Basic Income in Canada: Principles and Design Features

Abstract

Basic income is not a single, uniform policy, but rather a range of policy proposals that share certain principles while also differing along key dimensions. Based on the extensive literature related to basic income, we conceptualize basic income as a class of policy proposals, all of which share common principles. In this paper, we look at the following questions: what are these generally shared principles and what are the differing dimensions? We highlight that designing any form of a basic income requires making well-thought-out choices with regard to how design elements will achieve specific objectives, and implementing a basic income requires working through a significant number of details.

Keywords: Basic income; design choices; implementation

JEL Classification: I38; I39