Basic income is having a whirlwind year, and it was just galvanized even further by the support of Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel Prize winner for Economics.At a universal basic income forum in Taiwan's capital on May 19, Deaton encouraged governments to consider lifting the financial burden on low-income citizens with basic income grants, the Taipei Times reports. He pointed to increasing instability as a cause for concern. "The riskier the world becomes, the more potential there is for increases in inequality," he said.

Conversations about basic income, a government-funded salary given to every citizen, used to take place in the dingy offices of extremist left-wing politicians, or in the campus dorm rooms of idealistic students determined to fix the problems of the previous generation. The conversation was about social responsibility. It wasn’t an economic case, it was a moral one.

Chalk it up to Swiss affluence. Voters here will decide next month whether all 8 million citizens and legal residents should be guaranteed a generous monthly income, something no country in the world has ever done. On June 5, Swiss voters will weigh in on a radical proposal that would mandate the government to guarantee $2,600 a month tax-free to every adult citizen and legal resident, and $650 to each child.

Now and then a worthy economic proposal comes along that seems as politically unattainable as it is sensible. Then, on closer inspection, you see that it's more than a policy-wonk's fantasy. And you wonder whether it could actually prevail. This may be happening with the concept of a universal basic income. The notion that government should guarantee every citizen an annual stipend of, say, $10,000 -- no strings attached, no questions asked -- is being studied by politicians, economists...

The last time I saw universal basic income discussed on television, it was laughed away by a Conservative MP as an absurd idea. The government giving away wads of cash responsibility-free to the entire population sounds entirely fantastical in this austerity-bound age, where “we just don’t have the money” is repeated endlessly as a mantra. Money, they say, does not grow on trees. (Only as figures on the screen of a computer).

By providing an economic floor for everyone in Canada, basic or guaranteed income would simplify and streamline our income security system, lower rates of poverty and inequality, and would enable us to advance environmental sustainability in the context of a steady state economy.Dr. Mulvale worked in community development in social agencies in southern Ontario for a number of years. In 1999, he joined the University of Regina...

The organization that we founded, GiveDirectly, has decided to try to permanently end extreme poverty across dozens of villages and thousands of people in Kenya by guaranteeing them an ongoing income high enough to meet their basic needs—a universal basic income, or basic income guarantee.

For centuries, the way people make money has stayed mostly the same: People earn a living based on the skills they bring to society. Doctors make more than plumbers because open-heart surgery saves more lives than fixing leaky toilets. Star athletes make more than teachers because entertainment is more lucrative than education. But the recent evidence is overwhelming: Automated robots are replacing workers faster than our economy can handle.

What an interesting place and an interesting time it is for a visit. Earth’s most intelligent primates are busy creating technologies that allow them all to do less work, freeing themselves from millennia of senseless toil and drudgery. Strangely, however, they are using such technologies to force each other to work longer and harder. In one area called the United States, responsible for so much of the world’s technological...

Just as the UK raises its minimum wage and as Bernie Sanders's demands for a 50 per cent increase in minimum pay keep winning him votes in the US, some politicians in one of the world's most socialist countries, Sweden, are in favour of going in the opposite direction. They could be right, especially if nations can find a way to unhitch basic subsistence from work.

The green party of Finland is going to present taking into use a basic income model. This would remove minimum social benefits and replace them with a tax free payment of 560 Euro (approx. 630 USD) each month to every Finnish Citizen. The basic income is going to be tested in the year 2017. The party believes that replacing the benefits with the basic income will help people who work to make more income for themselves by being active citizens. People with part time...

On December 2nd, 1942, a team of scientists led by Enrico Fermi came back from lunch and watched as humanity created the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction inside a pile of bricks and wood underneath a football field at the University of Chicago. Known to history as Chicago Pile-1, it was celebrated in silence with a single bottle of Chianti, for those who were there understood exactly what it meant for humankind, without any need for words. Now, something new has occurred that, again...

  At no point in the history of our species has human culture ever changed as rapidly as it is now.

One thing that sets Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders apart from opponent Hillary Clinton is that he opposed a 1996 law known widely as welfare reform. The Vermont senator said the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which both Democratic President Bill Clinton and a bipartisan Congress supported, contributed to poverty today.

Finland and the Netherlands have already shown their interest in giving people a regular monthly allowance regardless of working status, and now Ontario, Canada is onboard. Ontario's government announced in February that a pilot program will be coming to the Canadian province sometime later this year. The premise: send people monthly checks to cover living expenses such as food, transportation, clothing, and utilities — no questions asked.

For some technologists, machine intelligence is not seen as a job-killing catastrophe, but something like a windfall that could lead to universal basic income.

The Family and Medical Leave Act was a huge step forward for working families, but it’s not nearly enough.

Raising the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020 would lift wages for more than 35 million workers nationwide and generate about $17 billion annually in savings to government assistance programs.

Free monthly checks for all sounds like a wonderful proposal, but how feasible is UBI to implement in reality?

The federal minister responsible for reducing poverty says he is interested in the idea of a guaranteed income in Canada. Veteran economist Jean-Yves Duclos, who is Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, told The Globe and Mail the concept has merit as a policy to consider after the government implements more immediate reforms promised during the election campaign. “There are many different types of guaranteed minimum income.