Universal Basic Income: What Everyone Needs to Know?

Universal Basic Income is one of the most talked-about ideas of the 21st century. The motivating idea is simple: give people cash and let them do whatever they want with it. But below the surface of this simplicity lurk a number of challenging questions. How much would a UBI cost? Who would be eligible to receive it? Would it discourage work? Would it contribute to inflation? This book provides an objective, expert guide to these and many other questions about the UBI.

Matt Zwolinski is Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego and director of USD's Center for Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy. His research focuses on the intersection of philosophy, law, and economics, with a special interest in issues of exploitation, basic income, and libertarian political theory. He is the editor of Arguing About Political Philosophy, and with Benjamin Ferguson, editor of the Routledge Companion to Libertarianism and the forthcoming Exploitation: Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. With John Tomasi, he the author of The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism.

Miranda Perry Fleischer is Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law who was named a 2020-2021 University Professor. Her research focuses on the interaction of distributive justice and tax policy relating to wealth taxation, charitable giving, and redistribution to the poor. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on those subjects, most notably including The Architecture of a Basic Income, 87 U. Chi. L. Rev. 625 and Atlas Nods: The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income, 2017 Wisconsin Law Review 1189.