Thursday, February 9, 2017

The State of Basic Income Around the World


   G Luhman and Jun Anover (with design by Maccy Adalid) at futurism.com put together a great infographic showing the state of basic income, in various forms, around the world today. The link to the infographic on futurism's website is here, along with brief descriptions of the various programs.




   The map shows us a few encouraging things happening in basic income research: it's being tried out in vastly different countries and with different goals behind the implementation. The impact of basic income on a society is going to depend a lot on the particulars, such as the cultural norms around work and leisure, the productivity of the population, the purchasing power of the currency, and many more. Developing a rich understanding of a BI will take this kind of globalized experimentation. Similarly encouraging, that BI is taken seriously enough to be tried in so many different locations is a good sign that if the results from these and future trials are positive, then it might actually be implemented, unlike some other good ideas throughout history.