universal basic income

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a social policy proposal under which every adult citizen or resident receives a regular unconditional cash payment from the government sufficient to cover basic living costs, without means testing, work requirements, or conditionality of any kind, replacing or supplementing existing targeted welfare programmes; proponents argue that universal basic income would eliminate poverty traps created by benefit withdrawal rates, reduce bureaucratic administration costs, provide economic security for caregivers and creative workers whose contributions are uncompensated by markets, and serve as an insurance mechanism in economies disrupted by automation; critics contend that it is prohibitively expensive, inflationary, and would reduce labour supply