The Swiss Vote on Guaranteed Income Is About Rich People’s Problems

On Saturday, voters in Switzerland will go to the polls to vote on whether to give a government-guaranteed minimum income to every citizen. While organizers have tossed around a figure of twenty-five hundred Swiss francs (about the same in dollars) a month for every adult, the referendum is actually less precise. It promises only an unspecified minimum income sufficient to insure a “dignified existence.”

Hey Finland! Canada Tried Guaranteed Income Once, and It Worked

It's said nothing can stop an idea whose time has come, but politicians know you can sure slow it down. A Canadian social experiment in the 1970s might have prevented 40 years of a widening income gap and social misery. Instead, conservative politicians -- federal and provincial -- ended the experiment and suppressed most of its findings.

Now the idea is coming back, not in Canada but in countries like Finland and Germany: the idea of a guaranteed annual income for everyone, working or not. If those countries succeed in establishing guaranteed incomes, the pressure on Canada to do the same could be wonderfully irresistible.