Claims that a UBI can act as a reparation for settler colonialism ignore Australian examples, where it silenced criticism of violence from the denial of sovereignty

To what extent could UBI redistribute wealth and challenge structural inequalities? In the context of the United States, UBI has been proposed by some as one element of addressing racial and gender-based injustices stemming from settler-colonialism, slavery and contemporary drivers of wealth extraction from communities of colour, including through mass incarceration.31 UBI has a history of support by Black women’s grassroots movements: In the 1960s-1970s, they viewed it as providing a way out of low-status, poor-paying jobs and allowing more time to care for their children, a privilege that white middle-class women had long enjoyed.32 More recently, Black scholars have advocated for a “robust basic income that advances racial and gender justice”, in the face of pervasive structural discrimination in employment.33 In 2018, Black women employed full-time in the United States earned just 65 per cent of the income of their white male equivalents. White women earned 82 percent as much as white men, and Black men earned 73 per cent as much.34 If financed through taxation on high-income earners, UBI could potentially reach all individuals equally, but with disproportionate benefit and a redistributive effect for already-disadvantaged groups.35 However, in the context of UBI for Indigenous Australians, critics have emphasized that it “does not account for the violence, displacement of nationhood and denial of sovereignty” of Indigenous people, and there is a risk that recognition of the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous communities’ land and resources and resistance to it may be silenced or elided if UBI is seen as adequate ‘justice’ for this suffering, or if UBI governance structures reinforce the power of the state over Indigenous autonomy.36 UBI should therefore not be seen as a “technical fix” to devastating social and economic inequalities and intergenerational trauma.37 Furthermore, more research is needed to compare the redistributive potential of UBI to that of other forms of social protection, and better understand how UBI could be situated within much broader efforts to address systemic racism, challenge the root causes of income inequality, and bring about social justice.