The idea of giving everybody an unconditional, regular income has become increasingly popular in the last few years, partly because employment has become less secure and people fear that increasing automation may cause job losses across many sectors.

There are many arguments for and against basic income. Some are concerned with fairness and justice, but many are based on competing ideas about the potential effects. Some argue people would stop working and become dependent on payments, while others believe it would free people to spend time on useful activities like volunteering or caring, and that many wouldn’t work less because they wished to earn more or simply enjoyed it.

The only way to find out is to run pilot studies and measure the effects. To be sure that the effects are accurate, any study would have to meet as many of the criteria for a full basic income as possible: payments must be unconditional, cover the basic cost of living, and not be affected by other income. It is likely that effects would be different […]