Hopes and Realities of Adopting Unconditional Basic Income Guarantee Schemes

Proposals for basic income schemes, whether in the form of a single lump sum or a regular lifelong income stream, have been around for several centuries, finding little political traction until the latter part of the twentieth century when national- and municipal-level legislative bodies considered them (Caputo 2006; Cunliffe and Erreygers 2004). In the 1970s, for example, national-level legislative bodies in Canada and the United States deliberated specific basic income proposals, and social experiments or demonstration projects were conducted that aimed to test the effects of guaranteeing a cash income stream with little or no strings attached on primarily among low-income individuals and families. Neither country adopted a guaranteed annual income plan at the time; for all practical purposes, it seemed that unconditional basic income guarantees would disappear from the political radar screen. The 1980s, however, nurtured a revival, of sorts.