An Opinion Study on Universal Basic Income: Differences and Similarities with Unemployment Benefits

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An Opinion Study on Universal Basic Income: Differences and Similarities with Unemployment Benefits

In recent years many European and extra-European countries have been considering the introduction of an innovative and ambitious kind of social policy: The Universal Basic Income (UBI). This concept is not completely revolutionary; already in the 90s several economists and politicians proposed the idea of guaranteeing fair standard of life to the whole society (Rhys-Williams, 1943; Friedman, 1962; Tobin, 1966). The matter has been further discussed for the following decades and has recently gained more importance due to the rapid technological development causing increasing job losses, especially for low profile workers (Pwc, 2017). In recent years, some countries, such as Finland, Kenya or The Netherlands, have concretely experimented the sustainability and the efficacy of UBI and analysed its effects on society and the economy (Haushofer and Shapiro, 2013; Kangas et al, 2019).

Universal Basic Income is a system according to which each citizen periodically receives a set amount of money from the state on top of whatever income a person might have, without any requirement to be fulfilled. UBI is an unconditional benefit that could replace any other targeted and conditional program, including unemployment benefits. However, policymakers do not agree whether UBI should substitute any existing policy or be an addition to some of them, or even whether UBI should guarantee a minimum subsistence level (minimum Universal Basic Income) or should consist in a higher sum of money. The existing literature has largely discussed the economic and political consequences of the introduction of the UBI in order to assess its feasibility and the different attitudes towards other kinds of targeted social policies, like unemployment benefits or single-parent benefits (Busemeyer and Neimans, 2017; Groskind, 1994; Hasenfeld and Rafferty, 1989; Cook and Barrent, 1992; Fraile and Ferrer, 2005). Yet, there are no deep and complete studies analyzing the determinants of public opinion on UBI.

Nowadays, investigating the drivers of public support for Universal Basic Income is of paramount importance, since highlighting differences in opinions would provide a framework for policymakers for the practical implementation of this innovative social policy. Moreover, history has shown how public opinion can have implications in policy changes.

Therefore, the report aims at understanding the drivers for the level of support for UBI and the magnitude of their impact on it, while applying the same methodology used to study the public opinion on other social benefits. Moreover, and most importantly, the research assesses possible similarities and differences between the determinants of the support for UBI and for unemployment benefits. The comparative study will mainly be conducted between UBI and unemployment benefits, given that the latter could (at least in principle) be perfectly substituted by UBI (Fraile and Ferrer, 2005) and since the literature and the in-depth studies about them constitute a solid basis for the analysis.

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