Business Insider covers JFI’s research on one of the largest basic income policies in the world

JFI CEO Michael Stynes spoke with Aria Bendix of Business Insider about our ongoing research on the basic income policy being implemented in Maricá, Brazil, with the implications for the larger landscape of UBI research.

The policy, Renda Básica de Cidadania (Citizens’ Basic Income), will reach 52,000 residents of a 150,000-resident city in Brazil. Implementation began in November of 2019 with the disbursal of a monthly income equal to three quarters of the national poverty line for monthly income. Disbursed in local currency, Mumbuca, the program has the potential to test the macroeconomic impacts of such a policy in a way that has seldom been possible in UBI research thus far.

Stynes emphasized, “Maricá does not exist in a vacuum. This will give some of the best evidence that we have for how universal basic income behaves when it is wide policy.”

Thank you to Aria Bendix for featuring this work; to read the full article, click here, and for our press release click here.