Basic income

A basic income (also called unconditional basic income, Citizen's Income, basic income guarantee, universal basic income or universal demogrant) is a form of social security in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from elsewhere.

An unconditional income transfer of less than the poverty line is sometimes referred to as a partial basic income.

Basic income systems that are financed by the profits of publicly owned enterprises (often called social dividend or citizen's dividend) are major components in many proposed models of market socialism. Basic income schemes have also been promoted within the context of capitalist systems, where they would be financed through various forms of taxation.

Similar proposals for "capital grants provided at the age of majority" date to Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice of 1795, there paired with asset-based egalitarianism. The phrase "social dividend" was commonly used as a synonym for basic income in the English-speaking world before 1986, after which the phrase "basic income" gained widespread currency. Prominent advocates of the concept include Philippe Van Parijs, Ailsa McKay,André Gorz, Hillel Steiner, Peter Vallentyne, and Guy Standing.

Basic income, it is argued, is a much more transparent and simple welfare system than the one existing in the welfare states around the world today. Instead of numerous welfare programs it would be one universal unconditional income.

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