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EUBI is a socioeconomic program designed to help individuals live and thrive in an era dominated by AI and robotics

Universalizing Work and Income: A Proposal for Education-Conditioned Income Programs Concatenated with Unconditional Basic Income 🎓💰

Abstract

The most fundamental socioeconomic problem facing humanity is the lack of guaranteed work and income for every person at any point in their life. The comprehensive solution proposed herein is a socioeconomic program that ensures permanent availability of exchange between "learning work" and "conventional labor." Under this model, an adult participant lacking conventional employment and market income can elect to enroll in structured educational activities—through self-education, distance learning, or face-to-face instruction—and receive an income for this demanding work of self-transformation. This approach universally guarantees access to work and income by leveraging the perpetually available task of knowledge construction, thereby increasing overall human capital and progress. Crucially, the system requires quick and efficient transit between the educational income program and the conventional labor market.

I. Program Architecture: Concatenating UBI and EUBI

Educational Universal Basic Income (EUBI) programs and classic Unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI) programs should function in an integrated manner. This integration addresses the primary socioeconomic challenge, particularly in a future where Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation are projected to cause widespread labor market displacement. A guaranteed income for all is often discussed as a necessary response to the age of automation [1].

A UBI, such as those advocated by organizations like the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) [2] and Basic Income Guarantee for the United States (USBIG) [3], is an income floor provided without any work conditions. Conversely, an EUBI conditions income upon the work of an apprentice or student engaged in self-education, distance learning, or face-to-face instruction. This design mitigates the criticism of income without work and assigns special meaning to participants by positioning them as producers of human capital, where personal growth, cultural expansion, and intellectual development concurrently result in professional qualification.

Given the accelerating capabilities of AI, robotics, and service optimization software, admitting a mostly idle humanity, without seeking broader horizons in the expansion of knowledge, arts, and culture, seems undesirable. EUBI programs offer a path forward by stimulating the continuous construction of talent through study and research.

Our proposed program structure is defined as follows:

Unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI): Provided from birth for all.
Educational Universal Basic Income (EUBI): Mandated for those over 21 years of age, requiring them to perform "learning work" or insert themselves into the "conventional labor" market (as an employee or entrepreneur) to earn an income above the basic income.

II. Crucial Programmatic and Operational Points

1. Payment Structure

Payments must be individualized, beginning at birth for minors, ensuring lifelong economic citizenship for all. Payments should occur at least monthly. Resources for children will, of course, be administered by parents or legal guardians.

2. Educational Scope

Admitted courses and disciplines must range from elementary to advanced levels, encompassing general, technical, and practical studies. Literacy in letters, numbers, and informatics is crucial. This breadth ensures that individuals with diverse cultural and intellectual backgrounds—from the illiterate to the postgraduate—may participate.

3. Performance Verification and Technology

Verification of adequate minimum performance in the "learning work" is imperative, at least under normal circumstances. The verification process must leverage existing educational institutions (schools, colleges, universities). In a world with projected job scarcity, an expansion of employment opportunities centered around educational activities is appropriate and desirable, and in the not-too-far future, a huge and complex educational system involving a major fraction of the population will be a reality.

The potential scale of millions of participants may necessitate machine-assisted verification. Technological tools for learning performance verification, such as fraud-proof testing cabins, appear technically feasible and offer continuity, potentially removing the burden of exam application stress from human educators. Such resources are also valuable for quality control in distance learning, which is critical given the socioeconomic cost of diplomas without substance [4, 5].

The level of demand for these assessments should generally be light, maintaining an unwavering minimum standard, though circumstances may require temporary adjustments or dismissal of assessments. The rising era of individualized learning, highly efficient due to technological and AI support, is beginning to spread globally [6]. A high efficiency in personalized learning significantly mitigates the assessment problem, contributing greatly to EUBI program implementation.

4. Differentiated Compensation

Differentiated pay for higher degrees of difficulty within the program serves as a stimulus for the continuous cultural and intellectual progress of the participants. However, levels of gain, though differentiated, must be suitably modest to ensure economic feasibility, political defensibility, and to avoid discouraging continuous exchange with the conventional labor market.

5. Seamless Transition

Mechanisms that permanently, continually, and adequately facilitate the transit between the Education Conditioned Income Program (EUBI) and the conventional labor market are crucial. Participants may elect non-educational work for various reasons, including the high stress and resilience required for continuous self-restructuring involved in study, or the aim for higher income, or both. If the situation of lack of work and income recurs, rapid reinsertion into the EUBI program must remain continuously available.

III. Social Segments and Crucial Problems Benefited

Social Harmony: All members of society benefit, as the permanent guarantee of work and income addresses a great challenge to social harmony, reducing fear, anxiety, and interpersonal violence, which are often generated by survival stress.
Migrants and Refugees: Programs unconditioned or conditioned on educational participation can be important tools to avoid migratory fluxes if applied in the origin countries, and also to integrate and support people in host countries.
Criminality and Recidivism: The rising criminality rate and high criminal recidivism would benefit from the universalization of income and work by reducing interpersonal violence. EUBI programs are feasible for the inmate population, as the associated costs and complexities are lower than those involving conventional work.
Economic Stabilization: Universal Income programs, as perennial transfers, are more efficient for economic stimulus than episodic transfers, especially during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. A permanent, even modest, income encourages circulation of resources within the economic system, whereas temporary transfers are often hoarded.
Inequality Attenuation: The concatenation of EUBI and UBI will produce a socioeconomic structure where the pathological extremes of poverty and extremely low income versus extremely high wealth concentration will attenuate. While such a society will still exhibit economic heterogeneity, the extremes of misery and poverty linked to scarcity of work, income, and devaluation of labor will significantly decrease.
Meaning and Purpose: Universalization of work and income, coupled with a strong stimulus for the continuous increase of the overall educational level, is fundamental to enhancing the meaning and purpose of human civilization.

Referências

LSE Business Review. Universal basic income as a new social contract for the age of AI. LSE Business Review, April 2025. [Online] Available: https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/128239/1/businessreview_2025_4_29_universal-basic-income-as-a-new-social-contract-for-the-age-of-ai-1.pdf
Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). Basic Income Earth Network. [Online] Available: https://basicincome.org/
Basic Income Guarantee for the United States (USBIG). US Basic Income Guarantee Network. [Online] Available: https://usbig.net/
J. A. P. L. T. et al. Online cheating prevention, detection, and deterrence technologies and practices: A systematic review. ERIC, 2023. [Online] Available: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1338047.pdf
K. B. et al. Smart Online Examination Anti-Cheat System. ResearchGate, 2022. [Online] Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358265319_Smart_Online_Exam_Proctoring_Assist_for_Cheating_Detection
C. F. Mahmoud & J. T. Sørensen. Crafting personalized learning paths with AI for lifelong learning: a systematic literature review. Frontiers in Education, 9:1424386, 2024. [Online] Available: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2024.1424386/full