The home of author and long-time advocate of unconditional universal basic income (UBI) - Scott Santens
Why taxing the value of land is potentially the best tax for universal basic income by making housing cheaper, taxing AI indirectly, and pushing rents down instead of up Imagine two plots of land in the heart of a big city, side by side, the exact same size. On one
Pairing a 10% value-added tax or a tiny 0.1% automated transaction tax with UBI transforms a regressive tax into a progressive dividend for every American A 10% value-added tax (VAT) in the United States could raise about $1.76 trillion a year — enough to fund a
A 1.5% annual stock dilution tax on corporations with revenue over $100M would raise over $1.4 trillion a year — enough to send every American about $365 a month, automatically. Corporations issue new stock all the time — to raise cash, to pay executives, to swallow up other
What David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years reveals about gratitude, interdependence, and why UBI is the smallest acknowledgment civilization can make to the unpayable debt of being alive Every time I drop a bag of garbage down the chute in my building, I think about debt.
Why including everyone — yes, even billionaires like Elon Musk — works better than means-testing ever possibly can Imagine a room with a thousand people. You know that 999 of them need something to survive, and one of them doesn’t. You have two options. Option one: give
AI leaders keep saying UBI is necessary. This pledge asks them to prove it. I’ve been working on universal basic income full-time since 2013. Thirteen years. In that time, I’ve watched the conversation shift from “that’s a crazy idea” to “
Why Angine de Poitrine's viral microtonal math rock KEXP session, Ireland's permanent basic income for artists, and Albert Einstein are three sides of the same human triangle Two guys in papier-mâché masks from Saguenay, Quebec, have been playing music together for 20
My proposal for a fully refundable $4,500 tax credit that reaches everyone—and leaves the bottom 90% better off There is a new trend in Democratic politics, and it is one of the most frustrating things I’ve watched in years. Senator Cory Booker wants to more
What Artemis II and the Return to the Moon Should Remind Us About Ending Poverty As I write this, four astronauts are hurtling toward the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity by its crew. On April 1, 2026, NASA’s Artemis II launched from Kennedy Space Center —
Why Universal Basic Income (UBI) Is the Only Way to Share AI and Productivity Gains With Everyone There was a time in America when productivity growth and wage growth moved together. From the end of World War II until the mid-1970s, as productivity rose, pay rose with it. Workers
The evidence from Vancouver to Denver is undeniable: When people in crisis receive money, substance use goes down, employment goes up, and homelessness ends. On any given night in the United States, over half a million people have no place to call home. They sleep in shelters, in cars, under
As host of The Basic Income Show and moderator for the Basic Income subreddit , I read hundreds of article every year about UBI. Below, I’ve compiled a list of the top ten articles I consider my favorites out of everything published in 2025. A big thanks to my
From $500 to $15,000 a Month: How Decades of Data Prove That an Unconditional Basic Income Guarantee Fuels Ambition Instead of Laziness What if I told you that the Portuguese Empire accidentally ran one of the most comprehensive basic income experiments in human history? Not a one-year or
Billionaires are lining up to seed investment accounts for kids, but we already know how to end child poverty — and waiting until age 18 isn’t it In December 2025, something ostensibly remarkable happened. Michael and Susan Dell pledged $6.25 billion to fund new “ Trump Accounts
New research from Finland's basic income experiment proves that simply trusting people with money—not just the money itself—significantly improves mental health There’s a revolution happening in mental health treatment, and it’s not coming from pharmaceutical companies or therapy offices. It&