The question has been sometimes asked about the link between a minimum wage and a basic income. There is even a confusion between the two. Gabriel Barta brings in this article a few elements that raise the thinking on the topic.
Editor
The base between the two concepts, from the practical aspects to the theory are radically different: [+]
What if your lunch break of Thursday noon took place in India?
We have the pleasure to welcome Guy Standing in Geneva. He will present us the pilot experiments of basic income led in India between 2010 and 2013.
Pilot experiments of unconditional income: does India go to a change of paradigm?
If you want to know more about the Swiss activists movement and how thrilling its story is, just read this article's blog by Anne-Béatrice Duparc : We the Swiss, calling on the world! Definitely, "this is not the story of Switzerland anymore. This is the story of YOU and ME, us ALL, humanity."
Excerpt of the blog's article:
« In the United States, we are generally told that poverty is a deeply complicated problem whose solution requires dozens of reforms on issues as diverse as public schooling, job training, and marriage.
But it’s not true. High rates of poverty can, as a policy matter, be solved with trivial ease. How? By simply giving the poor money. »
Shoppers at a food pantry (Reuters)
« The idea also attracts an interesting assortment of political support. Those backing the concept of a basic income have spanned the entire spectrum from left-wing redistributionists like Martin Luther King, Jr. to conservative icons like F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Charles Murray. »
« That security might not just keep people out of poverty. It might let workers demand better wages and working conditions, because they know they always have something to fall back on. In other words, it could level the playing field for the bottom 99 percent. »
This story published in The Atlantic magazine (millions of monthly visitors) the 29th of October shows that the introduction of an universal basic income in the united States is possible.
Original page: « How to Cut the Poverty Rate in Half (It's Easy) » [+]