The resurrection of universal basic income (UBI) proposals in the developed world this year gained support from some prominent Australians. But while good in theory, it’s no panacea for the challenges of our modern economy.
UBI proposals centre on the idea that the government would pay a flat fee to every adult citizen, regardless of his or her engagement in skill-building activities or the paid labour market, as a partial or complete substitute for existing social security and welfare programs.
Of the schemes run in developing places like Kenya, Uganda, and India, some have been evaluated statistically, delivering some evidence of positive impacts on educational investments, entrepreneurship, and earnings.
In the developed world, Canada is trialling a UBI scheme. Finland also just rolled out a UBI trial, involving about 10,000 recipients for two years and costing about A$40 million. While Switzerland’s voters…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Dec 27, 2016 @ 15:13:16
I think that UBI is a very bad idea for the reasons given by Assoc. Prof. Foster. Fortunately, it is unlikely to be supported by either of the major parties on the grounds that it is unaffordable and unworkable. But who knows what the Greens, One Nation or the other unpredictable cross-benchers might do if they ever get the numbers?
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Dec 27, 2016 @ 16:13:34
Yes. Wrote a paper on local proposals
http://www.taxpayers.org.nz/money_for_all
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