To make universal basic income the world’s most thoroughly researched economic policy.

Our values

UBI is worth serious research and public discourse

Philosophers and economists have explored universal basic income for centuries, and a new appetite for bold ideas opens an opportunity for UBI, if it can become associated with real policy. Policymakers, advocates, and the media need to know how we’d fund it and whom it would affect in what ways. The UBI Center analyzes specific UBI policies, produces UBI plans, builds tools to communicate results, and evaluates policies in the vein of UBI.

The future of policy analysis is open-source

Nearly all public policy analysis is performed by organizations that keep their code private, making it impossible to reproduce the analysis or adjust it with different parameters. Relying on organizations’ trustworthiness reinforces political divisions and slows progress toward consistent analysis from the policy research community. Open-source analysis enables analysts to build credibility from peer review and produces better models from which we can all benefit.

All UBI Center work is on GitHub (including this website!). We welcome researchers who want to check our work, extend it to other analyses, or just help out. There’s a lot to do, from building interactive graphics to analyzing more policies to incorporating labor responses and more. Together is how we form better public policy.