I’m pleased to slip in an update to the worldwide Basic Income dashboard just before the ball drops (Australian eastern time) for 2021!
The 2020 – early 2022 period features an exciting groundswell of guaranteed income initiatives with 25 new projects launched, up 127% compared to the previous five year period (11 initiatives). That is an astounding appetite for basic income experimentation and research driven largely out of the US’ Mayors for a Guaranteed Income movement, with many more pilots to come.
Huge acknowledgement must be given to Michael Tubbs, former Mayor of Stockton, California USA, who pioneered the first mayor-led guaranteed income project called the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) and sparked the movement we witness in the US today.
There are two other key callouts from this round of updates.
1) Four US cities: Gary – Indiana, Paterson – New Jersey, Seattle/Tacoma – Washington & Denver – Colorado carry on their bold legacy on basic income experimentation. These four cities conducted negative income tax experiments in the notable 1970s experimentation period and are stepping forward again in the 2020s as part of the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income movement.
2) A novel initiative arises from an Israeli cryptocurrency firm called Good Dollar in 2020. “The GoodDollar protocol is a community-driven, distributed framework designed to generate, fund, and distribute global basic income via the GoodDollar token (hereafter “G$”).” This is a fascinating basic income initiative to follow due to its (mostly) global and decentralised nature. Presently, any living person in Good Dollar’s included countries can sign up and claim a small amount of daily income in G$ coins.
Personally I view Good Dollar’s UBI initiative as a signal of basic income’s relevancy to the future of society and economies, much in the same way blockchain technologies are fast becoming mainstream in modern life.
Click here to view the updated basic income tracker.
2021 follows 2020 in being a difficult year. However, a glimmer of hope arises out of the COVID-19 crisis in the form of renewed hunger, advocacy and action in pursuit of basic income for a more just and secure world.
Happy new years and warm wishes for 2022!
Re-envisioning the Economic Status Quo 