A basic income is different from minimum income guarantees or tax credits
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
A stable and predictable basic income, paid come rain come shine, is thus different from a minimum income guarantee, which tops up low incomes to a given level, usually requiring complex means tests. And it is different from a negative income tax or tax credits, which are withdrawn as income rises.
Nevertheless, these variants are often referred to in the same breath as basic income, and they do have in common the idea that everyone should have some sort of basic income security. While this book reserves the term ‘basic income’ for schemes that conform to the definition given at the start of the chapter, readers should be aware (and beware) that commentators often confound these diverse approaches under the ‘basic income’ label. Sometimes this may be done mischievously; more usually, it is a sign that they do not know what they are talking about.