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Ever since debates on poverty and basic income began, some have argued that income support should be conditional on 'making a contribution to society'. The late Tony Atkinson was a longstanding proponent of a 'participation income', while something similar was proposed earlier by Andre Gorz. In his…

A basic income paid to everybody would enable caregivers, mostly women, to replace their own work with paid labour if they wished, and would enable 'care-recipients' relying on the gift work of relatives to purchase care labour services. [...]

At best, they showed small cuts in paid labour for some groups, notably mothers with young children and teenagers still at school. In the Canadian Mincome experiment, 'mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because …

Meanwhile, the amount of other, very real but unpaid work is extensive and rising. In the UK--and it is similar in other countries--the unrenumerated economy (caring for the children and the elderly, housework, voluntary work in the community and so on) is estimated to be worth well over half the s…

Wealth taxes, inheritance taxes, a tax on financial transactions and a tax on robots have all been mentioned as possible sources of finance for a basic income. Another suggestion is for Google, Facebook and other corporations to pay for the data users now provide for free, from which they make the …