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UBI Guide

scottsantens.com

The blog of Scott Santens - author and unconditional universal basic income specialist. Learn all about UBI from a continually-growing collection of angles.

Society / politics / economy

’15’20’25
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279 from 2 Jun 2014 to 24 Sep 2026
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weekly (24 in the last year)
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personal blog
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2026 19

  1. Our Data. Our Resources. Our Terms and Conditions.
  2. All Posts →
  3. A 4-Day Workweek, Medicare for All, and the Tax That Gets Us There
  4. Conservatives Demonized UBI as Programmable Currency. Then They Proposed Exactly That.
  5. Dolly Parton Knew What People Need
  6. Turtles All the Way Down: The Biological Case for Universal Basic Income
  7. The Land Dividend: How a Land Value Tax Can Fund a UBI
  8. How to Fund Universal Basic Income by Taxing Consumption: Over $450 a Month From a VAT
  9. How Do We Pay for Universal Basic Income? Tax Stock the Way Companies Already Issue It.
  10. The Primordial Credit Argument for Unconditional Basic Income (UBI)
  11. The Universality Argument for Basic Income
  12. I Just Launched the AI Pledge for Humanity. Here’s Why.
  13. The Angine de Poitrine Argument for UBI
  14. Replace the Standard Deduction With $375 a Month for Everyone
  15. The Next Moonshot: Universal Basic Income
  16. Universal Basic Income Is Your Productivity Dividend. It’s the Only Way to All Share What We All Built.
  17. We Gave Homeless People Cash. They Bought Housing Not Drugs.
  18. Top 10 Universal Basic Income Articles of 2025
  19. The 200-Year Experiment: How a 'Privileged' Basic Income in Brazil Proves We Can Afford to Be Universal

2025 14

  1. The $1,000 Lie: Why Trump Accounts Are the Wrong Answer to the Right Question
  2. Finland Gave Two Groups Identical Payments. One Experienced 33% Better Mental Health.
  3. Eduardo Porter is Still Wrong About UBI and AI: A Response to The Guardian
  4. Universal Basic Income Reduces Crime: Here’s What the Evidence Shows
  5. The Marshall Islands Just Quietly Implemented the First National Universal Basic Income (UBI)
  6. Irish Government Proposes Basic Income For Artists
  7. It's Time to Walk the Walk for Universal Basic Income (UBI)
  8. The Reports of UBI’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated: The Mountain of Positive Results vs. Some Pandemic-Era Null Results
  9. Andrew Yang Has Begun Paying People to Use Their Phones Less
  10. The New York Times Missed the Real Story on UBI and Kids
  11. What the Media Isn’t Telling You: Why Universal Basic Income Is the Answer to Poverty, Insecurity, and Inequality
  12. 17 Key Variables That Determine UBI’s Inflationary Impact
  13. What's the deal with the $5,000 'DOGE Dividend' checks?
  14. Top 10 Universal Basic Income Articles of 2024

2024 10

  1. The Hidden Reasons Authoritarianism Is Growing — And How to Reverse It
  2. AI, Automation, and the Urgent Case for Universal Basic Income
  3. Income To Support All Foundation Reaches $1.5 Million Fundraising Goal, Fully Funding Two Groundbreaking UBI Projects
  4. Introducing "The Basic Income Show" on YouTube
  5. Did Sam Altman's Basic Income Experiment Succeed or Fail?
  6. Universal Basic Income or Universal High Income?
  7. YouTube channel update: my new video explaining UBI in-depth
  8. The Billionaire-Fueled Lobbying Group Behind the State Bills to Ban Basic Income Experiments
  9. Why China Could Surprise the World by Being the First Country to Adopt Universal Basic Income
  10. Top 10 Universal Basic Income Articles of 2023

