Scott Santens on What Happens When We Give People a Basic Income

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Podcast 1

Podcast via https://www.podofgold.world/ubi-a-star-trek-future-scott-santens/

Unconditional Basic Income. People around the world are in desperate need of economic relief in a pandemic that has exposed and exacerbated extreme levels of disparity and poverty. A basic income could be the solution. In this episode, we speak with Scott Santens, a writer and advocate for UBI who is also the first person to crowdfund his own poverty-level basic income. We ask about his argument for UBI, the barriers to achieving it, and the future he sees possible for humanity. (42m 19s)"


Podcast 2

Podcast via http://futurethinkers.org/basic-income-scott-santens/


"Since the 1960s, several experiments have been carried out to test whether universal basic income is a viable idea and to find out what the real-world effects might be. Several negative income tax pilot programs were conducted in Canada and United States in the 1960s and 1970s. The Alaska fund dividend is one of the longest running basic-income-like experiments and has been in place since 1982. More recent experiments with unconditional cash transfers have been carried out in India, Namibia, and Brazil since 2008.

Some of the recorded effects of giving people free money regularly have been very favourable. There was less crime, people’s health improved, people actually worked more and there was a significant rise of entrepreneurship (a staggering 300% increase in one experiment), there was less alcoholism, high school students stayed in school longer and were less likely to get pregnant. It’s difficult to know what the long term effects of giving people a basic income would be, and if the positive effects would persist. One charity called GiveDirectly is trying to get long-term data by giving people unconditional cash transfers for periods of 15 years or more.

In this podcast, writer and activist Scott Santens answers our questions about how universal basic income would work, what its benefits and downsides are, and how societies can implement it."