A basic income is different than minimum income or guaranteed annual income – basic income is not means-tested
Guy Standing 17, British labor economist, Professor of development studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Professorial Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and a co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network. “Basic Income – Its Meaning and Historical Origins.” Basic Income: A Guide for the Open-Minded, Yale University Press, 2017, pp. 1–22. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1bvnf53.4. AJ
Basic income. This has the virtue of simplicity and familiarity. It differs from ‘minimum income’, a term usually denoting means-tested schemes, where the state ostensibly guarantees the poor some income if they can prove they are poor and ‘deserving’ in some way. And it differs from ‘guaranteed annual income’, a term that has figured prominently in debates in Canada and the US, which seems to signify a means-tested income guarantee, a form of negative income tax. Basic income also differs from the ‘minimum wage’, a statutory amount usually expressed as an hourly rate, that employers are meant to pay to those in jobs.