2023 15

  1. Comingle Crowdfund Success and Other Basic Income News
  2. Time To Crowdfund a UBI Platform
  3. Sowing Seeds of Security: How Basic Income Is Taking Root in the U.S. through Local Pilots and Programs
  4. Introducing the Income To Support All Foundation
  5. My Closing Keynote Speech at England's Basic Income North 2023 Conference
  6. The Big Red Button Argument for Unconditional Basic Income
  7. Negative Income Tax is Not Cheaper Than Universal Basic Income, Nor is Guaranteed Income 'More Progressive' by Excluding the Rich
  8. A.I. Will Not Displace Everyone, Everywhere, All at Once. It Will Rapidly Transform the Labor Market, Exacerbating Inequality, Insecurity, and Poverty.
  9. The Fable of the Two-Headed Dragon-Tyrant and the UBI Missile
  10. Did Spain's B-MINCOME Experiment Prove That Unconditional Basic Income Doesn't Work?
  11. ChatGPT Has Already Decreased My Income Security, and Likely Yours Too
  12. How Money is Born out of Public Spending and Dies by Taxes
  13. The FairTax Would Implement a Universal Basic Income
  14. One Year After the Expiration of the Enhanced Child Tax Credit, What All Have We Learned About Its Effects?
  15. The Spaceballs Argument for Unconditional Basic Income (UBI)

2022 13

  1. No, Universal Basic Income Does Not Require Tax Rates of 40 to 60 Percent
  2. The Gift-Giving Argument for Universal Basic Income
  3. Is Unconditional Basic Income a Trap Being Laid by Global Elites to Control and Enslave Us All?
  4. Incoming! How UBI could change work (and the world)
  5. The Toothpaste Argument for Universal Basic Income
  6. Today’s Child Tax Credit Versus the Family Security Act 2.0
  7. How the Baby Formula Crisis Helps Show the Difference Between Cash and Benefits-in-Kind
  8. How to Calculate the Cost of Universal Basic Income (Hint: It's Not As Easy As You Might Think)
  9. How the Monthly Child Tax Credit Reduced the Level of Desperation in America
  10. The BIG Picture of Money, Economics, and Humanity
  11. The Monthly Child Tax Credit Gave Birth to New Entrepreneurs
  12. An Introduction to Unconditional Basic Income For All
  13. Podcast Episode: Vision and Foundations for a Better Society

2021 21

  1. No, Ukraine did not just introduce Universal Basic Income. Here is what it did do.
  2. My New (And First) Book: Let There Be Money
  3. Understanding Pandemic Inflation: How to Best Reduce and Alleviate It
  4. How Work Requirements are Actually Anti-Work and Why the Fully-Refundable Child Tax Credit is Pro-Work
  5. The Rise of Omicron is Grounds for Extending the Monthly Child Tax Credit
  6. The Forward Book and the Forward Party
  7. The Republican History of the Child Tax Credit and Why the GOP Should Proudly Embrace It
  8. New on Vocal: Why We Need Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and Why It Needs Universal Basic Income (UBI)
  9. Escaping Together
  10. Letter to the Editor from a New Orleans evacuee
  11. This Idea Can Literally Change the World: Universal Basic Income Through Carbon Pricing
  12. The Eviction Moratorium was Never the Answer. Cash Is.
  13. My wife is immunocompromised. That's why I feel so strongly about people getting vaccinated.
  14. How Republican President Richard Nixon Laid the Foundation for Monthly Cash for Kids
  15. Monthly Child Tax Credit Payment Will Likely Grow the Economy
  16. Is $300 a week in UI making people lazy and does it prove UBI doesn’t work?
  17. Proof of Humanity and the Universal Basic Income Coin
  18. What about combining a higher federal minimum wage with monthly recurring direct payments?
  19. A Pandemic is a Great Time to Stop Ignoring Unpaid Care Work
  20. 2020 Revealed That Unconditional Basic Income Cannot Wait Any Longer
  21. Escaping the Cult Commander in Chief

