Here you will find articles expressing opinions about current issues in the Basic Income debate. Opinions expressed are not necessarily the opinions of BIEN.
- How basic income became impossible to ignore
BIEN’s fourth decade: from institutional repair and the 2016 Seoul definition to cash experiments, pandemic systems, and the Marshall Islands’ ENRA program. - What happens when a loan app funds cash that never becomes debt?
A small unconditional cash-transfer pilot funded by JUJI and UBI Taiwan will provide three people in Taiwan with NT$10,000 a month for one year. The feature examines what the project can reveal about financial insecurity, autonomy, corporate funding, and the limits of a three-person design. - What happened when basic income was finally tested
From Cape Town to Seoul, basic income’s third decade became a story about people trying to make an old idea survive contact with real lives. Cash entered villages, researchers debated what it showed, and BIEN became a genuinely global movement. - Taiwan’s proposed sovereign wealth fund should give every citizen a share
Taiwan’s proposed sovereign wealth fund should give every eligible citizen locked public wealth shares, pairing long-term public ownership with an annual distribution that people can take in cash or reinvest. - How a ‘terrible’ website helped basic income go global
Between 1996 and 2006, BIEN used a rudimentary website and international congresses to expand beyond Europe and become the Basic Income Earth Network. - Taiwan’s basic income debate is being fueled by the AI revolution
Taiwan’s basic income debate is increasingly connected to who gains and loses from technology. - How ‘lonely fighters’ built basic income’s first home
BIEN’s first decade gave a scattered idea a name, a mailing list, a newsletter, a rhythm of congresses, and eventually a public address. - Taiwan is considering more universal cash. It should be permanent.
Taiwan’s repeated universal cash handouts show that cash transfers have become politically normal, but the country still needs a permanent, periodic floor rather than one-off payments tied to surpluses and elections. - Taiwan is moving toward a child basic income. It should not stop half way.
President Lai’s NT$5,000 monthly child allowance proposal is not a full UBI. But it may be the clearest basic-income stepping stone Taiwan has yet put into mainstream politics. - AI is speeding up the deadline for basic income
UBI was already justified. AI is now creating its own independent reason to act faster. Basic income was always justified… Read more: AI is speeding up the deadline for basic income
