Basic Income: World’s Simplest Plan To End Poverty, Explained
By Dylan Matthews in Vox - "Basic income" is shorthand for a range of proposals that share the idea of giving everyone in a given polity a certain amount of money on a regular basis. A basic income comes with no categorical eligibility requirements; you don't have to be blind or disabled or unemployed to get it. Everyone gets the same amount by virtue of being a human with material needs that money can help address.
There are a number of different names this idea has gone by over the years. "Universal basic income" and "basic income guarantee" are used frequently. "Guaranteed minimum income" and "negative income tax" are generally used to refer to versions of the plan that also impose a tax that gradually eats up the cash transfer, as a means of reducing the cost of the policy.