Home Mashable Universal Basic Income is older than you think. Here's why its time has come at last.

Universal Basic Income is older than you think. Here's why its time has come at last.

mimisabreena Sunday, April 26, 2020 Mashable

Give a Buck is Mashable's deep dive into Universal Basic Income — an idea gaining currency in a time of pandemic and mass unemployment. Now more than ever, the future depends on whether we can pay the bills.

In the darkest hour of the coronavirus pandemic, in the face of an expected 30 percent unemployment rate and a likely new Great Recession, income-supplementing programs are springing up everywhere. And not just in those slow-to-arrive federal stimulus checks.

Here's Project 100, a nonprofit, giving $1,000 to 100,000 U.S. families starting this week. There's Spain's government planning a basic income that will last beyond the crisis, Europe's first. Brazil, having kicked around the idea of basic income for decades, just implemented it for 59 million people and their dependents, thanks to a 500,000-person strong grassroots campaign. "This may be time for a universal basic wage," Pope Francis told the world in his 2020 Easter message. The world was, amazingly, way ahead of him. Read more...