Everywhere the results have been broadly similar. Basic income results in improvements in health, particularly mental health. In low-income communities in particular, it results in better nutrition, most notably for young children. It results in improved attendance in school and fewer drop-outs from school. It has an emancipatory effect for women. And, contrary to critics, it results in an increase in work, not less, and in increased productivity in work. And it results in a reduction in income inequality, not just because the amount is proportionately more for low-income people but because it enables the lower-income people to increase their economic activity. Perhaps most encouragingly of all, if all members of a community are provided with basic incomes, that induces a strengthening of social solidarity.
Basic income is not a panacea. But it an imperative if society is to experience a reduction in all the ills of chronic economic and social uncertainty. In his speeches, President Xi has said dozens of times that income inequality must be reduced in China. In other parts of the world similar sentiments are expressed. Providing a basic income would be a powerful way of reducing the inequalities that could otherwise become explosive over the next decade. Let us promote it.
