Opinion: Why Coinbase’s $12K giveaway isn’t really Universal Basic Income
In a widely reported development, Coinbase is working with charity Give Directly to provide 160 New Yorkers with $12,000 worth of the stablecoin USDC over six months. The first payment is worth $8,000 with recipients set to receive $800 each month after that. Coinbase and GiveDirectly are calling this a pilot program for what’s known as Universal Basic Income (UBI) — or a sum of money that will be provided to everyone so they can afford shelter, food, and other necessities as jobs begin to dwindle with the advancement of artificial intelligence and robotics. But is this actually a UBI pilot program? The short answer is no. UBI has been examined and experimented with numerous times before. Indeed, negative income taxation was tested in the US and Canada in the ’60s and ’70s with mixed results. Later, pilot programs were initiated in numerous countries. Iran even adopted the concept entirely in 2010, though it’s seen mixed results (the subsidized inc...