Basic Income News and Discussions

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Amid Devasting Federal Cuts, States Can Help Families With Direct Cash
By Tracy Yeung, Leila Reynolds
January 21, 2026

Introduction:

(Other Words) Over a quarter of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have less than $1,000 in emergency savings. This means there’s no buffer when the car breaks down or an unexpected hospital bill hits.

Congress’s recent cuts to SNAP and Medicaid will worsen this crisis for working families, as millions of people lose money to buy groceries and face higher health premiums and less coverage.

But across the country, some communities are experimenting with a bold solution: just give people cash.

When states and cities invest in direct cash support — whether through tax credits or guaranteed income programs — people get the autonomy to decide how to cover basic needs like utilities, rent, or school supplies.

Our organization was part of a coalition that helped pass Washington State’s Working Families Tax Credit in 2021. This annual cash boost to people with low incomes passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan support during the pandemic because lawmakers on both sides of the aisle knew people needed cash back in their pockets.

Read more here: https://otherwords.org/amid-devastatin ... t-cash /

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Basic Income’s Appeal Today is Similar to Its Roots in 18th century England – It’s a Way to Compensate People for a Common Good Taken for Private Gain
By Will Glovinsky
March 30, 2026

Introduction:

(The Conversation) A story has been going around about artificial intelligence for the past decade: At some point, AI advances, robots and self-driving cars will throw countless people out of work.

The rich folks who control AI companies will get richer. Most other people’s fortunes will decline as their skills lose value and they fail to get new jobs. To prevent the U.S. from suffering mass hunger and political chaos, the story goes, it will need a new system: The government will provide many people, or maybe everyone, with no-strings-attached cash payments.

There are many names for this kind of policy, including “basic income.”

Backing from a diverse group

This is essentially the story told by 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang and by the labor leader Andy Stern. You may also hear it from an array of tech billionaires, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. In telling it, those moguls also get to hype their companies’ AI models.

Local governments from Stockton, California, to Atlanta are testing basic income programs by giving low-income residents cash. Across the Atlantic, British Investment Minister Jason Stockwood has said he and other leaders are “definitely talking” about the idea.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/basic-inco ... in-276950

The linked article reviews some of the history of the “basic income” idea. In doing so it also reviews the enclosure movement in England. Recently, there was a discussion here that I was involved in concerning the relative lack that markets played capitalism in historical economic development. The enclosure movement was yet another important example of government picking winners as opposed to a market system performing that function. Something that strengthens the case for a Universal Basic Income.

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Basic Income’s Appeal Today is Similar to Its Roots in 18th century England – It’s a Way to Compensate People for a Common Good Taken for Private Gain
By Will Glovinsky
March 30, 2026

Introduction:

(The Conversation) A story has been going around about artificial intelligence for the past decade: At some point, AI advances, robots and self-driving cars will throw countless people out of work.

The rich folks who control AI companies will get richer. Most other people’s fortunes will decline as their skills lose value and they fail to get new jobs. To prevent the U.S. from suffering mass hunger and political chaos, the story goes, it will need a new system: The government will provide many people, or maybe everyone, with no-strings-attached cash payments.

There are many names for this kind of policy, including “basic income.”

Backing from a diverse group

This is essentially the story told by 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang and by the labor leader Andy Stern. You may also hear it from an array of tech billionaires, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. In telling it, those moguls also get to hype their companies’ AI models.

Local governments from Stockton, California, to Atlanta are testing basic income programs by giving low-income residents cash. Across the Atlantic, British Investment Minister Jason Stockwood has said he and other leaders are “definitely talking” about the idea.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/basic-inco ... in-276950

The linked article reviews some of the history of the “basic income” idea. In doing so it also reviews the enclosure movement in England. Recently, there was a discussion here that I was involved in concerning the relative lack that markets played capitalism in historical economic development. The enclosure movement was yet another important example of government picking winners as opposed to a market system performing that function. Something that strengthens the case for a Universal Basic Income.

“AI systems,” they wrote, “freely scrape content from websites, social media, YouTube, newspapers, Wikipedia, and blogs, then statistically recombine this material and sell access to the results.”

IDK, the human versions of these services aren't necessarily free either? Eg. lots of news sites require a subscription, and artists charge a fee. Furthermore, it's not like free knowledge sites are mutually exclusive with AI, unlike how the commons were mutually exclusive with enclosure.

UBI would be more of a response to unemployment, as people have been saying.

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UBI would be more of a response to unemployment, as people have been saying.

It is supposed to be a bridge, not an end, by design. UBI alone wouldn't be sustainable long-term for obvious reasons.

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We Studied What Happened When Financially Struggling Artists Received $1,000 a Month, No Strings Attached, for 18 Months
By Joanna Woronkowicz and Doug Noonan
May 11, 2026

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Though artificial intelligence is making it easier than ever to produce images, music and text, the technology is also making it harder for the people who have traditionally produced this work to earn a living.

A photographer who once was commissioned to make art for an advertising campaign is now competing with graphics produced by the AI image generator Midjourney. A novelist who used to make money on the side as a technical writer is seeing that work be replaced by a series of prompts in ChatGPT.

The extent to which AI will upend creative work remains unsettled. But that uncertainty has made guaranteeing income for creatives a more viable policy idea.

In fact, creatives in New York recently participated in the largest basic income program for artists in U.S. history, the Guaranteed Income for Artists initiative.

Spearheaded by Creatives Rebuild New York and primarily funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the program gave 2,400 artists across New York state US$1,000 a month beginning in June 2022. There were no work requirements and no restrictions on how the money could be spent. The program sought to improve the financial stability of artists and encourage the public to see them as workers who deserve a stable income and social support.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/we-studied ... hs-280799

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