Imagine never having to work for your paycheck. I’ve got your attention, haven’t I? Well, that’s precisely what ‘basic income’ is all about.
Tech Mic tells us that ‘basic income’ is a simple idea that professes that giving every individual a salary regardless of whether they have a job would lead to people doing more meaningful work and eventually abolish poverty.
And, guess what? A select few residents of California, USA will get to experience exactly what it’s like.
Y Combinator, a tech hub for new companies is test driving the concept of ‘basic income’ with 100 Oakland residents for a period ranging from 6 to 12 months.
The participants will be awarded amounts between $1,000 to $2,000 every month with the goal of observing how this change affects their happiness, motivation and financial stability.
‘Basic income’ is a concept rooted deeply in a utopian ideology, and researchers are keen on finding out how this plays out.
“In our pilot, the income will be unconditional; we’re going to give it to participants for the duration of the study, no matter what. People will be able to volunteer, work, not work, move to another country – anything. We hope basic income promotes freedom, and we want to see how people experience that freedom.”
Techies in the modern context are especially interested in the concept of basic income because it is due to the growing robot automation of the world’s workforce that we may see massive unemployment in the foreseeable future.
“Although basic income seems fiscally challenging today, in a world where technology replaces existing jobs and basic income becomes necessary, technological improvements should generate an abundance of resources and the cost of living should fall dramatically”
This small experimental program with 100 participants is only a step towards a larger goal that is being pursued by organizations and institutions in Africa, Finland and Germany as well.
The flipside to the idea of basic income too, however, has been discussed worldwide. Some argue that welfare simply takes away man’s motivations and makes people lazy.
It is for this very reason that solid research in the matter is so important. And thanks to organisations like YC, everyday we get that much closer to the truth about basic income.
Feature source: Hubspot, Masthead source: Mind Your Body