Finland: Basic Income experiment authorized by Parliament starting Jan 9th

[Luminous_Animal]

3. Oddly enough, Nixon came close to offering U.S. citizens a guaranteed income.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-richard-nixon-almost-gave-america-basic-income-and-why-we-should-do-it-now

In his book Utopia for Realists: The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-Hour Workweek [3], Dutch author and Tedx Talk speaker [4] Rutger Bregman makes a strong and comprehensive case that basic income is the path to utopia.

Bregman describes countries that have tried free money, including England [5], Canada [6], Kenya [7] and, believe it or not, the United States. The results of these experiments were all positive—and in the early 1970s, we came quite close to universal basic income.

Nixon and the White House supported it. The Senate and House supported it. But after it went through the Senate Finance Committee, it underwent the scrutiny of bureaucracy and was killed.

A predominant issue for implementing universal basic income is, as Canadian Professor Eveyln Forget [8] (of the University of Manitoba, Canada) says in the following adapted excerpt, that “The political right is afraid people will stop working and the left doesn't trust them to make their own choices.” (emphasis mine... this is so true)

Another reason America didn't move forward with basic income is because Seattle's experiment resulted in a higher divorce rate. Out of fear of the independence women were perceived to have gained from basic income, it was taken off the table. But 10 years later, this was found to be a statistical inaccuracy—the divorce rate had not been affected by the experiment at all.