As Ireland’s $1,500-a-month basic income pilot program for creatives nears its end in February, officials have to answer a simple question: Is it worth it?
With four months to go, they say the answer is yes.
Earlier this month, Ireland’s government announced its 2026 budget, which includes “a successor to the pilot Basic Income Scheme for the Arts to begin next year” among its expenditures.
Ireland is just one of many places experimenting with guaranteed basic income programs, which provide recurring, unrestricted payments to people in a certain demographic. These programs differ from a universal basic income, which would provide payments for an entire population.
In Switzerland, 77% of the population voted against. Granted, the 1% may have influenced the voters by spending money on campaigns, or even by creating a narrative over decades. And maybe that proposal was too ambitious. But in the end, it was not just the 1% who voted against but 77%. There is still a lot of skepticism against UBI, despite all the positive evidence.
There is no evidence. What we know is that generally, throwing money at poor people will have positive effects, thats it.
We have no idea how prices will react, we have no idea how culture around work might change when people grow up with such a system, we have no idea how employment will change and we have no idea what people will actually use their freedom for.
I am personally in favor of some kind of UBI but not because i believe without a doubt in its positive effects but i believe that the world belongs to all of us and simply being born entitles you to parts of the “fruits of the land” and if UBI really doesn’t work out i guess we might just deserve our fate.
I agree we don’t know what exactly would happen if UBI was implemented globally, and what the large-scale effects would be. But saying “there is no evidence” goes too far. There have been UBI experiments, both intentional and by accident.
We generally know how people react in different contexts to different variants of a low to moderate UBI, what the health and work outcomes are, etc. Sure, a “full” UBI would be different. But it would be silly to expect people to react in a completely different way from what we have already seen, at least for a low UBI.
If you need a reminder about past experiments, listen to Scott Santens (youtube, 10min, from 2020). He is obviously very biased (UBI advocate) but he knows all the nuances about past UBI experiments.