​Chicago could become the largest city in the US to test a universal basic income programme, if its local government takes up a new proposal to start handing out $500 (£385) a month to some households for free. City lawmakers have voiced support for legislation that would trial a basic income scheme for 1,000 families in Chicago.

A $500 monthly check for low-income residents, cash stipends for men most likely to commit violent crimes and $1,000 college scholarships for public high school graduates. These are the bold initiatives 27-year-old Mayor Michael Tubbs is launching in Stockton, California, one of the state’s most financially strapped and crime-ridden cities. The Stanford-educated son of a mother who relied in part on public food assistance programs and an incarcerated father, Tubbs thinks that giving people even a small leg up can make a radical change.

One solution to income inequality is giving out free cash, according to the British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson. “A basic income should be introduced in Europe and in America,” Branson told David Gelles of The New York Times. Branson was responding to the question, “What do you think those in positions of power should do to address social problems like income inequality?” In a report published in January, the global charity Oxfam found that 82 percent of the growth in global wealth in...

This town in California’s Central Valley has long functioned as a display case for wrenching troubles afflicting American life: The housing bust that turned Stockton into an epicenter of a national foreclosure disaster and plunged the city into bankruptcy. The homeless people clustered in tents along the railroad tracks. Boarded-up storefronts on cracked sidewalks. Gang violence.

Italy is on the verge of forming a new government that could usher in sweeping economic reforms including a universal income scheme and flat tax rate. The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and far-right League parties said on Monday that they are in the final stages of thrashing out an 'historic' coalition deal, which could see a government in place by the end of the week.

In his 20s, Chris Hughes co-founded Facebook Inc., helped elect a U.S. president, and made almost half-a-billion dollars. Then he turned 30 and, as he freely admits, his lucky streak came to an abrupt, high-profile end after a disastrous attempt to turn around the New Republic magazine. Hughes, 34, now devotes his time to evangelizing for higher taxes on the rich, such as himself. He's proposing that the government give a guaranteed income of $500 a month to every working American earning less than $50,000 a year...

Much has been made of the end of the Nordic country’s experiment with giving some of its residents cash, but the program was actually a conservative welfare program that doesn’t say anything about the true UBI experiments in the works around the world.

A Democratic presidential hopeful for the 2020 presidency is proposing $1,000 a month for all for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 64 as part of a universal basic income program. Andrew Yang, an American entrepreneur and the founder of Venture for America, said the spending proposal would cost the U.S. Treasury an estimated $2 trillion a year. “The size of our economy is now $19 trillion a year. It’s grown by $4 trillion in the last 10 years alone. We can easily afford $1,000 a month per citizen,” he told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Monday.

The Finnish government has decided not to expand a limited trial in paying people a basic income, which has drawn much international interest. Currently 2,000 unemployed Finns are receiving a flat monthly payment of €560 (£490; $685) as basic income. "The eagerness of the government is evaporating. They rejected extra funding [for it]," said Olli Kangas, one of the experiment's designers. Some see basic income as a way to get unemployed people into temporary jobs.

Ray Kurzweil is Google’s director of engineering and believes UBI is inevitable.

Later this year, Stockton, a city in California with a 25% poverty rate, will conduct an unusual experiment: Roughly 100 of its citizens will receive $500 a month for 12-18 months, with no work requirements and no strings attached. Researchers likely will regularly assess the recipients’ health, childcare arrangements, education, and general well-being in order to measure how this kind of financial leg up affects quality of life.

Don’t buy the oily declarations from the tech billionaires and others that they want to help you survive financially. What they want is to more fully stuff their own pockets. By Chris Hedges.

Liberals and conservatives alike love—and fear—the idea of giving free money to everyone. But we have to try it anyway.

Berlin Mayor Michael Müller has called for an end to the controversial Hartz IV welfare system, saying that every jobless Berliner should have the right to a basic income. The Social Democrat (SPD) politician told the Berliner Morgenpost that he wants to see an overhaul of the welfare system, with Hartz IV to be replaced by a “solidary basic income” model. Hartz IV was one of the biggest components of the major labour market reform, which was adopted in the mid-2000s by the then red-green federal government under Gerhard Schröder (SPD).

“Fair Shot” author Chris Hughes is trying to convince America’s richest citizens to give money to working people — not education policy, not inspirational messages, not invocations to try harder. Cash. “Cash is the best thing you can do to improve health outcomes, education outcomes and lift people out of poverty,” Hughes said on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher.

It’s a sign that the idea is moving from fringe to mainstream.

Margie Goold, who suffers debilitating arthritis, bought a new walker. Lance Dingman, who lost his right leg to a chronic bone disease, is no longer running out of groceries by the middle of the month. Wendy Moore, who has been homeless for almost two years, is looking for an apartment. The three Hamilton residents are part of the first wave of participants in Ontario’s experiment with basic income, a monthly, no-strings-attached payment of up to $1,400 for people living in poverty. Those with disabilities receive an additional $500 a month.

Would a $500 monthly check, no strings attached, help more working families succeed? It's a bold idea that's gaining proponents in Silicon Valley — and one that the co-founder of Facebook is pushing hard. "If you're working hard trying to make ends meet, you shouldn't live in poverty in America," Chris Hughes told CNBC in an interview. "It sounds so simple but unfortunately it's not true."

We should provide a guaranteed income of $500 a month for every working adult who makes less than $50,000, argues Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes

The government should give £10,000 to every citizen under 55, a report suggests.