Universal Basic Income is no longer a fringe idea. It’s a serious, necessary response to South Africa’s deep inequality, unemployment, and broken safety nets. It’s also a simple truth: everyone deserves the basics.
Universal basic income. No one left behind.
A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a regular cash transfer available to all working-age adults, with no conditions, no complex qualifications, and no one left behind.
It’s:
- Universal: It’s available to everyone, regardless of employment status or income.
- Basic: It’s enough to meet essential needs and support dignity.
- Income: It’s regular and reliable, not a once-off.
UBI recognises that poverty is not a personal failure, it’s a policy failure. This is a solution that centres people, not paperwork.
Learn the basics of UBI in Fact Sheet #1
UBI strengthens the economy and creates jobs.
A universal basic income is affordable in our country.
By spending money on UBI, the government is creating more money in the economy. That’s because the people who receive the UBI spend it on basic goods and services in their local areas. This helps to boost businesses and create jobs, and enables more people to look for work or enter paid work.
Right now, poverty is holding millions of people back from realising their potential to create, contribute, and serve their communities. Many people in poverty simply don’t have enough money to even search for a job or pay for transport to get to work. By giving every working-age adult a secure income floor, UBI helps people move from survival mode into productive employment and entrepreneurship.
The answer is really simple: Helping people escape poverty is good for the overall economy and for job creation.
The government would recoup up to 50% of what is spent on a UBI through tax on the increased economic activity, including VAT and income tax. The remainder of the cost of the UBI should be borne by the richest in our society, through a wealth tax or other taxes.
The idea is that if you happen to be doing well, you can still receive the UBI, but you contribute more in taxes than you get in UBI payments. If you happen to fall on hard times, the UBI is there to cushion the fall and make sure you can meet your basic needs, and the cost is covered by others who are doing well.
It’s a much fairer, more dignified way of providing support compared to the system we have now, where people in poverty have to jump through hoops to prove their struggle to the government based on arbitrary criteria in order to access assistance, and many are unable to and so slip through the cracks.
It is important to make sure a UBI is introduced in a way that is responsible and sustainable for the national budget. We can do that by phasing it in. If the payments are made available to the poorest communities first, and broadened over a few years to reach universality, the economic benefits of the UBI will have time to kick in, to offset the costs. Expanding social protection in this manner is possible even in the poorest countries.
See the affordability explained in Fact Sheet #7
UBI is not just affordable, it’s effective. Studies from Namibia, Kenya, Zambia, and Mexico and many other places show that basic income helps people invest in businesses, improve their income, and build long-term stability. Many recipients start small enterprises or enter into paid work.
Explore the evidence in Fact Sheet #6
This. Isn’t. Working.
It’s time to try UBI.
The current system leaves millions behind
South Africa’s social relief of distress (SRD) grant helped show the potential of income support, but also its limits. At R370/month, it falls far below the food poverty line(the minimum amount required for a person to get enough to eat if they spend everything they have on food). Worse still, only a fraction of eligible people receive it.
Research shows that the current system is riddled with exclusion, red tape, and arbitrary barriers. Nearly nine out of ten exclusions from the grant are wrongful exclusions..
Read Fact Sheet #12 to understand how targeting creates exclusion
The result is that around 10 million people living in food poverty are unable to access any assistance from the government. That has to change. Some economists and politicians like to say that once the economy grows, we can fix hunger. But that gets it backwards. We have to fix hunger first.
South Africa is a hungry child. We cannot learn or grow if we are hungry. It is only after we are nourished that we can realise our potential.
We need something better. We need a system that does not filter people out, but lifts everyone up. That’s what UBI does.
Universal Basic Income for all. Because no one should be left behind.
Too often, social grants are designed only for the “deserving poor”, those who can prove their struggle. But this model creates barriers, stigma, and constant uncertainty. Proving your struggle based on narrow criteria can be very difficult, and it is hardest for those who are struggling the most.
UBI removes those obstacles.
- It supports full-time moms.
- It supports entrepreneurs and informal traders.
- It helps students focus on their studies.
- It serves as a safety net for all of us, because anyone can fall on hard times.
This is not charity. It’s common sense…
Read about the power of universality in Fact Sheet #11
South Africa’s future is brighter with UBI
We’re often told to wait. To spend what little we have looking for a job that doesn’t exist. To survive on nothing.
But UBI flips the script. It says: We trust people. We believe in people. We invest in people.
South Africa is rich in potential, in talent, creativity, and resources, but we need to build a system that shares those resources more fairly. A system where every working-age adult has a foundation to build a life of dignity.
Universal Basic Income. No one left behind.
It’s time to build a system that lifts everyone up.
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