2020 22

  1. An Engineering Argument for Basic Income
  2. Should we support the many basic income experiments that aren't actually testing UBI?
  3. With UBI, won't people just watch TV and play video games?
  4. Why I'm voting for Biden/Harris 2020
  5. We need UBI because we all need money, power, and trust
  6. Basic Income as Liquid Infrastructure: The Bruce Lee Argument for UBI
  7. My Speech at the People's Convention
  8. My Response to Steve Forbes' Opposition to Universal Basic Income
  9. My Proposal for an Emergency UBI That Transitions Into a Permanent UBI
  10. Dennis Explains 'The Implication' of Saying No
  11. A Day in My Life in 2040
  12. Why universal basic income instead of just lower taxes?
  13. Universal basic income is the recognition that racial justice and economic justice are inextricably intertwined
  14. My #TestifyForUBI Testimony for Congress
  15. My Raconteur Interview About UBI
  16. May the Force Be With UBI
  17. The Future of the United States Depends on the Immediate Adoption of UBI
  18. You Have Been Drafted Into the Great Coronavirus War
  19. Unconditional Pandemic Security
  20. Should We Provide Emergency Universal Basic Income to Everyone or Just Those Who Need It?
  21. A Visual History of the #YangMediaBlackout
  22. The Top Ten Andrew Yang Videos of 2019

2019 18

  1. 11 Nobel Prize Winners Who Have Endorsed Universal Basic Income (UBI)
  2. Introducing Andrew Yang
  3. New bill introduced in New York State Senate to fund a 2-year conditional cash transfer pilot labeled as a UBI pilot
  4. Multimedia Appearances
  5. Goodbye, Medium
  6. The Story of George McGovern's Failure to Guarantee Every American $1,000
  7. Deradicalizing the Radicalized: How Andrew Yang's Campaign for Humanity First is Revealing How to Heal the Nation
  8. There is No Policy Proposal by Any 2020 Presidential Candidate More Progressive than Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend
  9. Andrew Yang makes U.S. history by introducing the idea of universal basic income onto the national debate stage
  10. I am the Editor-in-Chief of a newly launched UBI news site - Basic Income Today
  11. ‘Universal Basic Income Doesn’t Work’ Says New Prime Example of Fake News
  12. My time at UBI Nordic 2019 in Oslo, Norway
  13. Think Like a Martian About Money and Universal Basic Income (UBI)
  14. My Unconditional Basic Income Testimony for Maryland's House Ways and Means Committee
  15. One Observed Effect of Unconditional Basic Income: Better More Reliable Transportation
  16. What is There to Learn From Finland’s Basic Income Experiment? Did It Succeed or Fail?
  17. What is Unconditional Basic Income in One Word?
  18. Basic Income is now a dominant discussion in India's 2019 general election

2018 18

  1. Top 10 Basic Income Articles of 2018
  2. "The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct, and immediate abolition of poverty." — Martin Luther King Jr.
  3. What People Get Most Wrong About Unconditional Basic Income
  4. Standing on Shoulders
  5. The Zombification of Intellectual Property and the Tool That Could Finally Reform It
  6. Doug Ford Cancelled Ontario’s Basic Income Pilot Experiment Because It Was Working
  7. What We Need to Truly Thrive: Democracy and Unconditional Basic Income (UBI)
  8. Basic Income Guarantee Would Provide Economic Security
  9. One Thing to Build a More Open World: Unconditional Basic Income (UBI)
  10. Unconditional Basic Income Would Fix a Major Flaw in Markets
  11. It's Time for Technology to Serve All Humankind with Universal Basic Income (UBI)
  12. Don't Make People in Need Jump Through Hoops for Food
  13. Here's what I said about automated vehicles and basic income at the House of Commons of Canada
  14. Universal Basic Income Cryptocurrencies Like Manna are Pioneering the Way Towards Decentralized Targeting
  15. The Future of the Labor Movement Rests on the Achievement of Universal Basic Income
  16. Will the Cost of Basic Income be Borne on the Shoulders of the American Middle Class?
  17. The Monsters, Inc. Argument for Unconditional Basic Income
  18. Whitepaper and wallet now available for Universal Basic Income cryptocurrency "Manna", formerly known as Grantcoin

