【Zoe Voss Archives】

It’s not a new concept. In the late 1790s,Zoe Voss Archives American statesman Thomas Paine called for a universal payment of £15 per year to all his countrymen in exchange for the right to hold private property.

First suggested over 200 years ago, the idea of universal basic income never quite went away, and in many circles, it’s actually picking up steam.

Progressive Finland is officially the first sovereign nation to put it to the test. Two-thousand Finnish citizens, who were selected randomly from those currently receiving unemployment benefits or an income subsidy, will now receive €560 ($587) a month. Everyone gets the same amount of money whether they work or not. The pilot will run for the next two years, and may eventually expand to include all Finns.

Why the renewed interest in universal basic income now? Stagnant wages since the early aughts is one major reason, as is the declining share of total income earned by workers compared with companies.

In the private sector, though, the attraction is based on the fear that in the near future, many human jobs will be automated or otherwise taken over by machine intelligence. This notion has been gaining traction since 2013, when a paper by Oxford economists Frey and Osborne predicted that nearly 50 percent of modern jobs were at risk of computerization.

To many, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Albert Wenger, a partner at the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures, shared insights from his book World After Capitalwith the website fivethirtyeight.com.

“We should spend less time on tasks that could be automated and more time on issues that are insufficiently addressed: fighting climate change, exploring space, preventing the next global pandemic,” he said. “With a basic income, you’ll have 100 percent of your time available to you and innovation will flourish.”

In a speech about basic income covered by Fivethirtyeight, Werner posed a pair of simple questions to his audience: What do you really want to do with your life? Are you doing what you really want to do? Whatever the answers, Werner said, basic income is the means to achieve those goals. If people no longer had to worry about making ends meet, they could pursue the lives they want to live.

It sounds noble, but is there any evidence that universal basic income actually works? Surprisingly, there is. According to The Economist, the best research we have comes from a small town in Canada. From 1974 to 1979, the Canadian government partnered with the province of Manitoba to run an experiment. The result was MINCOME, a guaranteed annual income offered to every eligible family in Dauphin and a few other rural communities.

The program brought most recipients above Canada’s poverty line. A majority of primary earners with full-time jobs did not quit those jobs. Rather, diminished economic anxiety allowed participants to live healthier lives and sensibly plan for their futures.

In the same article exploring MINCOME, The Economistreported the results of four negative income tax experiments conducted in the U.S. between 1968 and 1980. Families from Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Washington State were assigned into treatment and control groups, given cash and tracked over several years.

Called the NIT experiments, these pilots did show a small decline in work effort (five to seven percent for primary earners and slightly more for secondary earners). But as in MINCOME, no one quit outright, and if participants did cut back their work hours, they used them productively – usually in the service of education and professional development.

Although the universal basic income movement was temporarily stalled when Switzerland voted down its proposed implementation this summer, it shows no signs of going away. More countries, including Canada, France, and the Netherlands are planning limited implementations, and U.S.-based startup investor Y Combinator will shortly launch a study of basic income’s effectiveness."

So, if you are relatively young, there’s a decent chance that some form of basic income will become a reality in your lifetime. And as to the question of whether you will quit your job, I think it depends on two factors: How much you enjoy it, and how much it contributes to society in a world where most simple tasks will be automated.

If your job does both, you’ll probably keep it — with some added benefits. Basic income will provide a leg up in your negotiations with employers, freedom to innovate without fear of negative employment consequences, and a cushion that allows you to adjust your circumstances if necessary.

I realize that to some, basic income sounds like a Black Mirrorepisode with millions of people sitting on their couches all day, bored, listless, and up to no good. But based on what I’ve read so far, I believe that if it’s handled correctly, it could be a positive step forward in the age-old journey to realize our true human potential.

Alexandra Levit is a partner at PeopleResults, where she studies the future of work and helps build relationships between organizations and top talent.  A former nationally syndicated columnist for the Wall Street Journal and a current writer for the New York Times, Alexandra has authored several books, including the bestselling They Don't Teach Corporate in College, How'd You Score That Gig?, Success for Hire, MillennialTweet, New Job, New You, and Blind Spots.