A Different Take on a Universal Basic Income

I've seen or heard lots of stories about a Universal Basic Income (UBI), most in favor of it, based on ideas of fairness, or the belief that all people should be guaranteed a basic standard of living. These are important arguments, and I agree with many of them. I think of these as "values-based" arguments--the UBI should exist because it is the right thing to do.

They are important arguments, but there is another perspective that I haven't heard much about. How would a UBI system work that would ensure equality, and not create greater wealth disparity?

In an article posted on NewCo Shift, The real reason this elephant chart is terrifying, Kaila Colbin discusses how incomes have been growing among different populations as global productivity has grown. She uses the graph below.

Source: Lakner and Milanovic, 2015

These populations roughly fit into three groups:

1. Everyone to the left of the 70th percentile. These are the world's lowest income earners, and they have seen their incomes grow (by large percentages compared to what they were making), but not enough for most to climb out of poverty.
2. The one percent, the dot on the far right. These are the world's richest people; they have gotten much richer.
3. Everyone in between the two, the big dip. That represents mostly the middle classes of industrialized nations. They haven't made much progress.

So consider this: would a Universal Basic Income change this, or would it only guarantee a low threshold of income to everyone? Would it be like a very low minimum wage--it guarantees something, but does not really combat growing wealth disparity?

The debate about a UBI, it seems to me, has focused on this idea: as global productivity grows (largely due to automation, i.e. robots and code) people should be guaranteed a minimum standard of living.

But it hasn't asked this question: can a UBI help ensure a more equitable distribution of the wealth gained by increasing automation (and increasing efficiency and productivity in general)?

That does raise other very charged issues and big questions, about how economic systems work--how income is paid and to whom and for what--and the philosophies behind them, and how well they can or should continue to work in a rapidly changing global economy.

And I think that's the conversation we need to be having.