In June 2016, Switzerland voted in a referendum on the topic of introducing a basic income. If it had passed, all Swiss citizens, working or unemployed, would have received about $2,500 Swiss francs for adults and 625 francs for children per month as a guaranteed stipend from the government.

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Switzerland would have become the first country in the world to implement such an idea.

Although the Swiss Federal Council rejected the initiative in August 2014, the rejection was more of a symbolic suggestion to vote against the basic income than a consequential political action: the Swiss people had already asserted their constitutional right to the referendum. credit

So, should governments pay their citizens a basic income? Well, there are a large number of variations on the idea of a basic income. Some forms already exist as Social Security for the elderly or impoverished. Others see this in the form of government benefits and assistance, also called “welfare”.

But “basic income” is an unconditional amount of money guaranteed by the government, to every individual whether rich or poor.

Proponents of basic income, like the GrantCoin, say that such security would give peoplethe freedom to pursue higher interests, without having to worry as much about pure survival.

This is tied to a concept proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs”. That’s where a person will value their physical needs over their safety needs, safety over relationships, relationships over self-esteem, and so on. Eliminating the barrier of working for strictly physical and safety reasons is believed to lead to a more utopian society.

Basic income advocates utilized headline-grabbing tactics to gain publicity for the referendum. Upon submitting the initiative in 2013, basic income supporters dumped 8 million five-rappen coins (one for each Swiss citizen) outside the Federal Palace in Bern. Then, in the final weeks before the vote, members of the Swiss Initiative for an Unconditional Basic Income unveiled a poster that broke the poster size world record. credit

This also addresses the idea of “wage slavery”, where a person only works for their most basic and immediate survival, making it impossible to stop working or escape a bad job.

However, those who oppose basic income say that such a plan would encourage people not to work, similar to many other arguments against government assistance.

An experimental form of basic income was introduced in one Canadian city in 1974, and ran for five years. An analysis revealed that only two groups of laborers saw significant drop offs: teenagers and new mothers. And since teenagers were no longer pressured to work, a larger number graduated.

The basic income also led to fewer hospital visits, due to a lack of work-related injuries, and fewer mental health, domestic abuse, and car accident victims. However, some economists argue that it would lead to a loss of low-paid workers.

If everyone was able to survive, undesirable jobs like in manufacturing and service would go away. This could lead to a rise in the cost of most goods without a source of cheap labor to produce them.

Perhaps ironically, this would prevent those only receiving a basic income from affording those same goods. Moreover, one economic journalist estimated that basic income in the UK could cost as much as $450 billion dollars a year, compared to the $250 billion dollars which their welfare system currently costs.

However, advocates say that if implemented correctly, basic income could be a cheaper solution than allocating welfare according to how poor or able a citizen is.

But Switzerland is not like other countries. It is one of the richest in the world, with an extremely low tax rate. Even a slight increase in taxes could be tolerable to many citizens, and provide for a much less “immediate needs” focused society.

While this referendum may have been voted down, the Swiss basic income movement helped spark an international dialogue on how a basic income can help fix issues related to poverty, social policy, and technology, among other topics. This conversation has caught the imaginations of citizens all over the world and has led to commitments from governments or non-profit organizations to establish basic income pilot projects in Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, Uganda, Kenya, India, and in Silicon Valley, as well as public considerations for basic income research in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France, and Namibia. This dialogue is truly global, and media outlets all over the world have begun writing articles and making videos debating the merits and principles for a basic income. credit

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In the US Presidential election, candidate Bernie Sanders has been asked about implementing basic income. But instead, Senator Sanders has advocated for raising the minimum wage.

Should we raise the minimum wage or would providing a universal basic income be a better option?

Another factor that is putting pressure on the availability of jobs in the U.S is the rise of automation.

It was not evil foreigners who “stole” most of those seven million American jobs, and will probably eliminate up to 50 million more in the next 20 years. It’s the “intelligent machines” that did most of the damage, starting with simple assembly-line robots and ATMs.

But the automation keeps moving up the skill sets. The first self-driving cars are now on the road in the United States. That’s another four million jobs down the drain, starting with taxi drivers and long-distance truckers. In recent years eight American manufacturing jobs have been lost to automation for every one lost to globalization, and it will only get worse.

A 2013 study concluded that 47 percent of existing jobs in the United States are vulnerable to automation in the next 20 years, and the numbers are as bad or worse for the other developed countries credit

Increasingly, jobs have been shipped outside the country with the largest growth domestically being in the service sector. Are Americans doomed to be replaced by automation as well as foreign manufacturers?

It is not a disaster for a rich society to reach a point where the same goods are being produced and the same services are being provided, but most people no longer have to work 40 or 50 hours a week (in jobs that most of them hate). Or rather, it’s not a disaster unless having no work means no money or self-respect.

The UBI {Universal Basic Income) would provide everybody with enough to live on. Since everybody got it, there would be no stigma involved in living on it. And 53 percent of today’s jobs will still be there in 2033, so those who really wanted to work could top up their UBI with earned income. There would still be millionaires. credit

When we think about how much money the US spends on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, housing subsidies, welfare for single women and every other kind of welfare and social-services program, as well as agricultural subsidies and corporate welfare. As of 2014, the annual cost of a UBI would have been about $200 billion cheaper than the current system. By 2020, it would be nearly a trillion dollars cheaper. ref

Although the initiative didn't pass in Switzerland, the idea of a UBI is not going away any time soon and there will come a day when the US or even the world will adopt some form of a Universal Basic Income for it's citizens.

GrantCoin is the first currency to be primarily distributed as a Universal Basic Income. The Grantcoin Foundation believes that access to the money supply whenever money is created should be a universal human right, not a privilege.

Each year, they plan to add 3.5% to the GrantCoin already in circulation. This will be given as Basic Income grants to everyone in the world who chooses to participate, growing the money supply in a way that provides equal access to all.

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