lump-sum payments to fight poverty in Africa, announced it will launch a full basic income trial. The project will involved at least 30 million dollars and academic support from leading researchers at the MIT. […]
ALASKA: The state’s mini-basic income comes under increasing attack
Alaska’s small basic income, the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), is coming under increasing political attacks as the state’s fiscal crisis grows. the dividend, in place since 1982, has been incredibly popular, but the double-hit of declining oil prices and declining […]
ALASKA, USA: New poll shows declining support for the Alaska Dividend
A recent poll asking Alaskans how to deal with the state’s increasingly severe budget deficit found that trimming the Permanent Fund Dividend or PFD (also know as “the Alaska Dividend”) was the most popular solution. The poll also found that […]
ALASKA, USA: 2015 Dividend estimated to be near highest ever
Alaska Dispatch News has released its estimate of Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PDF) for this year. The Alaska Dividend is the closest policy to a basic income in the world today. It has paid dividends to all Alaska residents since […]