The Basic Income Lab convenes stakeholders around the politics, philosophy, economics and implementation of basic income and related cash policies.

Our Story

The Stanford Basic Income Lab (BIL) was founded by Philosophy Professor Juliana Bidadanure in 2017 and housed at the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society to study the politics, philosophy, economics and implementation of universal basic income (UBI) and related policies. At the time, interest was picking up in UBI as a tool to address technological unemployment. Bidadanure saw an opportunity to promote an informed public conversation on unconditional cash’s potential to foster a more equitable society by addressing persistent poverty, growing inequalities, and racial and gender injustices. BIL grew as a research initiative of the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society to become an academic hub for basic income studies.

September 2023, BIL joined the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality (CPI) led by Professor David Grusky. Bidadanure moved to New York University and Sean Kline, who has co-directed the Lab since 2021, assumed leadership of BIL. BIL continues to equip the field with insights and benefits from CPI’s broad mission to monitor trends, support scientific analysis, develop evidence-based policy, and disseminate research on poverty and inequality.

The Basic Income Lab (BIL):

Convenes stakeholders around the politics, philosophy, economics and implementation of basic income and related cash policies.

Harvests learning from policymakers and practitioners implementing basic income pilots.

Equips the field with insights on the growth and evolution of basic income experiments, pilots and demonstrations.

Why Basic Income?

As automation, growing inequality, persistent poverty, and structural unemployment threaten economic security in the United States and around the world, many have begun to consider the role universal basic income (UBI) could play in addressing these challenges. Within this context, there is a growing need to understand UBI’s potential impacts and how it might be economically and politically feasible.

Why Here?

The last decade has seen growing interest in and calls for UBI. In 2016, Robert B. Reich, Andrew Stern and Martin Ford all wrote books proposing UBI as a necessary tool in an increasingly unequal and automated society. The last decade has seen increasing calls for UBI and other bold ideas. Stanford University brings path-breaking, cross-disciplinary research to the question of UBI.

The time is ripe for an independent initiative that serves to:

Convene scholars, policy makers, business leaders, think tanks, nonprofits, and foundations around the politics and economics of UBI
Inform those developing UBI policies and carrying out experiments
Aggregate and disseminate research findings
Stimulate research on UBI

Sponsors

The Basic Income Lab has received support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Jain Family Institute, the Economic Security Project, the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, Koret Foundation.

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