An unconditional basic income is not a benefit. It is the infrastructure that lets a society cross a technological transition without breaking. Here are the arguments, the evidence and the objections.
Every resident
No means test, no obligation to seek work, no categories of eligible claimant.
Reference: 60% of national median income
Above the poverty line — otherwise it does not change the balance of power and achieves little.
A necessary clarification against a common confusion
Health, education and services remain. A basic income is a floor, not a trade.
The most important open question
Gross cost is not net cost. But an adequate income still requires serious fiscal choices.
They are treated as rival proposals, one from the left and one from the right. Designed properly, they produce the same economic result. The real differences lie elsewhere, in timing, visibility and politics.
European social protection systems were built between the late nineteenth century and the post-war decades, around a precise idea of how people work. That idea no longer describes reality, and the result is a structure protecting fewer and fewer people.
A minimum wage sets a floor by law. A basic income sets one through bargaining power: nobody is forced to accept, so whoever is offering has to persuade. They are different instruments, and the second reaches things the first cannot.
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