2017 21

  1. Top 10 Basic Income Videos of 2017
  2. Top 10 Basic Income Articles of 2017
  3. Someday we will look back and interpret the Constitution as having called for unconditional basic income all along
  4. What would I do if everyone had a basic income?
  5. The Real Story of Automation Beginning with One Simple Chart
  6. Unconditional Basic Income is a Pigovian Subsidy for Unpaid Work
  7. Stop Teaching Students WHAT to Think. Teach Them HOW to Think.
  8. The Expanse's Basic Support vs. Basic Income
  9. If you think basic income is "free money" or socialism, think again
  10. For Want of a Dollar
  11. It’s Time to Shift the Economy into Fourth Gear Capitalism with Univeral Basic Income
  12. The Cost of Universal Basic Income is the Net Transfer Amount, Not the Gross Price Tag
  13. Eating food will fail to reduce malnutrition, new report warns
  14. How to Reform Welfare and Taxes to Provide Every American Citizen with a Basic Income
  15. Cutting the Gordian Knot of Technological Unemployment with Unconditional Basic Income
  16. Is the solution to extreme wealth inequality really – Alaska?
  17. Basic Income is JUST Compensation
  18. What if you got $1,000 a month, just for being alive? I decided to find out.
  19. Basic Income and Soylent
  20. Love, Loss, and a Greater Society
  21. Why We Should All Have a Basic Income

2016 28

  1. Top 10 Basic Income Articles of 2016
  2. In the 21st century, all roads appear to lead to universal basic income
  3. A Basic Income Sermon for Christians
  4. Universal Basic Income Will Accelerate Innovation by Reducing Our Fear of Failure
  5. True Freedom Comes With Universal Basic Income
  6. How to Make Our Votes for President of the United States Actually Count
  7. From Rats in Cages to Primates in Paradise — The Scientific Story of Stress in Society
  8. My Forbes Interview About Universal Basic Income
  9. The Progressive Case for Replacing the Welfare State with Universal Basic Income
  10. Olympians and the Great Myth of Meritocracy
  11. Forget the future of work. What about the future of consumption?
  12. Giving Goods vs. Giving Money
  13. Why Switzerland’s basic income idea is not crazy
  14. The Results of the Basic Income Referendum in Switzerland
  15. Last Month in Basic Income... A Summary of April 2016
  16. UBI FAQ
  17. A Guide to Basic Income: Frequently Asked Questions about UBI
  18. Last Month in Basic Income... A Summary of March 2016
  19. Humanity Needs Universal Basic Income in Order to Stop Impeding Progress
  20. Deep Learning Is Going to Teach Us All the Lesson of Our Lives: Jobs Are for Machines
  21. The Social Network and Basic Income
  22. YouTube as an Intrinsic Motivation Window
  23. Robots Will Take Your Jobs
  24. The Disproportionate Effects of a Universal Basic Income
  25. On the Record: Bernie Sanders on Basic Income
  26. Basic Income Observations Log: Entry One
  27. Robin Hoodwinked: How Billion Dollar Powerballs Reflect 21st Century Inequality
  28. Who Wants a Free Sample of Basic Income?

