Financing Basic Income: Addressing the Cost Objection (Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee)

This Palgrave Pivot argues that basic income at a decent level is, in fact, affordable. The contributors approach the topic from the perspectives of three different countries―Canada, Switzerland, and Australia―to overcome objections that a universal program to keep all citizens above the poverty line would be too expensive to implement. They assess the complex array of revenue sources that can make universal basic income feasible, from the underestimated value of public program redundancies to new and so far unaccounted publicly owned assets.

Richard Pereira is Doctoral Researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK, and was formerly an economist with the House of Commons in Canada.