With AI threatening jobs, is it time for a universal basic income? | The Business | ABC NEWS

Australia essentially did it during COVID. The world's richest man, Elon Musk, thinks it's inevitable. And a growing body of research suggests it could be the answer to AI shattering long-held high rates of employment. A Universal Basic Income, or UBI, is a regular, obligation-free payment to everyone. There are different models, but those key elements endure in research studies and pilot projects around the world. Associate professor of economy and society at Macquarie University, Ben Spies-Butcher, says the JobKeeper and 'Coronavirus Supplement' received by millions during the pandemic shows we can create a payment that everyone is entitled to, which would let them live at least a "decent, basic" life. "COVID showed us how precarious the idea of employment is … how shaky those foundations are," UBI proponent Elise Klein says. The associate professor of public policy at the Crawford School at the Australian National University says COVID provided a "natural experiment" of the impact of a basic income.

The Stanford University Basic Income Lab has tallied about 160 global UBI experiments in the last four decades. They range in the objective they are focused on, the number of people in the study, and the value of the money they receive. While support is growing for a universal basic income, skeptics say it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and change human behaviours. Simon Cowan, research director at think tank the Centre for Independent Studies, points to studies that show people who were allowed to withdraw super under emergency provisions in COVID spent it on gambling, alcohol and takeaway food.
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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-24/asx-markets-business-live-news/105809708

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