What is the appropriate amount of basic income for a society?  How do we figure it out?  Under what conditions would it make sense to set the amount of the payout at a level that's high enough to cover people's basic needs?  When is it appropriate for the amount to be lower than this subsistence level?  What about higher?  To what extent is it useful to try to determine a subsistence level in the first place?



This week, we have two featured guests are joining us from the UK, hence the earlier 1pm EST (6pm GMT) timeslot.



Barb Jacobson is a long-time welfare rights advisor and basic income advocate who is the coordinator of Basic Income UK and the former chair of Unconditional Basic Income Europe.



Geoff Crocker is a researcher who studies the economics of basic income.  His book "Basic Income and Sovereign Money" argues for basic income's increasing necessity in our changing economy.



Here are Geoff's slides from the discussion.



For optional reading this week, we have a 2018 New Yorker article by Nathan Heller entitled "Who Really Stands to Win from Universal Basic Income?"



Previous related Boston Basic Income topics have included:

BBI #61 — Mainstream Discourse

BBI #80 — A Capitalist Road to Communism

BBI #117 — Sovereign Money



Original YouTube recording



Image by Becris on flaticon