Why “Almost”?

First, there’s a sweet spot. Too much, and it’s possible that we’ll give up on progress. (But we do like to solve problems, and we do like to compete. So, this might not really be an issue, but to be safe, let’s say it is possible.) Too little, and we’ll engage with others in desperation and fail to bring our best to the game. It needs to almost cover the basics. So let’s go with that for now: Almost Basic Income.

Second: “Basic” keeps shifting. 20 years ago, you didn’t need a smart phone. Today, you’re not getting very far without one. As “needs” shift, we’ll always be short of basic anyway. It’ll be almost basic. And we think that’s fine. We’ll always need personal generosity on top of the generosity we bake into the system. We can handle that!

And finally, we think Universal Basic Income is the obvious solution to many, but not all, of the problems we face. We now think this is basic. But we acknowledge that when people first hear about Universal Basic Income, objections pop up reflecting notions of how society should work. But with an open mind, we think you’ll conclude it’s basic too.