Originally Posted by Adnium_Ivana

As tech threatens jobs, we must test a universal basic income

It?s possible that within 20 years almost half of all jobs will be lost to machines.

People who say technology has the power to create jobs fail to recognise the ?superstar economy?, where a handful of companies make billions and employ very few people.

So how would we all survive? One of the most interesting proposals is the creation of an unconditional basic income.

It?s a simple idea with big consequences. The state would give a monthly spend to every citizen, regardless of income.

The key criticism is that it would kill the incentive to work. But experiments done in Canada and 20 villages in India have found that not only did people not stop working, but they were more likely to start new businesses or perform socially beneficial activities compared with the control groups.

The city of Utrecht in the Netherlands has started a new UBI pilot, with a view to extending it to 300,000 residents, so we will wait and see.

What do you think?
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From the sounds of this, universal income sounds like an uneasy hybrid of minimum wage + welfare assistance. I can see this system leveraging the burden for lower income and working class families however I see problems implementing this income for everyone as suggested here ...(why would you give this to a millionaire?)...not to mention the sheer logistics of integrating this with a nation's tax and financial systems & institutions.

Thoughts?