Universal Basic Income (UBI) Quotes
This page contains quotes about universal basic income from various notable figures. Some of the key points made in the quotes include: that a basic income could help address job losses from automation, provide economic security for all, reduce poverty and income inequality, and give people more freedom and ability to be creative.
Proponents argue it could help capitalism continue and address health and societal problems caused by financial insecurity. Skeptics note political challenges to implementing such a policy.
“A certain small income, sufficient for necessities, should be secured for all, whether they work or not” — Bertrand Russell
“Poverty is not having nothing. Poverty is being legally excluded from having sufficient access to resources to exist. Life on Earth used to lack a price tag. We changed that by locking up access to natural resources & letting the owner class hold all the keys. UBI IS YOUR KEY.” — Scott Santens
“In order to mitigate the job losses through automation, we will have to talk about forms of unconditional basic income” — Johann Rupert
“Basic Income is not a utopia, it’s a practical business plan for the next step of the human journey” — Jeremy Rifkin
I’m a capitalist, and I believe that universal basic income is necessary for capitalism to continue — Andrew Yang
“Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution” — Stephen Hawking
“Basic income would give people the most important freedom: the freedom of deciding for themselves what they want to do with their lives” — Rutger Bregman
“69 years ago today [December 10, 1948], the world came together to declare human beings had a human right to ‘an adequate standard of living,’ and to this day, no nation has yet recognized that right with both universal health care & basic income” — Scott Santens
“What a change of temper a fixed income will bring about. No force in the world can take from me my five hundred pounds. Food, house, and clothing are mine forever. Therefore not merely do effort and labour cease, but also hatred and bitterness. I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me” — Virginia Woolf
“Cash is a better way to cure some forms of depression and anxiety than Prozac. So many of the illnesses we see in our community are a result of toxic stress and elevated cortisol levels and anxiety, directly attributed to income volatility and not having enough to cover your basic necessities. That’s true in the public-health crisis we’re in now” — Michael Tubbs
So long as you have Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, and so long as you have a Congress dominated by big money, I can guarantee you that the discussion about universal basic income is going to go nowhere in a hurry
— Bernie Sanders
“Essentially, in the future, physical work will be a choice. This is why I think long term there will need to be a universal basic income” — Elon Musk
“There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation” — Elon Musk
“We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure that everyone has a cushion to try new ideas” — Mark Zuckerberg
Adopting a universal basic income for all people can help society think creatively with new ideas, develop new industries — and free-up people to work on important future projects
— Ray Kurzweil
“I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A fraction of all wealth should be justly shared with everyone, because that fraction is created by everyone — Scott Santens
“If you want to end survival sex work, demand universal basic income. If you want to kneecap international traffickers, demand open borders” — Molly Crabapple
The number one thing that would let more independent artists exist in America is a universal basic income — Molly Crabapple
“1 in 10 dollars of income produced in this country is paid out to the richest 1% without them having to work for it” — Matt Bruenig
“The Biden administration’s new child allowance is wealth redistribution and the first step toward a universal basic income, because it includes no work requirement” — Marco Rubio
Basic income works just have to give up belief the rich should tell the poor what to do — Karl Widerquist
“The cure for materialism is to have enough for everybody and to share” — Henry Ford
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