2015 50

  1. Press Release: American Achieves First Crowdfunded Monthly Basic Income
  2. Inequality and the Basic Income Guarantee
  3. Something Is Happening: Basic Income Create-A-Thons Are Here
  4. What YouTube and Star Wars Fans Are Showing Us About the Future of Work
  5. Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion
  6. Jobs, Work, and Universal Basic Income
  7. The U.S. Could Adopt Universal Basic Income in Less Than 20 Years
  8. One Happy Story - The Citizens Basic Income
  9. Everything You Think You Know About The History and Future of Jobs Is Likely Wrong
  10. Should the Amount of Basic Income Vary With Cost of Living Differences?
  11. Minimum Wages vs. Universal Basic Income
  12. Trickle-Down Economics Must Die, Long Live Grown-Up Economics
  13. You can register to watch my panel live at the Brookings Institute
  14. Our Paradoxical Economy Courtesy of Technology and the Lack of Basic Income
  15. If You Want to Pass Stuff Like TPP... We're Going to Need Basic Income
  16. A Game of Musical Chairs Over Hot Coals
  17. Do We Have Enough Space Bucks?
  18. The Basic Affordability of Basic Income
  19. Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck
  20. Basic Income as Paid Parental Leave
  21. Basic Income Day is a Great Idea, and Especially on May Day!
  22. A Basic Income Day Toolkit
  23. Motherboard interview about Basic Income Day
  24. "Won't basic income give too much power to whomever distributes it?"
  25. "Yeah, but who's going to pay for it?"
  26. John Oliver, Edward Snowden, and Unconditional Basic Income
  27. Reddit, Robots, and Resources
  28. TANF is TERRIBLE
  29. Dear Patreon:
  30. "What do we do about drug users with basic incomes?"
  31. My Guest Appearance on the P2P Connects Us Podcast
  32. What America Spends Per Citizen Per Year
  33. New Medium Article: Notes of Discussions in the North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress of 2015
  34. The Water Room Analogy
  35. Robot Overlordz Podcast Appearance
  36. What I've observed since 2013 in the discussion about a basic income guarantee
  37. Guess What Happened When Liberia Tested a Pilot Program of Cash Transfers to the Extreme Poor in Bomi
  38. “If we no longer force people to work to meet their basic needs, won’t they stop working?”
  39. Is It Actually Possible to Live on a Basic Income of $12,000 Per Year?
  40. Debunking the Debunking of "Humans Need Not Apply" and More
  41. Universal Basic Income as the Social Vaccine of the 21st Century
  42. Why should adults with kids get more basic income?
  43. The Potential Effects of a Universal Basic Income Guarantee on Student Loans
  44. What We Can Learn About Systems from W. Edwards Deming
  45. For Those Who Believe a Basic Income is Morally Wrong
  46. How We Can Transform America’s Broken Economic System to Work for EVERYONE
  47. Wouldn't a basic income just be stealing from those who earned their money?
  48. Yes, It Really is Different This Time
  49. Basic Income is Impossible
  50. What Can We Do to Grow the Basic Income Movement in 2015?

2014 30

  1. Artist Brian Eno just learned about basic income and loves the idea
  2. The Science Behind A Christmas Carol
  3. Will Replacing Current Benefits With Cash Tomorrow Leave Today's Recipients Better or Worse Off?
  4. Negative Income Tax (NIT) and Unconditional Basic Income (UBI)
  5. My Responses to the Responses to the Basic Income Article in Newsweek
  6. Women Have Lower Incomes Than Men
  7. 5 Steps to Becoming a BIG Contributor
  8. Does Guaranteeing a Basic Income Reduce Income Inequality?
  9. The Big Easy was noted for its low quality of life... Stop right there.
  10. Google Hangout with Me and Marlen Vargas Del Razo of Living Income Guaranteed
  11. Unearned Income and the Velocity of Money
  12. Wouldn’t Unconditional Basic Income Just Cause Massive Inflation?
  13. "What do we do about bad examples like this one?"
  14. Google Homes and WikiHouses
  15. Supply and Demand Variables
  16. Evidence and More Evidence of the Effect on Inflation of Free Money
  17. The Federal Reserve Just Published a Paper Comparing UBI and UI
  18. "Fit for Work and Fit to Die": A Memorial for the Means-Tested
  19. We Know How to Abolish Poverty. Why Don't We?
  20. Basic Income and the Problem of Freeloading Freeriders
  21. Shouldn't All This Talk About Basic Income Actually Be Talk About Basic Resources?
  22. I Voted for Nader. Twice.
  23. A Comment on the Massive Inequality in New Orleans
  24. My Interview with Green Party Candidate for Congress Ian Schlakman of Maryland
  25. Alaska vs. the U.S. Before and After Existence of the Yearly Alaskan Dividend
  26. It’s Time We Take a Closer Look at America’s Three Favorite Words: Freedom, Liberty, and Democracy
  27. Breaking Down Without a Spare
  28. Machine Labor Day
  29. Payday Loan Lenders Are Unstoppable… Or Are They?
  30. Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income?