The Basic Income Lab reviews the vast interdisciplinary research produced on UBI, identifies under-explored research questions, and helps shape future directions in basic income research.
Our Mission and Purpose
The Basic Income Lab (BIL):
Convenes scholars, policymakers, practitioners, members of the civil society, think tanks, nonprofits, and foundations around the philosophy, politics and economics of UBI
Provides an academic home for research on UBI: its history, the values that underpin it, its potential impact on social inequalities and poverty, and the economics around the proposal
Gathers information from experimenters on the challenges faced in establishing UBI pilots and develops recommendations and best practices in basic income experimentation
Why Basic Income?
As automation, growing inequalities, persistent poverty, social precariousness and structural unemployment threaten economic security both in the United States and around the world, many policymakers, practitioners, academics and policymakers have begun to consider Universal Basic Income (UBI) to address these issues.
Within this context, there is an increasing need for in-depth academic research on how to design, implement and evaluate UBI; on what UBI’s potential impacts could be; and, on how it could be turned into an economically and politically feasible program.
Why Here?
Increasingly in the United States, many express their support for Universal Basic Income. 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 economy.
Stanford University offers a unique set of interdisciplinary opportunities to further enhance the study of this proposal. Nestled in the heart of the bay area, the Lab benefits from access to experts across disciplines to develop and improve UBI research.
The time is ripe for an independent initiative that serves to:
Sponsors
The Basic Income Lab receives the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Jain Family Institute, the Economic Security Project, and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society.
